How my truck almost didn't get it's 302 (feel like reading?)

[2lo-rngr]

Not sure if I got a deal or not. I think I did. you can decide. (this might be a longer story) While patiently searching for my v8 swap I came across lots of deals. When I was stationed at Ft. Hood, TX I also worked at Autozone in my free time and found some deals there. I found a dealer from OK who delivered. I called him and he said 450 bucks for a 5.0 out of a lincoln mark 8 delivered. sounded pretty good, but I really wanted the mustang setup, though i could of easily just changed the cam and had the mustang firing order. Regardless, I finally came across my swap after finding backroads to play with my motorcyle on. There was a shop with a blue thunderbird out front and it said 5.0 HO for sale. I stopped in on monday, and he said it was an 89 mustang engine and t-5 tranny, both recently rebuilt, but it wasn't running, he said the fuel pump or something was out, but we could get it running. well i asked him how much for the engine, tranny, and wiring harness, and he said, i'll take 1,000 for the whole car. I was like DEAL!!! well come to find out, I got more for my money than i thought. we put in a bad fuel pump from an f-150 that would put out lots of pressure but worked, and got her running, and it seemed to idle a little lobey. so i got her home, got a discounted fuel pump from autozone, and got her on the road. after the first ride, I was like, this engine isn't stock. The car didn't look bad either. it had a nice blue paint job, the older gt multi spoke wheels, and everthing worked. well I decided to take it to the local dragstrip for **** and giggles before I pulled the engine. well i sure impressed a few people, as well as myself. After a tune-up and dropping rear air pressure on what felt like plastic wheels from sitting so long, i was able to get a best of 14.02, which is pretty damn fast for a 4700 lb car. I was even working some fox body mustangs. well i started to like the car more and more, and it got lots of attention at the track, well it didn't belong in there, it belongs in my ranger, and one of my friends helped me realize that, but not in a good way. When I was getting out of the military, i was going to drive the t-bird up to where I was moving to, and hang on to it longer, well letting my friends drive it all the time turned out to be good and bad. one of my friends was doing doughnuts in it and and caught the curb one time around, and it ripped the axle right off, broke the pads, bent the disc, bent the mounting bracket, and broke the rim. and what better day to do this then a week before i leave? well I decided it was a sign and pulled the motor and tranny, and sadly junked the car with not having any time to do anything worthwhile with it. now the engine and tranny are sitting in the garage waiting to be transplanted.

[cgrey8]

Sounds like you'll have a nice swap motor. I don't know much about the Thuderbird engines nor their setup. But I do know it's pretty standard for 5.0 Mustangs to pull 13.9's in the 1/4 factory back in the 90s.

I remember back when I helped my buddy build his 68 327 Camaro. We built it moderately stout and took it to the strip just to see what it'd run. Best he could pull was 14.33 which at the time was a little discouraging. However he realized after his 2nd run, it was going into third as soon as he crossed the 1/4 line. We later found out he had 2.73 gears in it from when the car was originally a 396 before he owned it. He wound up keeping the 2.73s because he was getting 25mpg on the Interstate.

Working on that car 11 years ago was my last touch with any serious motor building and I'm having to fight myself hard to keep my hands out of this motor before I get it into the truck to see what it'll do stock.

[2lo-rngr]

13.9's were definitely NOT regular in the early 90's. stockers ran high 14's to mid 15's if i am correct. I have lots of friends with fox body mustangs as i had a 91 gt with a 351w. A friend with a mildly modified ( int., headers, exh.) fox was running 14.6 one day we went. the 96-99 cobras can pull off 14 flat/13.9's stock, and of course the newer ones even kick more ass...but the older 90's models weren't all that.
The motor and tranny out of the t-bird weren't t-bird material. It was volunteered from an 89 mustang. the owner had swapped to a mustang h.o. setup. Another thing you have to think of is that fox body mustangs weigh 3200 pounds i believe, and the the t-bird weighed 4700. weight makes a big difference.
11 years ago? wow. don't know if i could stay away that long. I'm dying to stroke this motor. I was going to wait, then I thought well I could stroke it now, put it in, then gradually build her up more....then I thought i could just throw her in there now, cause she's got decent power, then build another engine and make that the stroker to put in there later....so ideas are flowing all over. i'll figure something out.

[cgrey8]

Yeah it's been a while. I've been stuck in college. When I graduated the 1st time, I started working and travelling with no real facility or friends that cared about engines. A few years ago, I bought a place in the country that has a barn for me to do my wrenchin' in. I bounced the idea of a V8 swap around once or twice but still didn't feel I knew enough about it to give it a go.

Instead of buying an engine, I paid some more tuition money to go back to school for another 2 years of torture. I found this site about 8-9 months ago and have not stopped asking questions since. Earlier this year, I officially started the project by buying an Explorer motor and have been collecting the parts I know I'll need ever since. Anyway, those 2 years of college are 2 weeks from being up, and I'm really excited to get into this swap.


As for your comments, I don't remember what year the Stang was that we saw running 13.9s. It was no newer than 95 because thats about when I was last out there. I guess he had some mods on it that he wasn't fessing up to if stock Mustangs back then couldn't come close to that. How many horses did the HO 302s in 89-93 run stock?

The one thing I do remember he was doing was putting a bag of ice on his intake which I thought was kinda neat. I don't know how well the intake held the cold in the lineup to do the run, but it was what he was doing...

All that being said, I guess 14.33 wasn't bad at all for a 2.73 RE in a 68 Camaro.

