my 5.0 build

[LumpyCheeseman]

so i'm planning on buying my friend's 89 gm pretty soon, and am trying to get my parts list together before i get the car. i found this site, and hopefully i can find all the info i need amongst all the different categories here.
i admit, i'm usually a chevy guy (flame me if you want, i dont feckin' care), and most of what i know about ford is this: the 300 straight six is a goddamn tank, i had one. most of what i know relates to imports and small domestics, mostly 4 banger stuff, but i do know a bit about sbc's as well. but obviously my sbc experience wont help me much here, as all motors are different.

now that that is out of the way, i can get to my goals.

i plan on grabbing a (relatively) low mileage 5.0 H.O. from a mustang, and want to prepare it before dumping it it in the marq. as i'm rebuilding i am wanting to build it up some as well. i have a pretty good idea of what will work, so bear with me and correct anything i have wrong.
I'm basing all of this on a 5.0 no newer than 93.

my final part goal after its all the other parts is a supercharger. jegs sells units from both vortech and paxton. both brands offer a couple options.
paxton offers a 5-6psi unit, +50hp, and a 8-10psi unit, +103hp.
vortech offers a 5psi unit, +70hp, and a 8-10psi unit, +126hp.
i know that for the long run i will want durability, so i should go with a lower hp unit, but i dont want to spend the money for a low hp producer, so i was thinking the 103hp paxton, what are your guys' thoughts?

so, first on the actual build sheet, pistons, i'm not looking to go wild with this motor, just mild wicked. i'm thinking .010 over when i rebuild, to go with the proposed boost. what are good brands to go with? i haven't had any experience in a complete build up yet. also, who do i go with for the rings, and will my stock con rods handle the boost?

second, cam. will a stock h.o. cam be sufficient, otherwise, what other ford cam(s) should i look for when i do the rebuild?

third, rockers. i want to upgrade the rockers, and i have seen on here people talking of the 1.7. who makes these, which are the better brands.

fourth, intake setup. to start with, which intake is better, the h.o., the cobra, or the gt40?
what size is the opening on each, as in what is the max tb size i can go with, granted i wont necessarily go with the absolute biggest, just wondering what options there are.
I'm looking through jegs, and a i see a few, i look through summit and i see more, ranging from 65mm to 75mm.
has anyone used the intake spacers that raise the top half of the intake up a little bit? are they good?
or, the alternative, bbk makes a manifold. from what i understand, it is quite the improvement over most. also comes with 70mm tb if desired.

fifth, ignition. with the boost i am gonna be running colder plugs, and i also plan on upgrading my ignition as well. i am planning on running an accel setup, coil, cap and rotor, wireset.

sixth, exhaust. i'm looking at bbk/magnaflow combo. bbk has equal length shorty headers and h-pipe with cat converts and 02 sensor housings, both of which i'm led to believe will fit under these tanks. i plan on using magnaflow muffers, and i see that magnaflow has a cat back for the mustangs, would that fit? if not, i can always have a local shop bend up a cat back for me.

other misc performance stuff. bbk offers:
performance in tank pumps, 110lph through 255lph. i understand these are made to be direct replacements for the mustangs, but would they fit the gm tank as well?
udp's. gotta have an underdrive set. it goes without saying.
bbk also offers a couple of dressup items as well, and a cai if i should for some reason find myself content without the boost.


i have listed bbk for items where possible, since they seem to have a pretty complete selection of bolt-ons for the 5.0. i figure it would stand to reason that the multiple components from the same company would work well together.


i'm sure that most of you have gathered from my list here that i'm not looking to drag race or anything, i just want a well performing street machine.

also, what transmission and rear end are in these cars?

hopefully i covered everything here, and i hope to get some feedback on this.

thanks.

[LumpyCheeseman]

also forgot to ask, how much of the emissions crap can i remove to clean up the engine bay and still keep the motor functional w/ decent mileage?

[91LTDProject]

You can remove The A.I.R pump, the crossover tube on the back of the engine, all the valves and crap connected in the AIR system, and the tube that goes down below to the cats. You have to plug the holes in the back of the heads when you remove the crossover tube. and re-route the EGR and EVR vacumn lines, that cleans up the engine bay alot, But getting rid of the A/C system frees up even more space. Dunno if you wanna go that route or not, but thats what I did. I just did an emissions equipment delete on my car, and theres a fairly large thread on it, hope this helps. http://www.grandmarq.net/vb/showthread.php?t=16514

[Grand Marquis GT]

Got a budget?

A couple suggestions, the supercharger systems won't be a direct bolt on, for CV/GM and Stang accessory drives are completely different. However, with enough creativity, it can be done.

and before you do all this, you gotta have a well built trans. All this power will kill a stock AOD, which ain't all that great stock to begin with.

