1983 Ford Mustang

Hey all, I hesitate to start this thread now, because I know it will progress glacially. But...I type on. On 11/24/14 I spy an ad for an '83 Mustang. no engine/transmission. Originally a 5.0/4 speed car according to the owner. Asking $1K. I was excited that it was not a t-top car or a convertible. The asking price and condition meant I could probably score a deal if I moved quickly. On 11/25/14 I show up to see a ragged out car that's still intact. It has subframe connectors, weld "draglite" wheels (which I actually like the look of, but the skinny's out front are not the style I'm going to go with), Louvers on the hatch, and some funky fiberglass hood. Here she be:  

 Drag-launch stance courtesy no drivetrain. It's a ragged old car. Interior is pretty much neglected stock with no back seat, long-gone headliner fabric, and other assorted missing pieces...typical of a project of this caliber. I thought I was pushing my luck when I offered half of asking price. I soon realized, I should have pushed more. I bought the car. Thanks to psteav and Mrs.Sparks (tm) for helping retrieve the project, which was pretty darn easy, actually.

 It rolled on the trailer just fine. The hardest part was climbing out through the hatch (full of headers, springs, door panels, and more). My trailer's tall fenders (low ride height) prevent opening the doors once the car is loaded. Power windows and no battery means I got to climb out the hatch after the car was loaded. Yay!

One annoying problem with the car is that the lower core support is messed up from having been tugged on.

 Otherwise, the engine compartment is mostly ready to scrub down and load up with a 5 liter.

Speaking of 5 liter... The day I dragged the Mustang home, I started searching for partsandpieces to put it together. Quite surpsisingly, I found an ad for an '87 Toyota truck with a 5.0/T5 in it an no rearend. A stalled project.

So...I called the owner and set up a time. Today, I hitched up the trailer and grabbed some cash. After $300 and a fair bit of time trying to load it up safely, I came home with my drivetrain, packaged in a cute little pickemup truck.

Edit one year+ later...here's a shot of the engine in the Toyota: 

This thread is full of win

Now, today was 60 degrees and sunny, so I was lucky. I'm into this project for less than a grand (before selling off unneeded stuff) and I've collected a lot of stuff I need in less than a week. This is the quickest START to a project I can recall.

It'll get cold and I won't be able to do anything on it until it warms up...so there's that.

Overall plan is to put together a fun street car on the cheap.

I'll need to come up with a transmission crossmember, driveshaft, shifter, engine mounts, transmission mount lots of bracketry, headers/exhaust, wheels/tires, and that kind of stuff just to make it run. There will be lots of cleanup and repair in the mix as well.

I don't want to make it nice so much as make it mechanically solid and fun to drive.

We'll see where this goes.

Unlike most projects I bring home, I actually think I'll hang onto this one and the project will likely move forward. That's incredibly rare for me.

Here we go.

Love it. Long ago I owned an '84 5.0, some days I miss the fox body goodness.

That is a great start!

Looking forward to this one!

Can I come over and play?

Looks like a fun project. I love the pre-87 Fox Mustangs. It should be fun picking that Toyota apart too. Good score.

The previous owner touted the rearend as an 8.8". I was pretty sure an '83 wouldn't have come with an 8.8. However, I was hopeful it had been swapped at some point. No such luck, I think.

Oh well. I'll add an 8.8" rearend to the list of items for which to scour craigslist.

That's the car my buddy drove in High School. Lot's of great memories...and a few crashes.

If you can get a straight on pic of the inspection cover we'll be able to tell for sure. A 7.5 is a circle with flats on the top and bottom and an 8.8 is a square with rounded corners.

Interested in a set of GT40P heads?

I am not really into Mustangs (Dad was a Chevy guy what can I say!) and this looks like a fun project!

pull the 7.5, put it in the pickup, sell truck for $$ ... buy parts for 'stang! 8.8's seem plentiful and cheap. A lot of the automatic GT's came with 3.27's which is still a land speed gear but it's a decent compromise. :)

If you can pick up a 3.27 from a GT convertible (I gave mine to a buddy) it's a great match to the T-5. Perfect around town gearing and with the OD fifth gear and that rear end, you'll out run everything out there on the highway.

