Well might as well give a little background on the car. Being a 'x-ponyboy' (mustangs) I sold my 1987 5.0 when the family decided we were coming here (to las vegas, from hampton, virginia). I didn't want to spend the money on shipping the mustang cross-country, just wasn't very practical at the time. So off it went, and a mear two days before the transport truck came to pick up the other cars, 'my' car came up on ebay (
). It was a buy it now for $8,000bucks and was a hour away. Contemplated over it for about an hour or so with my dad, he gave me the go-ahead (though it was my money, i wanted to make sure it was a good move) and i 'bought it now'. Picked it up and drove it home. Actually for $7,900 because the fuel sender didn't work
This is what i came home with, repainted original lemon twist car, numbers matching 318/904/original 8 3/4", pretty complete car in running/driving condition. I didn't know much mechanical wise...i did change a set of spark plugs once before
, so needless to say anything done to it was all new to me.
I had put some headers someone gave me for it in, that was a fun first time.
I putted around town for a couple months, went to a couple shows, school and what not. Came back from errands one day...pulled it in the driveway, turned it off, went through the house and popped the garage...fired it up and made it halfway through the garage door before it died...
Had spark, had fuel, had air....
Pulled the fuel pump and felt a VERY loose timing chain.
So apart it came.
Not long later the ol 'teen was out
Back from the machine shop, hot tanked, new cam bearings, distributor bushing, balanced, bored .030, yada yada yada. Oh i did have a local friend thats done this a few times helping me out or i'd be totally lost.
Motor in, new heads, intake, cam, rebuilt, etc, etc, etc. And then the everloving snowball effect kicked in..
Yes, the Modification Snowball. Cant just build a hopped up motor and NOT change anything else right?
Well the rest of the drivetrain was a free/cheap brand '3,000stall' converter and a open 2.76 diff
I had taken it down the track once and clicked a 15.0 off with it. Not too bad given the gearing and such, but trapping in 2nd was no fun.
So i bought a 3.91 sg and was waiting to put it in. Had the linkage hangup while revving it in neutral, spun to about 6,000..maybe a little more and a few pistons smacked a few valves.
....soooooooooooooo. back apart it came!
New valves, rebuilt the heads, properly checked the lifter pre-load/piston-valve clearance (which we didnt do before
). It came to the conclusion over on moparts that the motor would be done for. If it ran, it'd barely get around and you BETTER not beat on it, piston could have cracked, etc, etc. Well...it ran..hmmm..quite strong. So i tooled around for a little bit with it, and the new 3.91s went in while it was down. Ran pretty good for a couple months. 32 time-slips later, few thousand miles of my heavy foot daily driving...it still lives! (*knock on wood*
)
So the first night at the track with the 3.91s i ran a 14.30...7/10th improvement. not too shabby. Rear suspension and converter needed to go though. New springs/shocks, dynamic converter and its down to 14.0 @ 5,200ft, swapped tires and drove to work in the morning. Full weight of about 3,600lbs and at the time i had a jack and tools in the trunk
The little motor nobody gave a second chance over on moparts thats personal goal was set to run a 13 that they said wouldnt do without alteast nitrous is on the brink of doing so. They said it'd be lucky to get out of 15s. Interesting how it's turned out.
welp, thats my story.
Almost two years ago i changed spark plugs for the first time. I've since built one small block, have another waiting for funds to build, and built two 904s. Did all the mechanical work on it, wiring through the fenders, gauges, yada yada yada, took a probably 19second car to the brink of 13s while daily driving it.