Intake? A good budget intake that will outperform all of those listed is the Professional Products Power+Plus intake. They can be had for about 300 dollars.

A stock HO cam ould work well, but since you are almost def going to have to convert to mass air, i'd run a blower cam, or a trickflow cam if staying non-boosted.

Also, heads are a major bottleneck with this setup. Get better ones!

I will try to write more later, or someone else will. Good luck, and keep us updated!

[Mercracer]

so i'm planning on buying my friend's 89 gm pretty soon, and am trying to get my parts list together before i get the car. i found this site, and hopefully i can find all the info i need amongst all the different categories here.

This is not a budget build, so if cash is short you may want to hold off on the blower for a while and focus on the rest of the car.
Think of your car as a heavy Mustang. Formulas for a performance Mustang are long proven. A slow car with a blower is no fun for you and not impressive to your friends or the ricer at the light. 50lbs of boost thru a straw will not get you much airflow. Applying this fact to your project will get you further ahead. There is no advantage to you spending money on a Mustang engine vs just building your GM engine. 6lbs of boost is all you need to feed your plant. Find yourself a good used Trick Flow, Holley or Edelbrock intake and a used set of Trick Flow Twisted Wedge heads.
You don't need a cam larger than the HO cam. You have a heavy car, want some fuel efficiency, and the boost will take care of getting air into and out of the engine. With the HO cam, you will not need custom pistons to match the TW heads.
I am a fan of FRPP headers as you can get at the bolts easily.
65-70mm TB is large enough. The blower manufacturers can advise you on MAF but 73-80mm is all the MAF meter size that you need. Your AOD will definitely need help and a looser converter will help it live. Your car has an 8.8 axle which is strong enough with a fresh diff and gears if you are running the car on the street with street tires.

[gadget73]

Mercracer makes excellent points, and knows what he's talking about.

A few other things I see you mentioned:
underdrives: only one company makes a set specific for the accessory drive in a panther chassis car, ASP racing. Mustang underdrives won't work. Of course since a blower isn't likely to work directly on stock accessories, you'll quite probably need to change the accessory brackets to Mustang stuff anyway, so basically I guess it doesn't matter much.

The fuel pumps for Mustangs work with some slight creativity. The bodies are smaller than the stock pump, so you have to use a hose clamp to keep the Mustang pump in position on the pickup unit. The stock pump just sits in a rubber condom thing. I punched holes in the side of the condom and used a hose clamp to secure the Mustang pump in place, works fine.

Lots of people make 1.7 rockers, common ones are Crane and Scorpion rockers. I'd go with a full roller rocker vs a stamped steel one or steel with a roller tip. Less valvetrain friction.

The stock ignition stuff is not horribly designed, usually if you're keeping EFI, a hotter coil and a good wireset, cap, and rotor are all you need. With the boost though, I don't know. It might need something more powerful. I'd probably stay away from Accel TFI modules though. I had one fail in a couple months, and I know of at least one other premature failure. I'm running a 20 year old Motorcraft TFI on my car and its running fine.

[LumpyCheeseman]

ok, gonna try to respond to all here.
as far as budget, i will be trying to find some of th stuff on ebay. i do realize that a lot of this stuff isnt exactly cheap, like the bbk intake. i will also be doing the extrernal stuff piece by peice, i am gonna focus on the internals first.

in regards to building a mustang motor instead of rebuilding the gm motor, is that i would still need to drive the gm while making the mony for all the parts , thats why i figure if i start with a good mustang motor, i already have a little more power to start with, if i grab a ho motor.

i hadnt really planned on replacing the heads, since the boost isnt 100% gonna be there, it all depends on how much i like it n/a after everything else is on. but if do end up replacing the heads, thanks for the suggestion of the trick flow.

as far as the intake goes, i'm still looking at the bbk, but that might yet change.

if the ho cam is a happy medium for performance while still retaining gas mileage, than i will prolly go with that one. who would be a good vendor to get a new one from?

for the headers, i'm really too worried about access of the bolts, since i plan on installing the headers before i drop the motor in, unless for some unforeseen reason the motor wont drop into a BIG x HUGE motor bay with headers attached

i'm gonna guess then from responses and also from what i'm seeing around my catalogs and whatnot that a 70mm tb would be a happy medium?

gmgt, you mention that the accessory drives are different between the gm and the mustang, if i were to utilize the mustang accessory drive, would i have any problems with the gm harness? i do want to retain my ac and obviously i need the alternator.

i was planning on replacing the tranny with a performance unit, i guess one from b&m, since i have always heard good things about them.
with all these upgrades, and extra power, i wonder, is the powerband moving up with these? i know that i would need a stall converter with a higher stall speed to match the power band. again, i'm looking at b&m, which one should i go with?
i also plan on installing a b&m floor shifter as well, as i'm gonna redo the interior a little bit, but thats for another part of the forum lol.

the car has an 8.8"? cool. what would be a good gearing setup for my application? i dont drag race, i think it sucks, anybody can go in a straight line. i prefer road race or auto cross kind of stuff. i'm a very spirited street driver.
as for the tire setup, i have no plans to run anything less than a 255 wide tire. a car that big with the way i drive? <pfft> no way i'm going anything less. i drive a cavalier now, and it has 215's, too skinny, i slide a good bit.

