Durability of the 5.0...

Don't look at junk yards. All of those cars will have salvage titles. You want a V8 car owned by a secretary who did not know that you have to change the oil in a car. Doing a V6 to V8 swap will cost as much as starting with a V8 car and it will take a lot of time.

People have tried to do V8 swaps in mustangs since the 60's. I have not found a single person that would do it again (with the exception of billing mechanics).

You are 19 and have plenty of energy, but swaping an old V8 for a new V8 is a big enough project for you.

It's all about patience and luck.

I picked up a newspaper one day and saw '94 mustang cobra $5,500. I knew that is really low for a cobra, but I called any way and it had front end dammage from a slow speed crash. I got the price down to $3850.

I can do the repair myself, I'm just waiting for cheap used parts. I will have it fixed and a full paint job for about $2500. $6150 for a Cobra with a new paint job. That is dirt cheap.

It's just luck that I picked up the paper that day. I have read the paper about 10 times in the following 6 months, I might have read the classifieds twice. I could have missed it easily, so there was my luck. Now I'm using my patience and waiting for cheap parts.

So read the classified adds, and look for the places in town where people park their cars with for sale signs.

If you want to get really sneaky, look for them at repair shops. That secretary really wants a new car when her old one breaks down.

And by the way, the Cobra has 113K and it's running strong, but it has had it's ballencer and timing chain replaced.

We have a pickup where I work with a 5.0 in it and about 150,000 miles. It hasn't had coolant in it since I started working there. Somehow it still runs fine. Granted, it only runs about 10-15 minutes at a time around the property, but it gets beat to hell.

I currently have 163,000 miles on my car, the mods in sig have been on for about 20,000 of those miles. Everything on the car is stock, T5, clutch and longblock. Doesn't use any oil.

xxtavixx said:

That's what I've been thinking. I'm not a newbie, but I do not have the knowledge to just come right up and do a full out swap like that. With some help I could do a straight v8 swap but I wouldn't dream of a wiring harness for a while. I've never taken a motor out, the farthest I've been was with my Mazda, I took her down to the heads ready to come off (cams still in). Do you have any idea where to find the "Secretary" car?

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I was looking for a Mustang for about 10 months. I knew exactly what I wanted, it was just a matter of finding it. Finally I stumbled across one on autotrader.com, down in San Antonio, which is close by to where I live. So I went down there and ended up buying it on the spot. I gave $6000 cash for a 1994 GT Convertible 5 spd with 81,000 miles on it. The guy that had it before me, babied it like nobodies business. Now that I got a few bugs worked out, the thing runs perfectly! So it's just a matter of time before you find the right one.