$2500 budget rebuild or replace?

[svtpower]

With school / working fulltime / taking care of our 1 year old kid I just don't have the time to be out in the garage as much as I would like to so I am not going to mess with this engine anymore.

All I am really want is something reliable around the same power as stock is fine.

For my budget of $2500 give me your options. I will be taking it somewhere to do the swap or rebuild and I would like to stay as close to $2500 with labor as I can.

The current state of the car is hunting idle, no smoke but smells like burning oil or burning something, very noisy valvetrain when under load and it has no power. Thanks for any input.

 

[5.0Torx]

i would start searching for replacement options than repairing what youve got. There could be a thousand things going on with your hunting idle, though. If it were me, i'd go to a junkyard and find an explorer engine. Top to bottom, they usually cost like $600 or so. then spend the rest of your money paying a shop to do the swap. then youve got 260ish rwhp (60 more than stock) and a newer engine. part out the old engine to help with the money

good luck

 

[S&B]

buy a used exploder engine, have the shop rebuild it, throw a cam in there, make sure to whomever you bring the car that there familiar with 5.0's. buying the engine core and having it freshend up should cost you around 1500 bux that will leave the rest for the swap.

thats what I would do, but I would personally pull the old engine out myself to save some monies

 

[magnj]

I'm thinking about doing this over the winter, what kind of cam would be good? I've read just the stock HO cam is a good fit, but something lumpy would be nice.