Cheapest motor builup.....HELP

mine is costing me well over 3 grand - eddy rpm heads, cobra intake, e cam, 70 mm throttle body, (88 car) so sd to mass air conversion, meaning computer, MAF meter, harness, engine bay paint, valve covers, gasket kit, gaskets for heads and intake (kit is for stock components) did a new water pump, new motor mounts, feels like upper 3's now, almost 4 grand

Paul Perreca

Speed cost money, how fast do you want to go? No way around it. You could get a gear (3.73-4.10) the explorer intake and heads (which you will also need the headers for the heads, they are different) 65mmTB, O/R midpipe, catback, MAF and the car would definatly move out a lot better than stock, but if you want to play with the big boys your going to need a lot more. If there was a cheap way to do it, everyone would be doing it already, but there is "wiser" appoaches as well.

800 for ported stock heads? www.thumperoforangepark.com
i wish i would have just spent the money and bought some of these instead of spending all that time porting my own

I don't necessarily think you need injectors for that kind of power but what do I know. As far as the other stuff, if you happen to be chummy with a junk man you might be able to snag the GT40 parts off an exploder or mountaineer for cheap. I picked up gt40p's for $50 with all the valve train parts. He wanted me to take the intake for another $50 but I already have a Cobra. If you factor in all the other crap to clean those parts up it might be worth going with Thumper, especially since he's got packages with cams. Don't know the dollars and cents because I never add up receipts, it makes me feel like putting the car in neutral and letting it roll over me.

Keep in mind the Thumper E7's have a 5 angle valve job, new seals, basically rebuilt and ported. Most head shops will charge a similar amount just to rebuild them. Also, Mike (thumper460) really knows his stuff, there is a lot more to porting than just making the ports bigger. The $595 price isn't bad when you consider all of what is done. Remember, these heads being stock are 100% bolt on, other heads will require little misc things and issues. The $895 includes spring upgrade, cam, and timing chain, really not a bad deal. I had the Thumper E7's with spring upgrade. I was more than happy with them, like all thumper customers. I just outgrew them. I have TFS's sitting on a shelf right now, planning on a 347, might send him the TFS's if money goes right before spring.

yea - stock heads are stage one, thumpers are stage two, and Aluminums are stage three, like 90mustangGT said, he outgrew stage two, like probably everyone does, so when I had stage 1, i went right to stage 3, skipping stage 2, and I advise you to do the same, so you don't have to spend the money 2 times... good luck man, hope alls well, but the truth is, thumpers are lookin like your best bet right now considering the head gaskets are stock, pushrods stock, headbolts stock, you can use all of your components, I got the Eddy heads, had to get special gaskets for 40 bucsk, head bolts for like 50, hardened pushrods for 110, 1.6 roller rockers for 219 - it was crazy i thought heads were like 1100 and than they ended up being around1500 lol plus the intake and cam, and throttle and all kinds of ****... dude, one thing leads to another, your spending some money... go thumper - he seems like a nice guy, tell him your a school teacher, lol he waives some kind of fee! lol later
Paul Perreca