Mustang guys?

[Bambamski]

I've been fixing up my old 89 stang up and I'm ready for some Engine work

http://www.stillen.com/product.asp?id=VORSUPR22&c=PE&m=all

Probably looking at supercharging it to bring it into the 300's. Overall I really don't need much more. I was thinking 300-350hp is what I needed to make it a fun car to drive again.

I can't find much for the 89, would this work. It says 94-95 5l?

Any experts out there that want to spend my hard earned cash?

[chavez]

Bambamski, i'd bet there are differences in the computers, and that is why this is listed for 94-95.

Possibly an OBD-I computer vs an older, simpler ECM.

Physically it should strap up, but dunno about fuel/air.

300-350 might be a handful unless you've done something to fit bigger shoes on the ass end of that thing. Mini-tub time?

[Broccoli B]

I have a 98 Gt Convertible, only suspension and brake work on it so far. Would be nice to get a little extra power out of the wimpy 4.6L.

It seems like you should be able to get the 5 liter to 300 or so horsepower naturally aspirated, and that should prove to be more reliable.

[JCroft2]

If your going to be spending 3 grand on a supercharger you should probably make sure its for your car specifically. I think its a great idea but make sure you have the supporting mods first. Correct injectors and throttle body, I know this is obvious and I'm not even sure if you would need these mods for the charger but I'm just putting it out there. I know there are a ton of differences in the 87, 88, 89, and 90's stangs. I wouldnt but anything from a 94-95 in my fox body.

[core-rider]

This is the kit you need for your application... http://www.vortechsuperchargers.com/product.php?p=83 The kit you are looking at will not work without some modifying.

IMHO, I'm going to assume the engine is basically stock and original, you coud use a bit of freshing of the engine first. There are a ton of things you can do that don't cost a bunch of money that can add up to decent power over time.

Get rid of the stock airbox/filter assembly. Put a good high flow air filter like K&N and get it outside the engine compartment. There are kits out there.
1.7 ratio roller rockers
Underdrive pullies
Basic tune-up and bump the timing
Full exhaust swap, headers, off-road h-pipe (catted if law says so in your state), and cat-back exhaust system
Change to gears in the rearend. Most came with 2.73, I suggest 3.73 at least. rebuild the trac-lock diff while your in there or replace with something better.
If it's a maunal, invest in a good shifter! If auto, rip that stuff out and get yourself a manual!
Invest in some suspension upgrades... I recommend replacing all the bushings with polyurethane, get some good shocks/struts, and springs to lower a bit and add better handling. On thr rear just replace the upper/lower control arms with something aftermarket that has poly bushings.

I know not many of these things will add much HP, buut they are things you need if you are going to add a blower in the future. Trust me the gear change will feel like you added 100 HP. Seeing as most every Mustang to date has been modded in some way I would have to say your car probably already has some of these things done to it.

Fox bodies are some of the most modded cars around. There are many things you can do to them and eventually make big HP numbers while still having a streetable car. Do your homework, get on some forums and you will learn. This is one of the only forums I remember from my days racing... http://www.corral.net/ I'm sure there are many more out there if you look.

[Bambamski]

thanks for the recomendations

The car is as stock as it gets still. ALl the work done to it so far has just been body work and paint. So there are lots of things we can update and fix up. The engine has about 140-150000 miles on it so we'll be cleaning that up and seeing what needs to be fixed before we start adding too much HP. I figured I'd have to get on a Mustang website here pretty soon. I remembered there was a post about this a while ago and someone on here new an lot about the differences between the 89 and some of the other years. I can't find the post though.

Any other suggestions would be great. I need to do a couple of things to the car or I'm never going to drive it if the Vette is going to be always 100 times more fun to drive.

[core-rider]

From '86-'93 the engines were basically the same. In '90 Ford went to mass-air which made engine mods impact drivability less. You can find a lot online, but I might be able to help you out with any questions too. Have fun with it!

[kyle f]

300-350 with a charger should be no issues. Actually, you could get two 300hp in a 5.0 with a quality rebuild with a heads/cam/intake package. Ofcourse this will require larger fuel injectors (24#s), a bigger pump, and a good exhaust system. Though, all the fuel mods will need to be done for the charger as well.

The MAF cars are much easier to mod as they require less calibartion on the computer. However, they have kits with proper ECMs for the chargers, but make sure anything else you have done to the car is supported. The issue with force induction is, if it goes lean, it goes boom in a hurry.

[ryan351w]

Do not just throw on 1.7 rockers without measuring. Your increasing the effective max valve lift. And if you don't make sure there is enough clearance between piston and valve it could eat itself apart.
I installed a B cam in my buddies 92 and the intake- piston to valve was way tight! but i've heard the same cam in a 90 and it was fine. Their machining tolerances between years and even motors in the same run can be huge when your talking about .100"

100% change the gear! that will be the biggest bang for the buck. 3:73 all the way.

Change the shifter- I loved the Pro-5.0 in mine.

