Fox T-Bird/Cougar Forums

hello everyone!

I'm getting wrapped up with my current project (1966 ford LTD) and finally ready to start building my 1987 Tbird into a mean, a bit rough around the edges driver.  the plan has been to put a budget 5.0/ 5 speed in, along with some brake and suspension mods, and use it for a driver/have fun car, without caring too much about keeping  perfect paint and a super straight body. This car will be built to drive, and a lot.

so, the car will be tossing out the 3.8 soon enough, but i have a few different engine options to go with.  i'm kinda leaning towards one, but i would like to get  everyone's opinions to make sure i'm not overlooking something.

Option 1:

I have a 302 that came out of a 1991 Ford !50 on the stand.  stock bottom end rebuild, the F150 got a 351W instead. the Bottom end is stock, nothing fancy, but it is all fresh and ready to roll.  I do have a set of freshly refurbished GT40P heads that were going to go onto that engine, i would go choose a fitting cam ( the current cam i had in the engine was more aimed towards towing) and i would put it in the car, with proper mounts, pan, etc, a set of reasonable headers, and go with a simple 600-ish CFM carb and intake combo. the benefits to this setup are that I already have most of the long block bought and assembled, and that simplicity is bliss.

Option 2:

I have a donor 1988 Cougar that is a 5.0 car.  the trans is out of it, the car sat for over a decade, but it was free, and i am harvesting parts, because regardless, i will still need the accessory drive and stuff.  The engine looks NASTY and has 180K on it, I havent even seen if it will turn over by hand or not.  the entire intake and fuel injection setup is there, but mice decided to wreak havoc on the engine harness. It would take some patience, but i would be able to repair the harness, rebuild the 302 out of the cougar, and swap the setup into my Tbird.  yes, I would once again go with an appropriate cam, headers, and probably the GT40P heads.  The Benefits to this setup would be that it would have fuel injection, while much more complex, it does have its merits.


So, my initial thoughts are to go with option 1, because its already mostly paid for, so thats an expense that I wouldn't have to deal with . Yes, i could very easily build the long block in option 1, and hang the cougar injection on it, unless, of course, you guys see some reason that I am unable to use the 91 truck block, which is why i suggested a full rebuild of the cougar engine.

So, lets start this conversation off that direction.  Is there any reason that i would not be able to use my 1991 Ford pickup long block with GT40P heads in this build?

also, sound off, which do you think i should go with, carb or injection, and why?

The 91 ford block is identicle minus having lower compression pistons and valve relifs. Its would be more likely to clear a bigger cam if you want some lope.

Fuel injection, straight up. Get a h.o. cam, cheap upgrade, only need a few parts over the stock s.o. stuff. The lower intake manifold is identical, plus you already have everything to do it.

As a daily driver you will beat on, its gonna run good reguardless of weather or altitude and once you get it running good, shouldn't have to touch it.

Get a explorer intake, the rest of the stang h.o. parts for a full upgrade. Cheap sn-95 t-5, f-150 flywheel/starter and you are done.

I have been daily driving 86-88 cougarbirds for almost 15 years now. If you treat them right, they will do the same back. I have put over 11k miles on the tbird i just bought in January. My last daily was a 86 cougar with 350k miles on it. Almost all the electronics were original.

If I were in your shoes....... Use the truck block and go with option 1 unless you can get a good H.O. cam, intake and H.O. computer.otherwise you will invest alot of time only to be dissatisfied with performance.  If you don't mind making the investment, my preference would be fuel injection using the ready to go truck block.

John

I'd go that route as well. Put the GT40P heads on the truck block (upgrade the springs), and a HO or better roller cam.

so, i think we are all in agreement that the truck engine, with the GT40P heads ( yes, i upgraded the springs to comp cam springs) is my foundation. 

i do know that sitting under the bench somewhere, i do have the upper and lower intake that matched those P heads, came off a 99 moluntaineer or something like that.

wouldnt running that involve a MAF swap?  I know that i could feasably pull the entire injection harness out of the donor car, upgrade the computer, upgrade the intake, and yes, i will 100% agree, once its set, its turn key solid. but at what cost?

