Pony Abuse: It’s Fox Body Mayhem!
Foxes In Europe

I have to be honest… When our friends at Sweden’s Team Pony Drift asked if we wanted to fly down to their home city of Malmö from our headquarters in Stockholm to spend the day skidding some of their cars and improving our driving skills, I was hesitant. “What, driving those beat-up Fox Body Mustangs?” I had asked my colleague as I lifted my generously-proportioned nose high in the air.

A few weeks later, as I pinned the throttle and swung a big, wide arc to the soundtrack of a roaring V8 spitting out open headers, I realised I was a snob. A bonafide turbo-worshipping, JDM-obsessive and narrow-minded snob. But let’s rewind a little.

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Early that morning, we had landed at the local airport in Malmo, looked at our phones and realised we could walk to the race track, Sturup Raceway, in only a few minutes.

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The stroll through the countryside was made interesting by this E36 BMW Estate wearing a ‘Ricehunters’ banner parked up on the side of the road. It’s random moments like these that I appreciate how lucky we all are to be running something that’s big enough to be parodied and then subsequently spotted in the middle of the countryside in Southern Sweden.

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The Stockholm-based crew consisted of myself, community manager Taryn Croucher, designer Arslan Golić and our managing director Rob Bullough. We’d also be meeting Need for Speed‘s talented vehicle designer Bryn Alban at the track, who had driven down in his R34 Skyline from Sweden’s second biggest city and home base of Ghost Games, Gothenburg.

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We had been invited by Michel Rayes, the head of Pony Drift Academy and its competitive arm Team Pony Drift. Pony Drift Academy, as the name suggests, is a school of sorts that allows anyone to come to Sturup Raceway and learn the art of oversteer; not in Nissan Silvias or BMW 3 Series mind you, but in Fox Body Mustangs, hence the Pony Drift name. Both Michel and his Lithuanian counterpart Ervin Arnaszus, who moved to Sweden a few years back to join TPD on a permanent basis, have always competed in Fox Bodies, and in fact were the first people in Europe to try drifting the lazy, and dare I say it, low-tech Fords.

TPD

Images: Dagstorp Gillestuga and Bilsport

Michel is the first to admit that the Mustang is not a good drift car out of the box, and both he and Ervin made it very hard for themselves in the early days by choosing such a difficult platform to develop. “I started to drift on tracks in 2009 and had hell trying to get it right,” explains Michel. “Going from a street drifting to the track was a huge difference; so much more was required from me as a driver, my techniques were poor and so was my car. But after learning the hard way – countless hours behind the wheel drifting, and many hours behind the laptop searching for answers – it eventually made me a better driver and I finally got the setup right on the Mustang.”

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At that point, Michel started winning competitions and began getting a lot of questions about driving and set-up. One thing led to another and after buying fellow Fox Body drifter Dan Pina’s monster Formula D ‘Drift Patrol’ car out of the States, he decided to put his original Mustang to good use and use it to start teaching others how to drift, with help from Ervin and a team of local drift-mad guys and girls.

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The Drift Patrol car has since been developed far further and is now running a monster turbocharged BMW M60B40 V8 setup pushing 650hp through an M5 gearbox. The lightweight Mustang is extensively modified underneath to get it to handle – just check out the lock provided by the E-Lock V2 steering setup in the front!

A Simple Formula
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Drift Patrol is of course a full competition car. The Drift Academy cars were nowhere near as developed, and you wouldn’t want them to be. These battle-scarred machines are surprisingly simple, and certainly don’t run anything particularly fancy – perfect when you’re putting complete beginners behind the wheel, day in, day out over the summer period.

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All the cars run factory 5.0-litre Ford V8s with some minor modifications to produce 350hp and around 550Nm, so it’s all about low-down torque making for an easy learning curve and hopefully less binned clutches as a result.

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These cars also run an E-Lock kit, and although they provide less angle than the newer V2 kit in the pro car, there’s still a huge amount of steering to play with.