I have parts Clem

The_Jed wrote: If you can get a straight on pic of the inspection cover we'll be able to tell for sure. A 7.5 is a circle with flats on the top and bottom and an 8.8 is a square with rounded corners. Interested in a set of GT40P heads?

Thanks,

I already convinced myself it's a 7.5" after a quick google image search.

GT40 heads? Yes, I'm interested. You can see the kind of deals I latch onto above ;).

Clem

Beagle wrote: pull the 7.5, put it in the pickup...

Interesting. I started to dismiss this idea in my mind since it's not "bolt-in" but then thought, "It's not much welding."

It's going to be very hard to resist the temptation to put the toyota together. Very difficult indeed.

i love all things foxbody, exspecially the 4 eye cars. If the torque boxes are still solid and this thing is going to see some abuse you should look into battle boxes. 87-93 cars came with the 8.8 in a few different gear sets. auto gt's are mostly 2.73 trac loc cars, 5 speed gt's got 3.73's and a trac loc unless special ordered with another gear set.

Not to put too fine a point on it but they didn't put 3.73's in any 5.0 that I've ever seen. Turbo coupe tbirds had 3.55's and 3.73's but not the 5.0 Mustang. There are a lot of 3.08 cars, the 2.73's mentioned, and 3.27 cars. 3.55's, 3.73's, and 4.10's are common from the Explorers, 1/2 tons, or 4.0 liter Rangers. My '90 is a five speed coupe, came with 3.08's. My '87 is a GT / AOD and has 3.27's. A 2.73 gearset is a pig with either transmission, imo. Great if you plan to use a diesel. :)

I'd pull the cover and count teeth on a candidate Mustang rear, it's pretty normal to see them changed out. If you're getting just the gearset from a passenger car or truck, it's more likely to see the gear in the case that is actually listed on the tag attached to the rear cover...

I'm hoping that the 7.5 there indicates the torque boxes will be okay, I'd expect the rear to grenade first.

ClemSparks wrote:

The_Jed wrote: If you can get a straight on pic of the inspection cover we'll be able to tell for sure. A 7.5 is a circle with flats on the top and bottom and an 8.8 is a square with rounded corners. Interested in a set of GT40P heads?

Thanks, I already convinced myself it's a 7.5" after a quick google image search. GT40 heads? Yes, I'm interested. You can see the kind of deals I latch onto above ;). Clem

Hope I'm not being a KIA PITA but I thought I'd share since I've been down this road. The GT40P Explorer head has a different spark plug angle than the GT40 and is kind of header specific.. a lot of long tube headers work fine. Shorties may or may not, and equal length shorties are a definite no-go. GT40's from a boat or Lighnting are 351 heads and will have a 1/2 head bolt hole instead of the hole for a 7/16 head bolt that the 302's use. You can use centering washers to use the 351 heads on the 302 if you get them. The "Cobra" GT40's are pretty rare but they have the small bolt hole. I think they are the same part number (regular GT40's) on the first year and a half of V8 Exploders and then they swapped over to the GT40p sometime in '97 I believe.

If I remember, there are 3 bars for a casting mark on the end of a GT40 head and 4 bars on the GT40p. The GT40p has a "GT40P" casting mark in the valve tray of the head, pretty hard to mistake. :)

cobra gt40's also look like tubes...

http://www.fiveohinfo.com/performance/gt40-gt40p.html

Ah, the upper intake variances! The tube kind are GT40, there's the early and late Exploder "cobra" type and then there's the Ford "Cobra" intake... lol.

The late Explorer "cobra" type intake also uses external EGR and has no passage in the lower for EGR / manifold heating (small hole in the middle of the picture above)so two different (three if you count the GT40 lower for a 351) lowers to go with the four different uppers.

Being an '83, I'd probably go with a Performer RPM or Weiand Stealth dual plane, a 650 vacuum secondary Holley, and not sweat it unless you're into hunting down EFI harnesses. I'm not sure if an RPM Air Gap will fit under the hood. Never tried it, but that would be the best of the dual planes imo.

In reply to Beagle:

Good info!

From what I've been able to find the gt40p heads will work with the o.e. '86-'93 1 1/2" primary headers. Supposedly anything larger will not. YMMV.

Clem:

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/200x-classifieds/any-interest-in-98-00-50-exploder-intakes-and-gt40p-heads/96483/page1/