I need a pointed direction for my rebuild

[MarkVII5.0]

I am in the middle of deciding between which mustang to buy, I have lined up to decide either a 87, 88 or 89 GT, or my other choices are a 90, 91, or 92 LX. The choice I make is in the $2500-3000 price range.

But whatever the decision ends up being, the cars are all basically stock with miles averaging from 70K to 100K. So, needless to say i'm going to have to do some rebuilding to kill the stockness because I am going to make some nice HP. I do have somewhat of a budget to work with which is about $2000-2500 to spend putting into the car so I have created some ideas:

My main theory is to start with the engine and leave everything stock for the time being due to my budget.
1) I can purchase a shortblock with a decent amount of horsepower for around $2000-2500, but I will be leaving the heads & intake stock for now as well as all other bolt ons to the engine.

2) I can buy a Crank & Stroker kit ranging from $1000-2000 and also a nice cam & lifter kit to go with this, also leaving the rest of the engine stock, intake, heads etc. One question with this, do you suggest that I buy a new block with this idea? If not why, if so why and maybe a suggestion to which one, i was thinking maybe a new sporstman.

Could you please give me all your thoughts because I really need all the input I can get so I can decide which way to go which would be the cheapest with the most horsepower I can get for my $2000-2500. And if there are any other aspects that I left out or that I must also consider or research please do share all info.

Of course down the road after that part of the engine is rebuilt I will throw on some nice heads & intake & headers, probably trickflow intakes and heads, any suggestions?

Purpose of car is not to be a strick drag car, I want it to have lots of HP eventually, but it will also be driven on the streets, just not daily car though.

 

[Daggar]

Ok... if no one else will bite I will. In the situation you describe I would do this:
Go with the 90 - 92 LX. It has 5 lug disk brakes all around and will eventually save you money having to convert. Regardless of which car you decide to go with make sure you do all you can to ensure the integrity of the short block (I know, prolly a silly thing to say but too important to leave out).

The stock block with a stroker kit and stud girdle will be safe to around 500 HP (provided all is done correctly). You can tune down the combination so that you can use your stock heads etc. with the stoker kit until you have the money to do more (it'll depend a lot on what cam you put in). The sportsman block (while a nice piece) sounds like overkill for what you're trying to do and is expensive. Unless you're planning on racing everyday, the stock block and 500 HP (if you decide to take it that far) will be more than plenty. After that you're just increasing the length of your burnout marks on the pavement.

Decide if you want to go supercharger or normally aspirated before you put inthe stroker kit and build it to the compression ratio that suits whichever way you're going. Keep in mind that with a supercharger you can tune it down to run on the current block then change the pulley and tune it up later when the stoker kit and low compression pistons are installed. If you do that... just make sure you get a blower that is capable of 'growing' with your motor. It would suck to spent $3k - $4k on a blower and discover that it's not capable of feeding your new combination.

My final thought is drivability. Whatever you do (since you plan on street driving) make sure you do your research and not mod anything that requires you to run on more than pump gas.

 

[mike93lx]

how will you buy a shortblock with a decent amount of power?

don't decide what to do til you have the car. you need to know the condition of the motor to make proper decisions on mods, imo. if you get a stang with a strong motor, i would recommend thumper heads, tmoss lower, maybe an ecam, and some rear gears to start. of course some exhaust and intake parts if money allows.

you could go the stroker route, but if you leave the top of the motor stock, you would see much of a power gain from the extra cubes.

i wouldn't touch the cam until you do other mods, otherwise you will simply lose power.

just my $0.02

-Mike

 

[TIMMY2734]

First off, ignore most of Daggars post..............................

Id start with the basics with any car you get. But the order will be decided by you. For about 2000-2500 you can get a nice HCI combo, thats assuming you do all the work yourself. Stuff will get left out though, liek TB injectors MAM and what not, but it wont you very much, if any at all. If you do go this route get a 5 speed, otherwise you will be spending another 500 or so for a converter so that you can drive the car.

You could just go from the ground up, which it sounds like you dont want to do right now. Shocks, struts, springs and subframes(should be done regardless) If you spend your money wisely, you should be able to find a cheap, but good used blower in the 1000-2000 range and have soemthing pretty decent all around.


id hold off on your stroker plans. Youd be much better off with the HCI combo at this point. Changing the cam is pretty much pointless with the stock heads. Assuming something in the neighborhood of 1hp per ci, youd gain 30-40 hp over stock plus a great deal more torque. The HCI wil put you around 350 at the flywheel...

theres stuff that needs to be done regardless, subframes and gears to name a couple but maybe you have a somewhat better idea of what youd liek to do. Search the classifieds as well. Sometiems you can find some good deals on there.

 

[Venom4.6]

Hey Dagger, All Fox bodies(except 93 Cobra) are 4 Lug with disk brakes in the front and drums in the rear. Do your homework first before you misinform others.

Go with a 89-93 5 speed LX. They are MAF and not speed density.

 

[Daggar]

Hey Dagger, All Fox bodies(except 93 Cobra) are 4 Lug with disk brakes in the front and drums in the rear. Do your homework first before you misinform others.

Go with a 89-93 5 speed LX. They are MAF and not speed density.

Hey, if you see an error then point out the error. Otherwise... don't be an ass.

 

[MadMatt5oh]

Dont pump out advice when you dont know I dont think anyone was being an ass. You gave misinformed advice.