[2lo-rngr]

Cgrey8.... yeah icing your intake is something you commonly see at racetracks. Anything you can do to lower the intake temperature of your engine will help you, so inbetween runs alot of guys will ice their intakes to help keep temperatures down. maybe he was running nitrous or something... something he could easily hide and not fess up to. It's hard to say exactly what the hp figures are... and in 93 they changed the way hp was rated, so that made it look worse... but from what i know it was 215 then got bumped to 225, but in 93 with the new ratings it showed as 205, with the cobra advertising 225. so you can't really tell.
A barn huh? man would I love to have one of those...that would be awfully nice...but with more space, i'd just fill it with more stuff...haha...more projects. Nope, 14.3's aren't bad...there aren't...well there weren't too many cars that ran in the 14's. with all the performance coming out nowadays right from the factory they're definitely getting down there though. that's a nice time for a 68 camaro. you have to think of the weight factor again. older cars were full framed and made of thicker material. it all adds up.

[cgrey8]

Ahh, that's very likely. I bet he was foggin' it.

Of all the times I went, about the lowest times that I remember off the top of my head from cars that drove themselves there were in the low 12s. Most cars pulling faster than that were dedicated draggers that were hauled in on trailers. Some with sponsor ads, some just beat up old looking flimsy bodied cars made to do one thing, go straight and get there quick.

Generally speaking, what is the fastest you can get a Mustang or similar car and still keep it under control enough to drive as a reliable and controllable daily driver?

[scperf]

I raced alot in the 80's and 90's. We had several Mustangs that were not far from stock that ran in the 13's. Two stick out in my mind.

The first was an `87 LX with 5-speed, it had flowmaster mufflers, 3.55:1 gears, and Hoosier Quick times street tires. It ran a best of 13.77 @99.0 mph. That was in 1992 at Muncie Dragway (Ind.) which is about 500' elevation.

The second was a `91 GT. This car had never had a valve cover off and ran a best 13.16 @ 101..mph. It had Tremec 5-speed, under drive pulleys, aluminum driveshaft, 4.10:1 gears, 10.5 slicks, and still through the exhaust (magna flow mufflers I think). This also happen at Muncie in good air.

These cars were both rated at 225 hp as were all mustang 5.0l from `87 to `93. The hp ratings droped in `94, to 215 hp, when they changed the body style. My wife and I have had a `95 GT with the Boss package since `97 and they were not kidding about it having less hp. The best this car has ever gone is 14.34 @ 95.3 mph. It has 10.5" slicks and 3.73:1 gears, as well as boxed control arms and polyurathane bushings.

Last summer I saw a younger guy drive into Ti-State Dragway (near Cincy) with a `03 Cobra, and change over to some slicks he had in the trunk. He proceded to click off several 11.70's passes on a hot day! I asked him what he had done to it. He told me that he had just got the slicks and the only other thing he had done was to change the pulley on the supercharger. The track folks told him to slow it down or go home until he could get a roll bar installed.

[Dave]

Actually the earlier Ford cars weighed less and were uni-body construction. Even my '66' Ranchero is uni-body. Early Mustangs (65-66) ran about 2900-3200 lbs depending on options. A '69' Fairlane Cobra ran about 3800 lbs with the big motor and auto trans. With a 3.50 gear would run 14.9 in the 1/4. My old '63' Dodge wagon with the 413 auto weighed less than 3400.
What it comes down to is that Ford is doing faster in a heavier car that performs better and gets better gas milage, right off the show room floor.
Dave (in Wisconsin)

[MalcolmV8]

My bone stock 95 GT ran a sad high 15s in the quater. After some minor tweaking, K&N, under drive pullies, removed some smog equipment, flowmaster mufflers, high flow cats and a few other minor goodies it got down into low 15s. I don't think I ever did break into the 14s but then I didn't take it to the track in the last few years I had it. I might add I don't drag race very often and I'm sure a good part of my times are driver error.

When I got my 03 Cobra I took it down to the track bone stock and ran 13.02 @108mph. On anther pass with a slower ET I ran the traps at 110mph. Not to shabby since I couldn't get any traction. I was either bogging off the line or lighting up the tires. At around 7k miles my rear tires were smooth from the power and "twitching" on the road as I drive (I don't do burn outs in it).
I'm about to order some Nitto drag radials for it. It will be nice to finally have some traction.

Oh and I have to agree 13.9s were not normal for stock fox body stangs. But then how many stock fox body stangs do you see now days or even in the last few years? I'm not sure I've ever even seen one that's completely bone stock.

[2lo-rngr]

sadly, I have seen a stock or atleast mechanically stock-ish fox body. the worst part was it looked identical to my 91 gt. my 91 was a white hatch with silver cobra r's, a 3" cowl, and a saleen wing, with a 351w that was stroked and a 100 shot and my best in that was an 11.9 on the bottle. well I sold it , to buy a streetbike, and a couple of months later when I picked up the t-bird and hit the track, what do you know! There's a hatch there that looks just like mine!! so i was really trying to do my run and get back in line to watch it run....( I guess I was kinda hoping it was my hatch) nope... must of been a newbie at the track, 15.6 is what he ran. so there ARE stock mustangs....foxes too. I'm hoping it was his baseline, cause even I had to look away when a fox that looked just like my last one got smoked by a multi-color lancer. not an evo..... a lancer. I was looking through muscle mustangs and fast fords also and there was this special thing they were showing about stock fox bodys. of course they are only the ones worth money, like a one-off saleen, etc.
Malcolm....how was that 95 on the highway? My friend and i built a honda civic hatchback on a budget when I was in highschool, and it would run 14.6's at the track.... and i could smoke the newer gt's. well I came across a guy with a 95 gt.... the good ol 5.0, and we raced on the highway, and he pulled away from me like I was at a stoplight. It was pretty much bone stock too except for exhaust. i don't know. maybe he got a good one.