The opposing side to the argument is i have a used 600cfm Edelbrock on the shelf i got for $30 from a buddy, and a Edelbrock perfermer RPM intake under the bench i got a few years ago for like $70.  drop em on, tune them, and im out driving.  Yes, a carb is not perfect, its not turn key ready, but I also spent half of my driving life chugging my old 78 Tbird up and down the iowa highways, rain, snow, or shine. 

this car will not be my "true" daily driver.  this will be the " i wanna drive the red Tbird this week" and powerslide around corners driver.  if the snow is butt deep and the wind chill is -20, im not gonna even bother, i'll just take the 95 F250 or the 2001 expedition.

so, to make my intentions clearer, i want the car to be reliable enough that it CAN be a daily driver, but it doesnt have to be my daily driver, all the time.

ok, now that we are past the long block phase, out ofthe intakes i have already,  (88 cougar setup, 99-ish mountaineer setup) what can i use IF i were to injected?

Thats the key right there.  I'm trying to make very wise investments with this project.  make the money count.  So i need to see if its worth the money spent to get the injection, or if im better off going with the old school cheap carb.

Carb would work fine, im not against it.

I just like being able to lug my car around in gear and start it with the first turn of the key at -27ºf.

You could easily get away with the explorer intake and a stock h.o. cam with the gt40's, but you may be at the limit of the 19# injectors. The 93 cobra had a nearly identicle setup and came with 24# along with maf as all 89 up stangs did.

If you aren't going to race it or drive it everyday I say just carb it. (and I'm a very pro F.I. guy). You already have all the parts to carb it. and you're car was a 3.8 so the harness isn't really right so that's a little more headache. just carb it and have fun. that being said, I wouldn't hack up the harness or do anything that cant easily be undone, because one day you might have some free time and some extra cash and may decide to finally F.I. it.

More to consider when going carb you havent memntioned....

Before you drop that intake and carb on your going to need a distributor thats compatible with the roller cam {?$} then you will need a new ignition system since you got rid of the TFI.{?$} Then you need to change the fuel system. Electric pump? Mechanical pump? Lines? Regulator? How are you getting the fuel out of the tank in regards to the sending unit?
 
Lastly, no offense but that carb is the worse one you could possibly choose.

His '88 Cougar parts car has that... If dizzy is beat swap it's steel gear onto truck distributor...


For ign it's possible to trigger a TFI module with a points distributor(unfortunately not a duraspark dist)... OR a TFI dist can be wired and run but of course it would not have any ign advance curve...

I currently have a points triggered TFI setup on my carb'd '72 Comet(it's Street Fire ped the bed), uses a remote mount module & heat sink... Actually that not true, module is dist mount with pins for PIP chopped off, runs great...

I don't personally like my P heads.  I wish I had kept my standard GT40's  I spent way too much money at the machine shop making them suitable for use with a decent cam at decent revs, and the exhaust valve is too small.
If you've got the truck block ready to go, get a HO cam and an Explorer upper and lower, early Explorer non-P heads, snag the accessory drive from the Cougar, patch up the cougar's harness, and get an A9P and MAF.  Choose your MAF carefully.  The only issue I'd have with the truck block, is if it has stock pistons.  You want more compression than that, but if you run the P heads, don't go over 9:1, the pistons will hit (or come uncomfortably close to) the goofy spark plug bosses.  Ask me how I know.

yes, i know the compression ratio isnt ideal by any means, but the fact that it is already done and ready to roll makes it a bit more acceptable.

as far as a distributor gear, the truck block is non roller cam, so no worries there.  and i do have several distributors from several different series of small blpen 15 fords to choose from, if i wanted, i could even run points.  but really, thats not what im after.

As for as the Edelbrock carb, i also have three or four Holleys and a Demon or two floating around the shop.  I just threw the Edelbrock out there because it was the first one to come to my mind.

I really think that the deeper i get his parts car torn apart, will be the deciding factors on whether or not to make it injected.  LEts see just how bad the harness is.

The truck block is non roller?  That would kill it for me.  At that point I'd go with the Cougar engine, I like roller.

The block is actually a roller block fitted with flat tappet cam and lifters. Easily made full roller, which I believe began in 92 for the trucks.

John

By '86(actually around mid '85) Ford was casting only roller blocks, trucks used same with a flat tappet cam... On some the spider bosses aren't machined or drilled/tapped but that's a minor issue...

my research always said that trucks ran full roller in 94.  my 93 F350 with a 351W that i tore down and went through last winter was a non roller, but the 95 351W i pulled out of a parts truck is a roller.

All of my research points to the fact that the engine can be fitted with a roller cam.  and that may be the route i go.

the holes are there, but not tapped. i should be able to take the spider setup off of this cougar engine, right?

Yup... The later blocks may well be tapped but I've seen a '85.5 truck block that wasn't...

In spite of the gloom & doom a flat tappet cam isn't the end of the world... I actually have a small Lunati flat tappet cam in my Comet, AND it has a roller block...

flat tappets made tons of power back in the day, im not oppsoed to using one, ive used several over the years.

