Well, tell you what, you know the freefall ride when you first get dropped, about the same feeling when you slam it in second, gun it and hold on. Guess this being the first vehicle with 300 horses except before taking the engine from the mustang, is about the best way i can describe the look on my kids face at that moment, sheer terror. On the interstate is seems to cruise effortlessly in 5th gear, hills are no problem anymore. The 2.3 gave me alot of grief on the mountain passes just trying to keep up with the 18 wheelers and sucked down gas like it got done running a marathon. Any kind of load caused the mileage to hover around 16mpg as compared to the 16 to 18 with the 302.
The body and frame have probably lasted so long with all the washing, waxing and wiping down taking place since purchasing the truck in '90. Some minor rust has popped up and try to take care of it before it migrated to other parts. It was in a front end quarter panel crash in '93 while stationed in Hawaii, thought the duty van with the turn signal on was going to turn. It spent about 2 weeks in the body shop and wasn't about a year later that the clearcoat they applied started to peel off. Been constantly polishing and waxing since then.
About a month ago, i was taking the truck to one of my r/c airplane club events an as i accelerated into 2nd from the stoplight, it just gave out. 1st and 3rd through reverse weren't affected and was able to drive home. Wasn't doing anything outrageous, just means having to pull the engine to get the t-5 out and perform some surgery, keeping the fingers crossed that it wasn't caused by the increase in hp when the engine was modified. Might have to look at getting the Tremec TKO or getting an AOD from a friend that has it in his mustang currently.
.