Also agree on the timing, these cars are way under-timed. 10-15 can be had by only a few degrees. There is a process to do this correctly however, you have to remove the "spout" on the distributor wiring. The computer takes over the timing, and if you try to set the timing with this spout connected the computer just takes over and you have no control.

Careful with pulley swap. Sometimes, not all the time, the car can have cooling/charging issues in stop and go traffic. Because they essentially slow down the those two systems, decreasing parasitic drag on the crank itself.

Do not get the vortech. They arn't bad, but Pro-Charger is way better.

as far as bolting on the the 94-95 blower to a pre 94 car it will fit the motor, but the routing of intercooler, tubing, wiring etc is different. Also the brackets for replacing the factory parts like alt, pwr steering etc could be different. Get the one designed for the car.


300hp is pretty cake to make on these cars. Before you pull the motor to freshin it up, spend 50.00 at your local parts shop and buy a cylinder pressure gauge.
You disconnect the coil, take out the spark plug and thread this hose into the plug hole. Crank the motor for 4 complete revolutions with the starter, the gauge will read out a PSI. 140+psi is real good. Repeat 7 times on the other cylinders. You can make your decision based upon this before removing the motor. If the oil was changed religiously, and since its completely stock it probably wasn't beat on too much. You are probably ok.

The nice thing about blowers whether it be supercharging or turbo is that you can make goobs of power on stock parts because the peak cylinder pressure happens way later in the cycle. If you do happen to go this route, spend the money on a computer tuning device so you can change the timing and fuel, the two things that kill a supercharged motor, and keep them in check.

Feel free to ask any more questions.


oh and 89 was the first year for mass air across the board-88 for the California cars.

[Bambamski]

this is great!! thanks

My son in law is a Ford Tech going into his second year in a month so with him working on it in the Ford shop will great for having all the tools and equipment. That way I don't have to buy all that stuff!

We probably won't be doing much to it until the fall but I wanted to start figuring out what we should be looking for and buying the parts in the next couple of months.

Thanks and if I have some questions I'll post em

[ryan351w]

Oh no problem.
I've built 4 SB fords two for myself the latest one is a 408! that thing is a rocket.

My buddy is building a 420ich small block mopar with a pro-charger that should make around 1500ish "street car" of course! uh huh sure!

I used to work in a cylinder head shop and engine machine shop during college so any questions there too, don't hesitate!

[Rhawn]

You are going to need to let that puppy breath before you strap a SC to it. Fuel delivery is another concern.

[Lop]

Being a former 5 liter mustang owner (4of them) before a superchager you should look into heads, intake, injectors and throttle body. Also depending on the mileage you should consider internals as well. Those alone would put you well over 300. you don't want to use force induction if the rest of your engine isn't strong. Dart heads are a favorite of mine but there are others out there that perform as well or better. As far as teh intakes go there are a million of them out there, my preference was the gt-40. Do your research and look around (ebay, craigslist) these parts should be in abundance there.

[Rhawn]

[Chattwake]

Why don't you just buy a cobra motor that already has a sc on it? You can find those on ebay or in salvage yards for pretty cheap. A friend of mine picked one up for 4k 6 months ago and put it in an '03 track mustang he built. I'm not sure how much it would take to get it to mount up in that chasis, but it couldn't be any more work than retrofitting everything you'd need to make the oem power plant support a sc.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/03-04-supercharged-cobra-motor-Mustang_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem3a59314b31QQitemZ250604505905QQptZMotorsQ5fCarQ5fTruckQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories

Drop that sucker in and make sure you add a cage and some 5pt harneses!

[Lop]

i don't believe cobra motors came supercharged. they came with heads and intake

[Broccoli B]

Cobras have been super charged since 2003

[Lop]

Broccoli B, but those are the modular engines. I was referring to the Fox bodied cars that are the subject of this thread.

[Broccoli B]

Correct, Chattwake, is suggesting to put a 2003 or newer cobra motor in the fox body stang.

[Lop]

oh... sorry. what a waste, so much more cheap power to be made out of the 5.0

[Bambamski]

I thought about buying an engine and dropping it in. Part of the thing is actually doing it myself. Well not me, but helping my son in law build the car up. He's driving it this summer, and needs the wheels so we won't start ripping it apart till the fall. Those are great suggestions. I think we'll start taking it apart and see what happens.

I can totally see us throwing in enough parts in just the engine to boost it up to 300 hp. Then with the Super charger it will give the Vette a bit of a run...

[ridininmd]

Gotta love the 5.0 with GT40 heads and intake, hell I like it so much I put one in my ranger

[ryan351w]

I also love the trick flow heads! They are the ones I run. But because the valves are rotated in the head you have to be careful about piston to valve clearance as well.

Supercharging a motor is not necessarily as hard on it as you might think.
I said before to do a cylinder pressure check, to make sure that the rings are in decent shape, otherwise if there is too much blow-by you will loose a lot of your boost, even if you put on heads,cam, intake you will loose your cylinder pressure.

