ok i know that this has prolly been posted a billion times on here. i just want to know how much work it actually is. i know what all is involved and i know it will take a lot of spare parts and maybe even a donor car. but how much work is it really???
I did it in a few weeks in my spare time. Most of it was by myself but a buddy of mine did help when he could. The rear end took the longest. Putting it in was kind of a pain since I had just one jack to help me. I took the engine and tranny out as one piece and put it in as one piece. Also, the front suspension was a pain. springs are a bi^ch to put in if you dont have a spring compressor and if you do, it is still a pain. But all in all nothing took all that long. If you have basic knowledge of the fox body mustang then you will be ok. Any specific questions just pm me or email me tbadair@hotmail.com
oh and there are a lot of websites that show pedal swaps if you havent done one or if you even need to do it. My wife erased them from my favorites so I dont know them off hand.
you are gonna need... V8 motor mounts, double hump Tranny crossmember, and thats about it to drop in the 302 & Tranny.
The easiest way to do the swap is to just build a carb'd motor, so you dont have to worry about the wiring harness's and ****.
You CAN keep the 7.5 in there until you can get a 8.8, but if you are gonna be making any kind of power out of the motor, id at least get a girdle kit for the rear.
i finished my 4cyl to 302 convirsion in my vert in a 4 days (2 weekends). Thats putting the motor in, swapping 2 different trannys (first used a C5 auto, then switched to a T5), exhaust, and a 8.8 swap.
i am in the process of putting my clutch pedal in. check out my sig. the fuel tank was already done when i got it so i just took the tranny x member off of my old donor and dropped in a t5 with my motor. i did an HEI conversion to it and it is hella cool.
My swap took me about 9 days total working on it during my vacation in Texas when its hot in June. Thats all I did though... I had an 89 donor car for my 93 2.3 and the thing that gave me the most trouble was tracking the wiring harness down for a 93.
i would really like to keep it fuel injected but if its going to be a hassle i might just got with a carbed set up. a friend of mine has a white 90 coupe that he has had as a daily driver for about 5 years. he bought a brand new 04 V6 stang and now wants to sell it. he told me he would sell it to me cheap but i really dont know how "cheap" he is talking. i already have a tranny and the car is already a 5 speed so i wont have to worry about pedals. i know in the mustang unlimited catalog i can get a stripped down version of the wiring harness. pretty much everything u NEED and none of the other bullsh**. ill just leave the rear end alone until i blow it up. that will be fun actually trying to shell it one question, should i tub it so i can put some 17x11's on it or would it really be worth the trouble?
I went from a 93 4 cylinder from a 92 V8. Made things a lot easier having the same year car. The engine harness plugged right into the factory body harness with no trouble. I swapped everything over tho, including the interior. All in all, it does take a feair amount of mechanical apptitude and some guts. But it was worth it for me.
Ditto that, try to use the same year harness and it's plug and play. Air bags and Mass air screw up the different year harness pin outs and make it very difficult to swap differnet year parts. Took about 40 hours at $15/hr for me to do it for a customer knowing what to do and how to do it to pop and swap both motors '91lx 5.0 vert into a '92 lx hatch. Fuel lines were a pain as was extending brake lines to use the 8.8" rear and dual exhaust. Remember to get the drivers side exhaust hangers too. Told him it wasn't worth it once I realized the fox body 460 swap motor and parts I was getting for the labor were junk and he was going to pay cash for the work.