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Inside, the cars are simple – stripped interiors housing a couple of Sparco seats and Takata harnesses…

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And hydraulic handbrake levers sitting next to custom TPD Pro Drift steering wheels.

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As for the rest of the setup, as any Fox Body owner can tell you, the stock suspension requires a bit of work to get it to handle. Michel uses coilovers, an adjustable panhard rod, full-length subframe connectors, a bump-steer kit, torque arm, gearbox bushes and solid engine mounts from Maximum Motorsports in California.

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After a briefing and some coffee inside the office, we grabbed some race suits and helmets and headed out onto the school area, a pair of large concrete pans with courses set up and ready to go.

It’s Tyre Destroying Time
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I don’t think anyone, even Michel, can call these cars pretty. I’m sorry, but they’re just not. A few seasons worth of hard driving hasn’t helped what I personally consider to be a fairly ungainly-looking machine in the first place. But, regardless of my opinion, they’re not built to look good. They exist to provide a solid base for people to learn to drive in, and sometimes that means gaining a few dents and scratches along the way. For their intended purpose however, I was about to discover that these cars are perfect.

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Considering my recent driving experience behind the wheel of Project X in Japan, I was feeling pretty confident as I strapped myself into ‘Pony 1′ for my first drive. Michel was in the seat next to me and I was desperately trying to listen to his advice about piloting these Mustangs, but all I could hear was a voice in my head saying, “Dude, don’t even listen to him, you’re the man. You have a drift car in Japan, you’re the real deal. You don’t need any help.”

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Aaaand… then I spun. Then I spun again. Who knew skidding a lighter, shorter car with a completely different power delivery would be such a challenge?

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After spending some more time with Michel and the car, I slowly began to adapt to the instant power and quicker, snappier handling. Whereas in my own car – a big, long and very heavy Z30 Toyota Soarer running a stock 1JZ-GTE – I am able to stay on the throttle a little during the switch, and to jump back on full power as soon as I have the line right, in these cars the power was instant and very touchy. As soon as I tapped the gas as the car swung on transition, I’d loop it. I couldn’t work out what I was doing wrong at first, but eventually Michel got it through my head that I needed to allow the car to transfer its weight and settle before getting back on the loud pedal.

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And that pedal only got louder after I ran a little wide at one point, removing the exhaust system and leaving only the headers to direct gasses out into the wild. I’m not proud of it, but I’m pretty sure the car sounded heaps cooler for it, so I’ll stop short of apologising.

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It’s amazing how much of a difference it makes to your learning curve when you have someone who knows exactly what they’re talking about, telling you exactly how to fix your problems. Instead of just making the same mistakes over and over again, if you’re humble enough to really stop, take a breath and listen to some sound driving advice, you can improve at a crazy-fast pace.

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This went for all of us too. A couple of the guys, Rob and Arslan, had never drifted a car before, but by the afternoon they were hanging off that hydro handbrake and lighting up the rears around the short course with huge smiles on their faces. I love seeing people reach that moment when it ‘clicks’ for the first time and they suddenly understand what the car is doing and how they can tell it what to do next.

We weren’t all beginners though… Early that morning, I’d quickly found my new arch-rival in the form of Need for Speed‘s Bryn Alban. Bryn has quite a bit of driving, drifting and racing experience and it soon became obvious that he was the man to beat – not that it was a serious competition of course, but you know how these things go! You’ve got to be suspicious of any person that brings their own helmet to a drive day… In the video above you can see one of Bryn’s first runs; it’s interesting watching this and remembering how tempting it is to simply dab the throttle lightly to get around the course thanks to all that low down torque, but Michel sitting in the passenger seat soon corrected that with some skilful ‘put your ******* foot down!’ hand gestures.

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Bryn was clearly better than me, but once I learnt that there’d be a fun little qualifying-style competition at the end of the day, I so badly wanted to take the #1 spot from the quietly confident Welshman.

