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Newbie from New Orleans

Poppa Jay

Poppa Jay

New Member
HI guys and gals, I'm Jay from Louisiana, Ive recently bought a 92 mustang that I'm looking to restore. Looking for a nice combo to make good power with stock bottom end. Would like to make about 350 hp to crank if possible. If I'm losing my mind feel free to let me know. Very limited knowledge on my end so all input is welcome.
 
Welcome! You should be able to reach your goal fairly easy. You'll just have to invest in some good heads. Is the motor healthy or will it need a rebuild? You'll be petty deep into it, so you might want to consider the overall health of the motor. If it smokes due to ring wear and/or cylinder wear or your compression readings are off, you may be better off just rebuilding it. I did that to my pace car and ended up with a 331 stroker lol! Look at afr 165 heads or edelbrock performer. There are cheaper heads out there that will do the job, but read up on them so you know what you're in for. They may need some work before bolting them on.

My pace car came from down that way...Thibodaux. I had it shipped up here to West Virginia. But a few months later, I was down there for training anyway. Very pretty and quite a bit different than here in the mountains. It was 2 degrees here this morning lol!
 
Thanks, I'm definitely doing a complete rebuild. I have the motor stripped down to the block, waitin to send it to the machine shop because I'm unsure of the direction I want to go. Don't want to spend a fortune, but not trying to take the cheap route either. Its a total restoration project so I wanna take the time and do it right.

Motor ran pretty strong 62k miles, so I plan to go back with the stock bottom end. Crank and pistons were in pretty good shape so I just cleaned them up and ordered ring set. I did look into the elderbrock performance heads but I honestly have no clue what cam and intake to bring it all together. Any suggestions?
 
Fwiw, I've never taken a block to a machine shop and them not suggest boring out the cylinders. That's how they make money. And boring them out means you'll be buying new pistons. You can get a quick idea of cylinder wear by looking at how much of a "ring" you have at the top. Other than that, you'll need a bore gauge to measure for out-of-round.

There are a bunch of intake choices that are good. I believe the TrickFlow was the best flowing, although the Edelbrock wasn't far behind. I'm currently running an explorer intake and it seems to make decent power. I'm getting ready to swap over a gt40 cobra intake I just traded for. Iirc, the cobra intake is just a hair better in flow numbers. I doubt I'll see a real difference at all, but I like the looks of it. Here's a good article comparing a few intakes. http://www.mustangandfords.com/how-to/engine/173-0101-super/ There are others, but this is a good start. If you're wanting more than the explorer/gt40 intakes, but not wanting to spend money on Trickflow or Edelbrock, then you might check out Late Model Restoration. I think they still sell a knock-off of the edelbrock performer intake. Last I checked, the used explorer intakes were going for around $150, used cobra gt40 intakes around $300, used gt40 tubular intakes for around $600, new edelbrock and Trickflow intakes for $6-750 range, and the Edelbrock performer knock-offs for around $350.

As for a cam, I would suggest figuring out everything first and then contacting one of the cam companies. Have your engine/car specs in front of you...compression ratio, displacement, heads, transmission, torque converter specs (if auto), rear end gear. They will either find you a good off-the-shelf cam that suits your needs or they can custom grind you a cam. Either way, it's well worth the money to have a cam selected with all of your specs in mind. I had a B303 Ford Racing cam sitting around that I pulled from my 82gt a couple yrs ago. I wish I had spent a little money and picked a good cam. If I ever tear that motor apart, you better believe she's getting a new one!
 
broncojunkie said:
Fwiw, I've never taken a block to a machine shop and them not suggest boring out the cylinders. That's how they make money. And boring them out means you'll be buying new pistons. You can get a quick idea of cylinder wear by looking at how much of a "ring" you have at the top. Other than that, you'll need a bore gauge to measure for out-of-round.

There are a bunch of intake choices that are good. I believe the TrickFlow was the best flowing, although the Edelbrock wasn't far behind. I'm currently running an explorer intake and it seems to make decent power. I'm getting ready to swap over a gt40 cobra intake I just traded for. Iirc, the cobra intake is just a hair better in flow numbers. I doubt I'll see a real difference at all, but I like the looks of it. Here's a good article comparing a few intakes. http://www.mustangandfords.com/how-to/engine/173-0101-super/ There are others, but this is a good start. If you're wanting more than the explorer/gt40 intakes, but not wanting to spend money on Trickflow or Edelbrock, then you might check out Late Model Restoration. I think they still sell a knock-off of the edelbrock performer intake. Last I checked, the used explorer intakes were going for around $150, used cobra gt40 intakes around $300, used gt40 tubular intakes for around $600, new edelbrock and Trickflow intakes for $6-750 range, and the Edelbrock performer knock-offs for around $350.

As for a cam, I would suggest figuring out everything first and then contacting one of the cam companies. Have your engine/car specs in front of you...compression ratio, displacement, heads, transmission, torque converter specs (if auto), rear end gear. They will either find you a good off-the-shelf cam that suits your needs or they can custom grind you a cam. Either way, it's well worth the money to have a cam selected with all of your specs in mind. I had a B303 Ford Racing cam sitting around that I pulled from my 82gt a couple yrs ago. I wish I had spent a little money and picked a good cam. If I ever tear that motor apart, you better believe she's getting a new one!
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Yeah that's a consistent opinion as far as the bore goes, I think that's what I'll do. Heck might as well go 347. Anyway thanks for the input, I guess I'll start research on stroker kits.
 
If you're looking at a complete rebuild, it's really not much more to stroke it lol! I went with 331. No rod-to-block clearance issues and (although it's debatable), the rod-piston angles are less exaggeated. Going with 347 will squeeze a little more power out of it though.
 
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