"Think of your car as a heavy Mustang"
i was planning on it rofl. thats what i've been basing my ideas on, and partially why i was considering a supercharger.

i've always heard good things about crane, so i will prolly go with them for the rockers.

accel isnt so good after all? i guess i go with msd then lol.

i'm glad to have such positive responses and hope i can get many more!!

[Mercracer]

I do not have confidence in a B&M AOD. There are other tranny builders out there who would be a better choice.
If you are going to start with a low budget NA motor, then you can not beat a low mileage Explorer motor. GT40(P) heads and GT40 style intake and a decent torque cam. If you would end up with a 97+ motor with the GT40P heads, then the FRPP headers are definitely the ticket. 6lbs of boost on an Explorer motor with a cam change is good for 12's in your GM. Your cam and your heads are going to dictate whether you run 1.7 or 1.6 RRs. You get a significant increase in lift at the valve with 1.7 rockers.

[Mercracer]

Today's your lucky day.............

I live in Green Bay.......

[gadget73]

Yeah, the stock un-modified heads are no big deal. GT40/GT40p heads are much better stock for stock. The E7 can be worked on to perform well, but it takes a lot of work to get them there, and with a lot less you can get pretty darn similar out of a gt40 head. If you're going aftermarket, then its a whole different realm but if you're looking to do this with reasonably priced production parts, the Explorer motor is the way to go as a starting point if you want the best bang for your buck. The stock springs on the Explorer heads are garbage, but its not a major ordeal to rebuild the heads with fresh seals, etc and new valve springs. The stock HO head springs aren't anything super special either, and after 15-20 years they could stand replacement as well.

Not sure about new HO cams, they're a Ford part so if you can't get one new from Ford, you're SOL. They're a roller cam, and seldom really wear or anything, so used ones aren't an issue. Explorer cams also aren't bad but they lose it a bit on top compared to the HO cam. Good low end power though.

You can drop a complete longblock in there with the headers attatched, as long as your exhaust is out of the way.

Wiring harness would need minor changes, mostly regarding the plugs for the AC compressor and alternator. I'd suggest dumping the stock alt because they're feeble and crappy anyway, and upgrade to the newer 3g type. This eliminates needing to move most of the wiring. You will need to keep the single green wire thats attatched to the existing one, and thats it. AC you'll need to extend the wiring to move the plug over. Might also need to extend the wiring for the ignition coil depending where it currently lives and find a new home for it. Some years mount the coil on the AC compressor bracket.

AC lines might be a little interesting, probably you will need to do some custom work, unless maybe Mark VII lines can be made to work. Shouldn't be anything too horrible, but be prepared for not being able to find a production line that works for what you need.

3.55 or 3.73 gears should do well for your application. Handily both are also easy to find in a lightly used Ford gearset for reasonable prices. I can tell you for a fact its possible to do 22 mpg at highway speeds in an HO powered Towncar with a 3.73 gear and ported heads. Scotts car does that, and will run a high 15 in the quarter mile on basically a stock engine. Townies also have a couple hundred pounds more to haul around than a MGM.

Might want to stay with about a 65mm throttle body. Over-doing the tb can cost you a little on the low end. Also, you can usually find Explorer 65mm throttle bodies for fairly cheap and with minimal modifications they can be used.

[Mercracer]

Also, you can usually find Explorer 65mm throttle bodies for fairly cheap and with minimal modifications they can be used.

Most motors from boneyards will have the TB on it still..

[gadget73]

Indeed, another good point.

[LumpyCheeseman]

i picked up a copy of mustangs & fast fords, and in the ads i see a complete trickflow top end setup. anybody know about this package?

[DuceAnAHalf]

i picked up a copy of mustangs & fast fords, and in the ads i see a complete trickflow top end setup. anybody know about this package?

Trickflow says 360HP with the track heat set up for $2500, which is crank HP, you would see around 300 at the wheels

[LumpyCheeseman]

300 n/a???? dude thats pretty cool. my goal is only like 350hp out of it, so thats pretty bombin right there.