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The trial was simple: a full speed sprint into a big right hander that tightened up before switching left and heading towards the finish. The instruction was to run the outside wall – or fence in this particular case – before tightening up to smash a clipping point (aka the big floppy stick that’s super fun to pummel), just before switching to the left and heading for the end of the section making as much smoke as possible.

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It’s not exactly Formula D, but I’ve never drifted with any sort of competition in mind, and it was a blast! Every one of us completed at least one successful run hitting all the clips and putting a decent score on the board – pretty impressive for a bunch of people that had never skidded a car before.

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I was very happy to have hit all the clips on all my three practice and three competition runs, but after seeing Bryn lighting it up with a better line and smoother transitions on one run in particular, I knew I would have to settle for second place, with Rob close behind in third.

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The day was finished off with some battle driving, which was an absolute blast. Michel and Ervin jumped behind the wheel to show us some really close proximity driving, and it was completely hilarious…

After feeling pretty confident in our own ability to drive these Mustangs, it’s a real knock to jump in the passenger seat and see what these cars can really do with the right people behind the wheels!

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Our day out with Team Pony Drift really gave me a new appreciation for a few things – firstly, you’re never too good to stop, shut the hell up and listen to someone who can offer you good advice and guidance. I learnt a lot about drifting that day – I think most importantly understanding how a different car behaves when sideways, and then being able to adjust your driving style to suit.

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Secondly, as the sun began to set and we all walked over to the main circuit to watch a twilight track session full of some very nice machinery, I realised that sometimes, due to my nomadic Speedhunters lifestyle, I forget that driving and enjoying cars should be a group activity whenever possible. I loved giving these Fox Bodies absolute death for sure, but it was being able to do that whilst hanging out with a bunch of friends – both old and new – that really made the day memorable.

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Lastly, just like I mentioned at the very start of this article, I realised that I’ve been a snob for way too long. Sure, I can appreciate cars of all types – you couldn’t do my job if you didn’t – but it’s not until I parked myself behind the wheel of something like a Fox Body Mustang – a car I have always been very ‘meh’ about – that I realised I’ve been too close-minded and too set in my ways. Lesson learnt.

A massive thank you goes out to Michel, Ervin and all the crew at Pony Drift Academy – what a wild ride. In turn, Pony Drift would also like to take the opportunity to thank all their partners and sponsors for their support. If you’re in Sweden and want to improve your driving, these are the guys to get in touch with.

Peter Kelly
Editor-in-Chief
Instagram: speedhunters_pedey
pedey@speedhunters.com

Additional Photos by Taryn Croucher
Instagram: taryncroucher
Twitter: @taryncroucher
taryn@speedhunters.com

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51 comments

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1

No pictures of the nice pre-facelift fox body in the background?

2

That was fun!

3

hcram39 That particular car was a new addition to the line up, and at the time was drift-ready. I it was actually four cylinder initially, and was in the process of being converted to V8.

4

What do they charge for a lesson? 

Some may think it is expensive whatever the cost but the value is pretty good I imagine. 
Considering that, 

1, You thrash a car without paying for it or to run it. 
2, Some one who has experience AND can teach, thereby saving you countless hours "Learning"

5

sponsored article

6

You were beaten by the Alban? You've brought great shame upon us, Kelly.

7

@open your eyes

SpeedHunters itself was made to promote Need For Speed. They're pretty open about that. The entire site was made to be an advertising platform, but has transcended into what it is today.

But yeah, they're shilling out to a fucking tiny Swedish drift school that has a fleet of 30 year old Mustangs. WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!!111!!
Regardless if this is "sponsored" or "an advert," this is pretty neat stuff. I never thought I'd see something like this. If they got money to provide FREE CONTENT to people who are into cars, why would you give a shit?
Get over yourself.