The biggest thing that breaks motors apart is inertia. When the piston goes from 0 fps (at TDC and BDC) to its fastest point @ 90° (crank rotation) then back to 0 and repeat, that sudden stop and turn around is what kills stuff. Thats why all the really strong parts are well strong but also very light. My 4.100 bore pistons weight 429grams while my 4.040 pistons weight 529g. Thats a huge difference, when your talking about reciprocating weight. Now stroke plays the biggest roll in this case. The farther the piston has to travel the faster it has to start/stop in one given cycle RPM.
Little comparison-
302-3.00" stroke 6000 rpms-piston speed is 50fps
351-3.5" stroke 6000 rpms-piston speed is 58fps
8' in one second! thats a lot for the same rpm.

Ok so now on a N/A motor peak cylinder pressure occurs earlier in the cycle, lets say 10° of crank rotation. When this happens the piston and rod are trying to push the crank out of the bottom of the block. So for easy math lets say that 25% of the force is forcing the crank out of the bottom, so that means that the crank has to be 25% stronger to withstand this force. (not real numbers) In a supercharged motor, the peak cylinder pressure happens later, say 25-30° crank rotation. So that means only 10% (again not real numbers) of the force is pushing the crank out of the block and now theres 90% of the force actually turning the crank!
The reason you can't just change the timing in a N/A to happen later is that the flame front just goes to slow to catch up with the piston. But when your forcing 10lbs of air into the cylinder its no problem.

Now here is where the piston speed comes into effect.
The reason you need to spin a motor to rpm to make power is because the cylinder heads don't flow for sh*t down low (rpm wise) so you need to spin the motor higher to get the cylinder heads to flow air to make good power. Well when its forced it doesn't matter, as much.

Cam, intake, volumetric efficiency etc etc are all in effect here as well.

Clear as mud right?

[Lop]

ryan351w, I am pretty familiar with supercharging, my theory has always been that a strong core is a necessary basis for a motor. If the internals are weak then adding boost (more high than low) can play havok on an engine. There are too many people who have the money to do either engine upgrades or charger and they choose charger since it is more power for the money, they typically learn the hard way that they should have made the engine stronger from teh beginning.. I am currently contemplating cahnging my pulleys for higher boost, my main concern is the supercharger has 70k miles on it. I may hold off and get my supercharger rebuilt and ported/polished when I change teh pulleys out...

[ryan351w]

Yes, that is true that stronger internals are indeed better. But that doesn’t mean a well thought out and TUNED supercharged motor with stock parts won’t live.
Just because you have a Dart block, Callies crank, Carillo rods and CP pistons doesn’t mean its bullet proof. But its close.
If the motor is not tuned correctly the best stuff will break, it just has a higher tolerance.
The people who just bolt on a blower have more money than brains, so they don't know how to properly tune the engine, and end up blowing it up.

We are also talking about 400hp not 1500....
http://www.musclemustangfastfords.com/projectcars/mmfp_0304_1990_ford_mustang_procharger_install/index.html

[Rhawn]

I ran an insane amount of mods and 12 lbs of SuperCharger on a stock lower half. And previously, I sprayed the piss out of it with a heavy NOS kit. My best time was 11.30's on slicks. Point being, you can get away with alot on a stock lower half.

[Lop]

[ridininmd]

[Lop]

ridininmd, and if i was building I would go with the 351 windsor

[ryan351w]

Well heres the thing, compression is an excellent indicator of engine wear, granted it won't tell you how the bearings look but it will tell you how the engine was treated. Seeing as its completely stock it probably wasn't beat on TOO bad.

But lets say he bolts on heads, cam, intake and bumps the compression like 90% of the mustang population does. And the motor makes 400ish hp.
Or he bolts on a supercharger, and makes 400?

What happened to your motor that caused it to blow a rod? What year motor?

Ryan

[ryan351w]

Oh yeah if your building one build a 351w stroker...408 crank from scat 500ish bucks 4340 non-twist! Hell yeah!

[Lop]

Motor was a 1990 with 250k miles on it... I chose to race a Camaro and it just didn't turn out pretty. no indications that I was going to lose the engine until it was too late.

[ryan351w]

Did you ever take it apart and dissect any possible causes?

Thats a bummer. Especially when your racing somebody....

[Lop]

No, I didn't bother, I chalked it up to me abusing the crap out of a high mileage car. I was building another 5.0 at the time so I just had to work on it a little faster. Yeah it was especially embarrasing while destroying a new camaro and it shuts down and pisses oil

[ryan351w]

awww so it windowed the block as well huh?!

Typically rods just don't break because of mileage, they will spin a bearing first, then do a little crank-rod welding then let go.... ask me how i know....
That was my fault on my 1st 351-Lesson learned-high volume oil pump would suck the pan dry at high rpm, 7200, because the drain back wasn't quick enough to replenish the pan. After that I talked to a head guy a Melling and he explained to me that Fords oiling system is pretty good for most applications and that a HV pump isn't required. So the next motor has a stock volume pump, no issues.

At the shop we would get motors in with broken rods and i can't remember one that didn't have a spun bearing on that journal.