Engine Pull Out And Rebuild

[tubbaguts]

In the spring time I purchased a 91 LX 5.0 that had been sitting for a while but does run and drive. We plan to pull the engine to repair the leaking oil pan gasket in the coming months but I am thinking that while the engine is out this is a great time to make any repair or modifications to the engine. Below is a current list of what the engine has when I bought it.
Stock heads - from what I can tell
Ford Racing B303 cam
Edlebrock Performer 5.0 RPM II intake manifold
BBK 65mm throttle body and spacer
MAC shorty headers
stock injectors (I believe as beige in color)
Under drive pulley
So my question is, what is the best way to tell if I need to tear the whole motor apart or not? It leaks oil but does not seem to burn oil as we have not needed to add oil since last oil change a few months back and we don't have any oil residue at the exhaust. It does have a high end (4k rpm) miss/sputter which leads me to believe I need new injectors. Once I have the oil pan off I can get a visual of the crank and such but obviously would need to take a part the upper half to get to heads and pistons. Would like to get the horsepower up and with the cam/intake it may be possible. Probably need new heads to hit over 300+ horsepower at the wheels. Would like to hear thoughts / opinions / experience on the subject.

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

In the spring time I purchased a 91 LX 5.0 that had been sitting for a while but does run and drive. We plan to pull the engine to repair the leaking oil pan gasket in the coming months but I am thinking that while the engine is out this is a great time to make any repair or modifications to the engine. Below is a current list of what the engine has when I bought it.
Stock heads - from what I can tell
Ford Racing B303 cam
Edlebrock Performer 5.0 RPM II intake manifold
BBK 65mm throttle body and spacer
MAC shorty headers
stock injectors (I believe as beige in color)
Under drive pulley
So my question is, what is the best way to tell if I need to tear the whole motor apart or not? It leaks oil but does not seem to burn oil as we have not needed to add oil since last oil change a few months back and we don't have any oil residue at the exhaust. It does have a high end (4k rpm) miss/sputter which leads me to believe I need new injectors. Once I have the oil pan off I can get a visual of the crank and such but obviously would need to take a part the upper half to get to heads and pistons. Would like to get the horsepower up and with the cam/intake it may be possible. Probably need new heads to hit over 300+ horsepower at the wheels. Would like to hear thoughts / opinions / experience on the subject.

I just had my engine out this past winter doing similar things for the same reasons. My oil pan, valve covers, and rear main seal were all leaking. Cause for leak primarily was a bad PCV. The crank pressure had to place to escape so it blows the seals out. Make sure a new PCV and grommet is part of the plan or you'll be doing this again. B cam sounds cool at idle but there's better out there. What are you goals and purpose for this car? Daily driver to work? Fun toy on the weekends? Drag strip? The cam and other power upgrades will depend on purpose and HP goal. Do you have a manual transmission or automatic?

One more thing, stock 19# injectors are orange, not sure which are gray. The 4k rpm miss could be an electrical issue like distributor or your MAF could be mismatched with your injectors. Another cause could be fuel delivery related or even weak fuel pressure.

 

[tubbaguts]

Thanks for the tip on the PVC.
The car is an automatic and the previous owner had it rebuilt, added higher stall speed torque converter (did not remember the rpm) and a shift kit plus 4.10 gears. Our plan is a weekend cruiser, some daily driving around town and the occasional 1/8 mile Friday night drags. Would like to reuse a many of the aftermarket products as we can and we love the idle of the B cam even though have read there are much better cams out there. I believe the MAF was swapped at one point as well as the wires for the sensor have been spliced. I am the third owner but the first two did not do a great job of documenting everything they did.

 

[FoxMustangLvr]

Sounds to me that the previous owner (PO) hacked it up a bit. We need to see where we are before you can plan on what to reuse and how to upgrade there. I understand how budgets go and don't expect an unlimited budget from anyone. With a simple B cam and upgraded intake manifold there is no need to increase fuel injector size. The stock 19# injectors and stock fuel pump would do the job just fine for those upgrades. We need to identify what injectors you have and the MAF. You cannot simply upgrade injectors without a properly matching MAF or tuning or it won't run correctly. Remember, fuel upgrades such as injectors and fuel pumps only supporty HP, they do not create HP. See pic below of popular injectors for our vehicle. You won't need to step up in injector size unless you upgrade your cylinder heads to a better flowing piece like TFS, AFR, or Edelbrock or if you were to go with forced induction.

 

[General karthief]

Get the engine to run correctly before you pull it out, things can get really hard to fix if you don't. Run the codes, there is a thread in the 5.0 tech/how to section,
I'm also curious why the maf wires where spliced, and how it was done, butt connectors would be a no no.

 

[revhead347]

Get the engine to run correctly before you pull it out, things can get really hard to fix if you don't. Run the codes, there is a thread in the 5.0 tech/how to section,
I'm also curious why the maf wires where spliced, and how it was done, butt connectors would be a no no.

This. Much easier to get it run correctly first then try and work out the kinks on a new engine. Most sputters are ignition, not injectors. Check all the ignition stuff and the timing first.

I rarely recommend rebuilding engines in that performance range anymore. You can get a rebuilt short block at your favorite parts store for a fraction of what it cost to rebuild. Is it the best engine, no? Do you really need a torque plate honed short block for an iron head cruiser, no? Just something to think about.

Kurt

 

[tubbaguts]

Thank you for all the feed back folks. Has given me some options I had not thought about.