I've been making plans for buying a 351 to rebuild for some time now for transplanting into my 83 Thunderbird in place of the 302. But given the relative annoyance of finding and pulling a junkyard 351, making the modifications to fit it, and the other little expenses associated with that, not to mention the fact that my upcoming move will make the car much less necessary for my travels I'm starting to consider just pulling the existing engine and rebuilding it as grand as I can. Does anyone know some desirable junkyard heads that will fit my 302?
Try to find an Explorer with the 5.0 in it.The earlier the better (1996/97).The early heads were GT40 cast iron heads,and will accept the Mustang headers.The later heads were GT40P ,and they need a special set of headers which can become costly.The E7 heads are also good,from the 89 and up Mustang GT.You may be able to locate a Mustang H.O. engine,which would give you a good start.They can be had pretty reasonable.I've seen them around here for $600,which is complete and with the tranny.Good luck.
Sounds good. Any other good mods I can do while the engine is out? I'm shooting for horsepower in the 200 range and all the torque I can get without losing too many mpg. I'm already thinking I'll be getting a performance camshaft and pistons that can handle a little extra lift. The carburetor/TBI system is probably a bottleneck, unforunately I know next to nothing about the TBI system. For that matter where exactly would a computer control chip be?
hp is the 200 range shouldnt be that hard since the 5.0 HOs have 225 stock lol. Good luck with the project, Im currently saving for a dss 351 roller block.
You know I remember hearing somewhere that the HO engines actually used truck heads. Anyone know what particular truck that would be? To me it stands to reason that an F150 with a 302 would have good heads, if that's not true let me know.
I just checked car-part.com and many early 90's F150's do indeed show up as compatible for the 89 Mustang mentioned. There's even a 93 Thunderbird in the mix. Any reason to think 80's F150's won't work? If there are any compatibility issues I'd like to know the details.
you will want e7 heads. They came on the 90's f150's. Some of the 80's trucks had the same e6 heads that you do now. . Also check the explorers for gt-40 heads. Also the 91 to 93 heads on a tbird/cougar will work fine. I have a set in my trunk to make sure that my v-6 has traction.
the E6 came on the 86 Mustang GT....those are the truck head
87 got the e7 heads and they put those on the later trucks too. You should have either e6 or e5's now.e6's go on SO engines.
Good stuff. Thanks that'll come in handy when I go looking.
pretty much any car wiht a 5.0 that has HO stamped on it will work. I think that the e7 heads are pretty much the same as ported e6's minus the swirl exhaust thingy everyone is always talking about. You should be able to hit close to 200 with you stock heads.
The first digit in the part or casting number is the decade(E=80s), the second is the year. Now he has a '83, so how will it have E6s('86) or E5s('85)?? My guess it has the D8('78) castings that were used from the late 70s to approx '83-'84. Those heads are similar to the later versions. but have larger combustion chambers to cut the compression to 8.4.
Another quick question, are 351 heads compatible should I come across them?
I do think that 351 and 302 heads switch. I am not 100%, more like 75% or so. Some one will come along and tell you for sure.
Long as I'm thinking about it does anyone know of an intake manifold worth finding? My future plans may include a 4 barrel carb application or even dual carbs :D but for now I'd settle for something that flows well and will compliment the heads I'll be getting.
If you want cheap & easy find the stock intake off of an older Mustang GT. I scored mine, with a bunch of miscelanneous engine parts for $50 and my friend actually has another he wants to get rid of, if you decide to use it.
How old of a Mustang? Maybe an 89 like the one mentioned earlier? The carb I currently have is 2 barrel, would I have to change to 4 to go Mustang?
I'm talking like '83 or so. It's an aluminum 4-barrel intake.
Interesting....the same year as my car. Will I have to modify the TBI system? Or did the Mustang even have that then?
no, the tbi system would go bye bye if you went carb. the tbi (or cfi as ford latter called it) is an early version of fuel injection, replacing the carb with an electronically controlled unit that did the same thing. So that would just go away and you would replace it with a carb.
there is a site out there that has how to revert the cfi to carb, but I don't have the bookmark anymore. You should be able to google it or Eric might have an article at http://www.coolcats.net
If you have CFI right now (ford's name for TBI) then the intake on your car will support the direct bolt-on of a 2-barrel.
I think I need to ask you guys once and for all what a TBI system looks like.....I mean supposedly my car has it but the almighty Chilton manual basically just says it may be in there somewhere. And the fact that this is a Canadian car makes me wonder if it was subject to the same emission laws of the time in which case maybe it really doesn't have the electronic system. Are there telltale signs like around the base of the carburetor...is there a wire leading to a computer control module?
I know quite a few people on here have pics of the CFI body that can help you pinpoint. Just pull the air cleaner off. If you see two injectors with wires leading to them, you have CFI.
Also, if you're talking about an intake for a 351, nevermind what I said about the stang intake or your own stock one, as 302 and 351 intakes are different widths, thus not interchangable.
Don't worry I mean a 302. I was asking earlier if 351 heads would be compatible though. I've had that air cleaner off a few times but I'll go take a really hard look at it later tonight. Though I know the garage replaced the "carburetor" back a while ago. I don't know if they replaced it with something exactly stock or for that matter they may have just yanked the injectors altogether and put on a carb without mentioning it. I guess I'll see what I've got.
well, if you know what a carb looks like, cfi doesn't look like that.
there will be two large injectors with wires coming out of them. and a couple sensors attached to the unit.
But, CFI has a similar apperance, also has 2 barrels, throttle linkage on the side much like a carb. The difference lies within where you see wires attached.
K I'm now leaning towards it being an ordinary carburetor. A yellow wire running into the base almost convinced me it was TBI but when I followed it it turned out to be a vacuum hose. Just to confirm I'm posting these pictures I took.
really dosent look like the cfi on my v-6. I think its a carb. Looks alot like one. alot of canadian cars are carbed.
It's a carb (woohoo!). If you can find an explorer engine, get it and then buy an aftermarket dual plane intake, such as the Edelbrock performer RPM, and a good 4 barrel carb. With the explorer camshaft it should still put out close to 300 horsepower, and you could recoupe the costs of the intake and carb by selling the fuel injection stuff and misc explorer on E-bay. You'd need a new distributor though, one from an 85 Mustang GT 5-speed, or at least a hardened steel gear for your stock distributor would need to be pressed on.
You could just soup up what you have too. The prices may end up costing the same either way.
Joe
actually,, the lower dizzy gear is held on with a roll pin that passes through the center of the shaft and the gear neck. The hole drilled for the roll pin is off center. ,,, meaning, the gear can be pressed on one half a turn backwards ,,or 180deg out. If the shaft is clean and the interior of the dizzy gear is clean, the gear will slide on without the need of a press.
I like your train of thought. But atleast for now I'm trying to keep top-end costs down so I'll likely go with the intake and carb off an 83 or so Mustang and some heads from a 89 and up Mustang or F150. I'll be checking the local syard tomorrow.