8

@open your eyes Michel and the team gave us an awesome opportunity to have a day out of the office and do some driving! We've always had automotive partners - they're listed at the bottom of the page :)

9

I guess I know where I'll be looking for employment if I ever move to Sweden.

10

You're on some sort of anti SH crusade there eh?

11

Might be the era and area I grew up but I've always liked the look, and more importantly the sound of Fox bodies quite a bit. So seeing more sliding makes me pretty happy.
However I've witnessed someone try to slide one completely stock and I've never seen a car object to the idea more.

12

Peter_Kelly hcram39 that's so nice, I just wish the article had some close-ups as I think that generation of Mustang looks the best! :)

13

DaveT yeah, he's a troll who comments something negative on pretty much every post just to anger people :D

14

hcram39 Peter_Kelly This gets me so excited about drifting mine next year! Its cool to shed light on a car that noone suspects to be a potentially good car either. Now hopefully it doesnt get too popular and that dreaded drift tax hit it.

15

1st thing: If the guys from NFS had access to this, why did they make the drifting and vehicle dynamics such utter crap in their game? Seriously, I want to hear an answer from one of the game makers. How can you do something in real life, make a game about it, but bastardize the game so that its something totally different and weaker?

16

Preach

17

Something I love about car culture is the way you can completely write off owning or liking a car and then 5-10 years go by and you get to change your mind.

18

They need to be drifting around a single wide while blasting some Skynyrd.

19

DaveT So happy to hear I'm not the only sicko who loves the Fox body. I'm also quite taken by other boxy '80s fare like T-type Regals/Grand Nationals/GNXs. There must be a support group for us somewhere. Maybe it's on this new Interweb thing I've been hearing about.

20

Always had a soft spot for Foxes, too bad prices are going up!

21

Any more info on what the "minor modifications to product 350hp" are?  I have a fox body 5.0 in my E36 BMW that I sometimes slide and always curious what others are running?  Any idea if they modify the oil system for starvation?  Thanks!

22

I should have kept my Lx coupe and finished it..

23

That's awesome I'm not a huge BMW guy but I am a Mustang guy and the Me sounds beast.

24

Any info on that steering kit?  Google didn't turn up anything.  

To me, it looks like you would need, at a minimum, new control arms.  The fox control arms are pretty wide and that's why it doesn't get a lot of lock.

25

I don't care what anyone says. This is the best comment that will be made on this article. Lol

26

Michel rayes on Facebook. His profile pic is him standing in front of a fox in his driving suit. Id message him. They are all active on drift pages on Facebook. Check out "FMC drift" on Facebook as well. Good drift page for mustangs.

27

You should look at Doug Van Den Brink as well. He sells parts for fox bodies. Dvanz.com is his site

28

this is neat, wish there was something like this closer than Sweden.

BUT there is no way that those things are making 350hp/500ft-lb on "mild mods".
I see stock intake manifold, and EGR and stock valve covers (tells me more than likely stock valve train.
We're looking at maybe 210/300 to the wheels (those are the factory numbers at the crank).
Been playing with 5.0's long enough now to know that is a ridiculous claim. Stock cam still has a crazy flat torque curve though, they feel like they have more power when drifting them for sure.

29

ACSmith6589 thanks.  Those control arms are pretty much what I would have imagined, they taper in very quickly.

30

Bennessey Hey I think i seen your build on Stanceworks! still love it
I've never run into oiling issues while drifting, I have a stock fox dual sump pan, stock everything else. Can't remember if you're using a front sump pan.

31

Speedhunters thanks!

32
jbfromsiliconvalley

Hahahahaha. Fox bodies will swap ends if you sneeze in the wrong direction. It's part of their charm.

33

teeson Thank you! I was about to ask how i could get these magical mild mods :)

34

SeanStott I think they are custom made by Pony Drift. But you could always send them an email.

35

teeson Hey there..

These Ponies have had "minor mods", as we call it, compared to our competition cars that run 600hp up to 815hp. They also loads of weight reduction such as empty interior, glass fiber hatch, wing, hood, lexan windows all around ect... the list is long..

