1985 GT - NEW COMER NEEDS HELP.

85 Coupe 5.0 said:

depends, do you have the stick or automatic car?

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85 Coupe 5.0 said:

There are 3 of them here in my hometown, one is a Capri and the other's are GT's. Weird huh?

One other note 8550,

Either way your car has the smaller 7.5" rearend. the bigger 8.8" wasn't introduced untill 1986 in the 5.0's. I've seen a lot of people pound the hell out of those rearends and not break them. Then there are people like me that broke 2 of them before i put in an 8.8", so if you get serious you might look at upgrading to the bigger rearend.

Also, your car has single exhaust from the motor to the mufflers. 1986 and later 5.0's had true dual exhaust. It would be a wise upgrade also for starters, helping the motor breathe a little better.

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85 Coupe 5.0 said:

One other note.....

Either way a set of gears will help the most for the least money. As Daggar said, the 'gears' we are referring to are the differential gears in the rearend of the car. The function sort of like a bicycle does. If you ever had a mountain bike and started out in high gear, that's what your car basically is doing with the factory gearset. The factory gears are made for fuel economy, which is acheived by keeping the engine revved low at cruising speeds, which is partially controlled by the ratio of the rearend gears.

Many other factors make up the final drive ratio, but the easiest modification is to change the rearend gear to a higher ratio, much like swiching to a lower gear on a bike. The lower gear makes it much easier to take off and pull the weight of the bike and you up to speed. If you notice you also have to pedal faster to get up to the same speed as when you were in high gear, this is what people mean when they say you will revv higher with gears. With gears in your car, each shift drops your RPM's less, keeping the engine revved up and in it's torque curve. Basically, it keeps your engine right in it's 'sweet spot' for making power.

The downfall, you are going to loose some top end speed. But hey, what's the sense in going out and topping your car out? wouldn't you rather have your car setup to be the quickest from 0 to 100 than being capable of going 130+?

Again, it all depeds on what you are planning to do with the car. Selecting the wrong gearset, say 4.56's or so on a STOCK motor and car would be stupid, unless you don't take the car above 60 MPH and only race in the 1/8th mile, because the car would be maxed out by 90 or so mph.

A wise choice of gears is usually 3.73's or 4.10's. the 4.10's work best with an automatic equipped car because the auto's have slightly steeper gearing than the 5-speed cars do.

Do some searching here on stangnet, and the internet, there is a TON of info about how to hop up these car's. All it takes is a little patience and reading.

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