last time I had an n/a non coil pack car that I actually ran at the track( like 99-2000) it ran a 18.92 and I forget the mph, had 3.73 gears , 5 speed, a header, advanced timing, and 2 1/4 down pipe to a 2 1/2 cat back , was embarrassingly slow, ran it to do a before and after turbo swap , after turbo swap, bone stock 88 t-bird drive train, set at like 10 lbs ran a 15.92 and I forget the mph, now its running 13.50's consistently with basically stock stuff that has lots of tweaking and lots of boost, go with a turbo swap
you can build an n/a 2.3 that will run 15-14 in the 1/4 but it wont be very streetable at all , old boss had a pinto with a n/a 2.3 that would do it but it was a major pain to drive on the street and he had bookoo money and time in it
I am running NHRA stock class with a 87 2.3 Mustang. Will weight 2480 with me in it. Have to run at least 16.45 ET. Will have long tube headers , 512 gears , T5 trans. , after market performance , but stock lift camshaft, water pump delete, Fast XFI computer. I can run a roller camshaft if it would help. Just had the car painted. Hope I can make the 16.45 ET index.
cam is going to screw you, the power is in the head and cam, if you get the head to flow good, deck it to raise compression, and put a big cam in it that's how you make an n/a run stock cam is pissing in the wind as far as im concerned but I could be wrong