Ok...I'm a college kid workin' on a slim budget here so keep that in mind.
My car is a 91 LX 5.0. I've had a T-5 swap and full exhaust and that's pretty much it for mods. The motor has 165K miles on it. I've had the car since it had 83K...about half the cars life. As far as I can tell the car was well maintained before I bought it with the only modification being the removal of the air silencer. The engine bay is by far the cleanest stock bay I've EVER seen on any 5.0. There have never been any leaks or internal motor problems of which I'm aware. It burns about almost exactly a quart every 3000 miles which is said to be normal for that many miles. Oil pressure stays just above the M in NORMAL and always has. Pretty much the car is perfect.
Ok...that's the good news.. here's my delimma. I'm finally ready to start bolting on all the standard go fast goodies and am planning to strap a blower on it when all the regular motor work is complete.
Given that I plan on a 450hp set-up in the long term. Should I go ahead and start a build up from scratch...w/ a fresh shortblock (preventing any down time on my daily driver?)...OR given the good history record of my motor at hand...just build up the motor ...strap a blower on it and see what happens? I would like to know what kind of reliablility i should expect outta an older shortblock. Anybody else have a high mileage motor with a supercharger on it?...What have been your experiences?
Thanks guys.
My car is a 91 LX 5.0. I've had a T-5 swap and full exhaust and that's pretty much it for mods. The motor has 165K miles on it. I've had the car since it had 83K...about half the cars life. As far as I can tell the car was well maintained before I bought it with the only modification being the removal of the air silencer. The engine bay is by far the cleanest stock bay I've EVER seen on any 5.0. There have never been any leaks or internal motor problems of which I'm aware. It burns about almost exactly a quart every 3000 miles which is said to be normal for that many miles. Oil pressure stays just above the M in NORMAL and always has. Pretty much the car is perfect.
Ok...that's the good news.. here's my delimma. I'm finally ready to start bolting on all the standard go fast goodies and am planning to strap a blower on it when all the regular motor work is complete.
Given that I plan on a 450hp set-up in the long term. Should I go ahead and start a build up from scratch...w/ a fresh shortblock (preventing any down time on my daily driver?)...OR given the good history record of my motor at hand...just build up the motor ...strap a blower on it and see what happens? I would like to know what kind of reliablility i should expect outta an older shortblock. Anybody else have a high mileage motor with a supercharger on it?...What have been your experiences?
Thanks guys.