Engines:

Fully rebuilt stock Ford Mustang “Roller” 302 / 5.0 Windsor block
Bore size 4.030” – 102,4mm.
New brass freeze plugs.
Threaded oil channel plugs.
Stock cast crankshaft.Stroke 3.00” – 76,2mm.
Engine displacement of 5.0 liters.
Stock connecting rods with Arp bolts.
DSS Racing forged flat top pistons.
Total Seal piston rings.
Clevite bearings on main, rod and camshaft.
Stock “roller” camshaft.
New Stock hydraulic roller lifters.
Comp Cams double roller timing chain.
SFI approved Crank balancer.
Stock pushrods.
ProForm Aluminum 1.60 ratio “full roller” rocker arms.
Manley 1.85” intake valves – Stainless one‐piece Race‐Flow series.Manley 1.55” intake valves – Stainless one‐piece Race‐Flow series.Lunati Voodoo valve spring and retainer kit.Ported and 1mm surface milled “stock” E7TE cylinder heads.Radius valve seat job.Summit 5.0 shorty exhaust headers.Port matched stock Mustang lower intake.Trickflow 1” intake spacer.Stock Mustang upper intake.Stock throttle body.Stock 19 lbs. injectors.Stock fuel pressure.Stock distributor.Ford Racing Spark plug wires.Melling standard volume oil pump.Arp Oil pump drive shaft.Arp Main bolts.Arp Head bolts.Arp Flywheel bolts.Arp Pressure Plate bolts.Rotating assembly fully balanced to Race‐Iso standards and beyond.Ford Motorsport / Fel‐Pro engine gaskets.All parts is cleaned, inspected, blueprinted, painted etc. before assembly.All outer bolts, brackets etc. is black oxide finish for longer lasting

Suspension:Maximum Motorsports CoiloversMaximum Motorsports Panhard barMaximum Motorsports Full length subframe connectors Maximum Motorsports Poliurethane gearbox bushings Maximum Motorsports solid engine mounts Maximum Motorsports bumpsteer kit Maximum Motrosports Torque Arm 
Exhaust: Stainless steel X-pipe 2.5"
Steering angle kit: E-LOCK

36

The ol' Fox has been very high up in my consideration for an upcoming project, and this totally isn't helping my bias, haha. Would love to see an SVO given this kind of treatment, though I'm certain the likelihood is very slim.
Love to see these guys at it, would have been such a blast.

37

NFS spirit, don't ask !

38

Clearly the cars are awesome, and well-built, but power-wise, that's stock compression, stock cam, and "head work" on stock heads. How on earth does that translate to 350hp?? You'd be lucky to get 350hp out of a fully built NA 302 with really high quality heads, a gnarly cam, and all the supporting mods you need to flow that air reliably.
What am I missing here?

39

I didn't know "stock valve covers" changed the horsepower

40

D1RGE EXE I honestly couldn't give two sh*ts, the game still gives off the old UG charm.

41

Svo's simply don't have enough torque to do this. Even with a 300hp+ 2.3l you'd have to build the boost to see that hp and tq. The 5.0 is a far better option. And it would be fine stock.

42

Paddy McGrath There's no shame in being beaten by a Celt!

43
takahashitothetop

teeson  Not sure if that was really the point..

44
takahashitothetop

@open your eyes  Hey, I don't like you.

45

@Steve Yeah and wouldnt it have been a lot cheaper to throw on some used or new aftermarket heads rather than do all that headwork to the stock old heads?

46

i think the team name should be drift pony instead of pony drift :)

47

CJC_Matty DaveT Regals/GN/GNX are also amazing. Yes we are of the same sort.

48

how do you guys keep the T5 from exploding with that much power?

49

350hp at the engine is easy, hell, I have 500 with a 342 Stroker. However, this combination can't possibly come anywhere close to 350jp. More like 250.

50

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