Everywhere you look there are the sleek lines of modern muscle machines. Turbos hiss, blowers whine, and exhausts rumble. The dyno whirs with the sound of tires rapidly accelerating. Seeing four digits on the screen is the norm. A shop like this is the sort of place that mechanically inclined enthusiasts dream of working in.
The car handles great and gets tons of looks driving it around. It’s very responsive, easy to cruise in, and the TREMEC TKX transmission shifts like butter! — Ben Stoner, Fathouse Performance
For Ben Stoner, Vice President at Fathouse Performance, this is just another day at the office. If you can think of a modern Ford performance Mustang, his shop has magnified its performance into the stratosphere. However, like many of us, his high-performance dreams began with simpler aspirations.
Framed by a Triple T engine bay shave and neatened by a Donathen Racing wire tuck is a 306-cube 5.0-liter engine fitted with a Donathen Racing camshaft, a pair of Trick Flow Wedge heads, and a ported Cobra intake. Exhaling through BBK short-tube headers and Flowmaster exhaust it pumps out 318 horsepower and 333 lb-ft of torque at the rear wheels at the behest of a calibration by Tony Gonyon of HP Tuners. “It’s got a nice cam in it, so it lopes at idle and the Flowmaster exhaust sounds perfect,” Stoner said. “After you get out of the car, you smell like gasoline and America and I love it!” (Photo Credit: Trevor Flora)
“I’ve been in love with cars since I was old enough to play with Hot Wheels. I’ve always loved machines and mechanical things; my first word was ‘crane.’ My father was never into building cars, but he liked cool cars and we spent a lot of time washing whatever he had at the time,” Ben Stoner recalled. “When I was 14 or so I would pick up the ‘Wheels & Deals’ newspaper at the gas station and search for what my first car would be. I wanted a ’90-’93 5.0 Mustang more than anything. My father told me they were too fast and I would kill myself…”
Nothing makes you want something more than having it declared forbidden fruit. The restriction from owning that Fox Mustang cemented his desire to own one. Being dissuaded from owning a fast car also fueled his desire to be around these cars as much as possible. Eventually, the siren’s song of fast cars was too loud to ignore and he and his friends set out to open a performance shop of their own.
“Myself and two friends, John Lucas and Jeremy Howell, would hang out and daydream about quitting our jobs and starting a performance shop regularly,” Stoner said. “One day we said ‘screw it’ and Jeremy quit his full-time job to pursue Fathouse full-time. John and I quickly followed suit. That was March 2012.”
Sprayed with a fresh coat of Vibrant Red by Triple T and treated to a Lux Coatings full paint correction and ceramic coating, this mildly modified Cobra wears minor mods that separate it from the stockers, including a Cervini’s 2.5-inch cowl-induction hood. Riding on Makers Garage Reimagined Classic 18-inch wheels with Michelin Pilot Sport 275/35/18 tires, Stoner’s ’93 Cobra is tuned in period-correct fashion to deliver a performance and styling edge over a stocker and that’s just what he had in mind for his dream Fox Mustang, which he doesn’t plan on parting with. “It’s not for sale, but I will consider trades for a red ’05-’06 Ford GT!” he joked.
He manifested that dream into one of the foremost performance shops for modern muscle cars. Fathouse Performance offers four-digit packages for most of these cars. The shop even partnered with Shelby American to create the most potent Shelby serpent — the ultra-limited Shelby GT500 Code Red, which delivers 1,300 horsepower to 30 elite buyers.
With all that modern horsepower in his presence, you might think that his affinity for the early ’90s pony cars had faded into the background. Quite to the contrary. That fire for a classic Fox still burned brightly, and eventually, Stoner scored his dream stallion — that elusive, Vibrant Red ’93 Cobra with an Opal Gray interior.
“…I have always had a soft spot for the Fox Mustang and specifically the 1993 Cobra,” Stoner confessed. “I wanted one terribly for my first car and couldn’t get it so I finally got to build one the way I want!”
The old-school Hurst shifter poking through the tunnel is mounted to a TREMEC TKX five-speed manual transmission. Stoner shifts his resto-modded snake from the driver-side Recaro retro seat and keeps his eye on the car’s vitals courtesy of a Dakota Digital gauge cluster. When he is out for a cruise, he cranks the tunes via a Sony CD player, just like he dreamed of doing as a kid.