My cam brand choice has been Comp over the last decade or so.  i seem to have good luck with them. good customer service as well.

but, if i can easily swap the hardware to a roller cam, and i have to buy a new cam anyways, then yeah, i'll be looking at the roller cam.

Back to the subject of 302s in general.  Ive made my decision.

I'm building 2 302s!

i'm going to put together this truck block, using GT40P heads, and probably, at least for the time being, will go carbed.  and i'll get the car on the road, having a good time. then I'll tear down the Cougar block, and go all out on stuff like a stroker crank and aluminum heads, and that will also buy me time to get the cougar harness sorted out, find the proper intake/injection setup, and overall just allow meto take my time and have more financial freedoms in the build.

But right now, im gonna build a stout little 302 with the parts i have.  I do appreciate the input.

I decided to open up this thread again, because I ordered parts tonight, and decided that here is where i'm gonna keep note of what I'm doing with this engine.

the cougar 302 was locked up solid.  like an air hammer couldnt get the #1 piston to move.  So, I pulled off the spider, the dogbones, and i did pull the lifters and pushrods as well, even tho im not goingto use them, and i ended up sending the 88 cougar block to the sper. 

The 91 truck block hasnt seen any action in the last 7 months, because I bought this on a whim.

(https://i.imgur.com/hyjSCpYl.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/y9QcxQ8l.jpg)

It's a 1968 Torino, 302, c4, no power steering, no power brakes, it was cheap, it runs great, and ive been having fun with it.  When i first got the car, i actually pondered about giving up on my red T, and make this into the machine I had dreamed of the Red T being.  I even started throwing parts at the engine.

(https://i.imgur.com/yo7v9UNl.jpg)

But it's coming full circle now.  The Torino, while currently driving on the 302 with a Performer RPM intake, that Edelbrock 600 4 barrel, and a Summit HEI, is getting a 408 stroker engine, and those parts i put on the 302 will go towards the Red Tbird.

thats the beauty, everything gets passed around when things are similar like that.

so, to re-iterate, heres the build so far.

91 truck block, stock bottom end.
Gt40P heads
Cloyes Double Roller chain (still in the box)
Edelbrock Performer RPM intake, Edelbrock 600cfm carb
Summit HEI conversion distributor

My plan is in the next few weeks to order an E-303 roller cam and roller lifters for the engine, and after a few more paychecks pass, order a set of roller rockers to go with the heads.  I have heard some people say go with 1.6's, others say to go with 1.7's,  care to put any input on what ones to run?

So yes, the Red Tbird will live again,  it will be the rough around the edges, low buck, hand me down parts beater I had in mind all along.  The torino will grow into a much wilder, grumpier car.  I'll still keep having fun.

A whim eh?? '68-'69 Torino's are one of my favorite(big surprise huh?)...

Before you buy that E303 take a look at the Trick Flow stage 1, I've had one since '99 and really like it... I'm using 1.7 rockers now that it's in the 331(ran 1.6 in the 5.0)... Yet to fire it but sooner or later it will happen...

do you have a part number? preferably a cam/lifter setup?  i replaced the springs in the gt40P heads with factory replacement springs, I'm really hoping to not have to change them again.

very nice Fairlane.  the Torino story comes along like this:  growing up, the guy two houses down was building a 68 torino. At the time, it was 390, tri power, 4 speed.  he still has the car, its now a 428 with edelbrock heads, but regardless, I always had a liking for the first gen Torinos.

a "trading buddy" whom i seem to always be trading ford parts with, had the torino, he's the one that sprayed it all black,  but he ran into some health issues, so i bought it from him.  I kinda dig the fact that it's low option, a formal roof, and is just beat enough i dont feel bad about driving it in bad weather, but i would like to shape it up a bit eventually.  if you could point me in the direction to find a hood and fenders for next year, PM me.  But please, share the cam number here for all to see. :)

The stock springs leave you with the same problem, which is binding with cams over .450 lift.  Less if you use 1.7:1 rockers.  Trickflow has a kit that won't bind up to .600 lift IIRC.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/tfs-51403001

Cam was $139 when I bought it in '99, has just enough lope to be noticable...

I used std Ford roller lifters, everyone I talked with was doing same... 

The springs on my Trick Flow heads were good to .540 lift, but have been upgraded to the .600 mentioned... For a 5.0 the 1.6 are probably enough... 

For a short while I had another T-Bird that had Windsor Jr heads and stock HO roller cam, was a dog compared to my TC...