A Porsche set the standard
Story by John Machequeiro
Ziffer originally purchased this ’88 LX as a half-finished rolling chassis from his close friend Howard Pasternak. “It was completely disassembled down to the unibody shell, without any glass, wiring, interior, or suspension,” he recalls. “It was just a shell with a fresh coat of black paint and an unpainted cage.” At the time, Ziffer owned an ’83 convertible that had been heavily modified for drag racing. The ’83 ragtop was great in a straight line, but the owner was looking for a more well-rounded package. He wanted a user-friendly, purpose-built show, road and race car.
The ’88 Mustang was the perfect canvas for the plans he was cooking up because it came with that custom racing cage and extensive subframe modifications. The engine bay had also been smoothed out and painted. When Ziffer pulled the trigger on the purchase of the ’88 LX, the ’83 convertible was sold as a rolling chassis, minus its engine, computer, and fuel system. Those components would serve as the foundation for this new project. Ziffer started with some very clear plans. He spent a vast amount of time researching various options available to him and looking at other custom Mustang projects. “I had already built a turbo motor and preferred turbocharging over the supercharged motors I owned previously,” he explains. “The torque curve on a turbo car is intoxicating. Once you have experienced a turbo car, you have to have one.” He also adds that, “my 911 Turbo was an influence on the build of the Mustang, but it was not an objective to replicate it or surpass it.”

With that in mind, they added an Edelbrock Victor 8.2 lower manifold, along with a Wilson upper manifold. FAST 85 lbs/hr fuel injectors and a FAST EFI system with a 90mm throttle body dispense the fuel. An Alky Control methanol injection system handles the cooling of the pressurized air when the boost begins to build in lieu of a less efficient inner cooler. Everything is sparked to life with an MSD 6A1 box. Forcing all this hardware is a massive Turbonetics T76 turbo that is fed by custom stainless steel headers and pipes. The spent gases exit via a custom single four-inch exhaust system that is mated to a Borla race muffler.
Power distribution was also carefully planned and various options considered, however, in the end they chose a Lentech AODE four-speed automatic with a 3,600-rpm stall converter and transbrake. A custom-length aluminum driveshaft transmits the power to a rear end stuffed with 3.27:1 gears, 35-spline axles, and a Traction Lok differential. In terms of handling, the Mustang got beefed up at all four corners. Up front, a Maximum Motorsports coilover front kit, tubular A-arms, K-member, and Koni adjustable shocks were installed. Taming the nervousness of the rear axle is critical in raising a Mustang’s performance level, so Maximum Motorsports adjustable upper and lower control arms, with an adjustable sway bar, were dropped in to aid in planting the power to the ground.


The entire project took him three years to complete. Some of that time was spent chasing down all the missing parts needed to complete the car. As for future plans, an updated engine management system that includes traction control and a boost controller is on the list. Many ask him to compare the Mustang and Porsche. He points out that, “Both have that long, flat luxurious torque curve that seems to go on forever. The Mustang has manual steering and manual brakes, which work very well, but the precision of the steering, braking, and handling of the Porsche is unlike anything I have ever driven. I wish the Porsche sounded like the Mustang at full throttle.
“I really enjoy and appreciate my Mustang, but my 911 Turbo is superior in almost every way except two. The Mustang is quicker in the quarter mile, since it is lighter, and has over 200 more horses. The sound the Mustang makes is also far and away what the Porsche severely lacks. An American V-8 wailing at 7,000 plus rpm, combined with the hurricane hissing of the turbo, is a symphony of sounds that the German engineers just can’t match.”