Working with some of the most potent street machines on the planet could easily direct his path with this project. The temptation to build an all-out restomod was omnipresent, as it would be easy to imagine a classic SVT snake with a modern engine and a massive power adder.
“I had everyone in my ear around the shop talking about turbos, Voodoo, Predator, MoTeC, etc,” Stoner confessed. “For good reason too, it would be cool but it just wasn’t what I wanted out of this one.”
You have to admire his fortitude, however, as Ben Stoner resisted his urge — and the peer pressure around the shop — to stick with a much milder mission for one of the formative cars of his automotive life.
“The whole team nailed it on the car, I couldn’t have done this build on my own. I had a great group of guys helping me on the build and I’d like to give them credit here,” Ben Stoner said. “Tim Donathen did a large portion of the build from the engine to the wire tuck and much of the assembly. Tim is an amazing friend and Fox-body guru! Tony Thompson painted the car and I can’t say enough about Tony, he outdid himself on the paint job. I have to thank Jeremy Howell for always pushing me to get a Fox. Two of my guys at the shop helped a ton as well, Andrew Calkins and Matt Kiernan. Tony Gonyon tuned it on the dyno and Tyler Pierce applied the full paint correction. Of course, I can’t forget my dude Trevor Flora for taking some amazing photos to show her off!”
“The mission was to build a 90-percent period-correct car with some tasteful modern upgrades for styling and comfort,” he explained. “We added the 18-inch Makers Garage wheels, Brembo brakes, a full Maximum Motorsports suspension, a cowl hood, retro Recaro seats, a Dakota Digital gauge cluster, and the Makers Garage carbon chin splitter, a.k.a. ‘Hater Lip,’ to the front — all in the name of making the car just a little bit cooler than it was in 1993.”
“I really just wanted to feel like I was driving the car as it would have been back in the day, with a few updates,” Stoner added. “I almost put a Vortech on the car, but at the end of the day, if I’m going forced induction it’s getting MoTeC and I didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole. It makes 318 rear-wheel horsepower, burns tires through Second gear, and sounds cool; Mission accomplished.”
To deliver that tire-burning power, Stoner’s snake relies on a 306-cube small-block Ford burbling with 10:1 compression for motivation. Augmented with Clevite bearings, Trick Flow forged pistons and a Donathen Racing camshaft, the overbored 5.0-liter is topped by Trick Flow Twisted Wedge aluminum cylinder heads fitted with Trick Flow roller rocker arms. Breathing deep through a ported Cobra intake that keeps its lineage legit, the naturally aspirated small-block bellows through BBK short-tube headers and a Flowmaster exhaust, which is as period-correct as it gets.
Behind that healthy 5.0-liter is a TREMEC TKX five-speed manual transmission fitted with a Hurst shifter, a RAM clutch, and a custom driveshaft that channels the output to a factory 8.8-inch rearend upgraded with ’04 Cobra rear brakes, Strange Engineering five-lug axles, and extended wheels studs.
Balancing that power is grip courtesy of a host of suspension upgrades, including SN-95 front spindles; an SN-95 steering rack; an SN-95 steering shaft; a Team Z K-member; Maximum Motorsports coilovers; Koni Yellow struts; Eibach front and rear sway bars; and more.
“The car handles great and gets tons of looks driving it around,” Stoner said. “It’s very responsive, easy to cruise in, and the TREMEC TKX transmission shifts like butter!”
Ben Stoner shifts that gearbox from a retro Recaro seat where he gets a view of the decidedly modern instrument cluster and classic Sony CD player.
“I just love the Dakota Digital Dash. It is just perfect and works awesome,” Stoner said. “The Foxes are all plagued with sh%tty lighting for the instrument cluster, and I’m old now, so I gotta see what the hell the speedo says at night!”
Even without four digits on tap, it’s important to see how fast you are going, but enjoying this one amid all those mega-power Mustangs in the shop is a matter of perspective, and Ben Stoner doesn’t regret the path he took with this pony one bit.
“…I built the car the way I wanted, for myself, but man I get a lot of compliments from others that say they love how it turned out,” he added. “It’s always cool to hear everyone’s story about a Fox-body. I think everyone has one!”
This period-correct Cobra is sure to create a few more Fox tales for future generations.
