I finally did enough work to start a thread on my build. A brief bio on the car.
I bought it new in Aug of 86. It was one of the last 50 "4 eye Mustang" Ford was making that year. As the 87 model under went drastic exterior and interior changes. I pick it up from the dealer on Oct 8 as i watched it roll off the trailer at the dealership. Full option with the exception of T-tops. $13600. Boy, what can you buy with that today new? I put down $8000 and financed the rest at 2% interest. They were giving cars away in the mid and late 80's. I drove the car as is for 2 years before i found a copy of Muscle Mustang and Fast Ford magazine at my local stationary store. After that, it was all history.
With only 24000 or so miles on the car, the first modification was the removal of the air silencer, then it was 3.55 gears and off road exhaust. The car ran pretty good against GN's. Those black GN's were one off the fastest cars in the mid to late 80's. I was losing to them with the factory 2.73's. But with the 3.55 and powershifting, i just edge them. But the 350 IROC's were a different story. They would go past me when i was in 3rd gear all the time.
fast foward 2 years, with about 40000 miles on the motor, i decided to rebuild the motor. I just took the motor apart and took the fuel injection off and put a carb on it with a Torker II manifold and a wolverine blue racer cam. The car ran ok but still not fast enough till i read about a up and coming speed shop "Crawford Performance". I bought a Crawford 347cu stroker kit along with a pair of the Wilburt high port heads. In the 90's, Crawford Performance were the king of Mustangs. As i am showning my age if none of you guys ever heard of them. All of their cars were flying. My was no exception. With a true 10.5 compression, solid roller cam, 750 carb, victor Jr. manifold, 4.56 gears and a Tremec 3550. I was running 10.90 to a best of 10.76 at 125mph. Pump gas and street driven. Car was awasome. Then i got married and sold the short block but kept the heads on the garage shelf. The car sat on my trailer for 8 years before i would revisit it again in the fall of 2006.


Although still in decent shape, she needed a total make over. Those jack stands had been under the car since 1999. They were stuck on the undercoat.
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$5500 and 3 month later, she finally came home.

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while awaiting for her to come home, i bought my turbo kit from Brian at B&G. The complete upgrade stage 1 kit with a Precision 78GTS turbo.
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Also, i had my short block assemble by a very well know local engine builder Scott Merkle. He build Manny Buginga's turbo engine.
My engine spec:
Dart Iron Eagle block 4.125" bore
Eagle 3.25" stroker steel crank
Eagle 5.40" steel rods with ARP 2000 bolt upgrade
Custom Ross dished piston -26cc
custom Ross HD wrist pins
Hell fire rings
Jay Allen custom solid roller cam
Moroso Drag race pan pickup with Moroso windage tray
Precision Oil pump-Doug is a great guy
complete ARP hardware
old pair of Wilburt high ports from the Crawford era ported by Denny at J.D.S induction
Victor Jr. intake also ported by J.D.S inductions
Crane gold roller rockers
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LOl..giving it away at 13000..lol..i bought a 69 Z28 Camaro new in 69 for 3200..now thats giving it away..i bought a 71 340 Duster in 71 for 3400.

Nice start on the build.i love those 4 eyes.wish i would have never converted mine over.should move out with that turbo. ill be watching.

 

here is a few pictures of the turbo kit during mockup.
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i bought a set of valve cover off of Ebay. thanks to Hemann and racesloth. For $100 to the door, you can't beat them. I was almost ready to spend $350 for a set of Moroso valve covers. I am so glad i read their thread. I had to modify the baffle because of the tall rocker stud gridle and welded -12AN bung while rewelding the baffles back. a beginner at TIGing so your professional, give me a break.
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Great start on the build. I like the intro and miss my 85GT 4 eye's!

 

Welds look pretty dam good. 10'' rear wheels?

 

Forgot to mention that while assemblying my short block, Scott told me that the Dart blocks usually have very tight clearances on the mains. So i had to have the mains align honed and had to get a -.005 timing chain from Cloyd's.
I also learned that the washer that is used to hold the timing chain sprocket to the camshaft is a very commom failure area in a small block Ford.
The washer supplied by the timing chain companys are all too soft. For a mostly stock build it works, but once you combine lots of horsepower with some rpms, the washer becomes too soft and allows the bolt to tight up as your engine is running. After a few minutes, the head of the bolt snaps and then the pin also snaps and then it is all over. He used a titanium retainer instead on my motor.

I decided to use a crank trigger setup on this motor and bought a MSD crank trigger. I did a few searches on the forums and found that the Reichard timing pointer and bracket is the best piece to use, so i bought it. Well it lines up real well!!
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It turns out the pointer and crank trigger bracket only works with certain types of balancers. I have a Ford Motorsport balancer from my last motor and it is still new looking but, the bracket does not work with my balancer, so i just made the MSD bracket work with my timing pointer. If anyone is looking for the crank trigger bracket from Reichard, let me know.
The Ford motorsport balancer came with a pulley spacer. I machine the thickness of the crank trigger wheel off the spacer and pulleys now line up perfect with my alternator.

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I dropped the motor in this past weekend. I had to slot the driver side motor mount pad for the energy mount to sit correctly then had to shim up the motor with 2 washers because it was laying on my manual rack. Don't know why yet? I am using a Ground Pounder tubular setup that i bought back in 2000. Not really happy with using the washers. Going to get some Steeda off set rack bushings and see if that will at least move the rack away.
Just for fun, i threw on some of the turbo piping.
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thanks renagade306.
15x10 6.5 backspacing. M&H 275/60/15 drag radials.
I read a tread on the Corral and learned that the 325/50/15 M&H will fit also and not stick out. When i burn these guys out, going to get the 325's.
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Looks incredible - thanks for the advice on the MSD too.

 

Nice build.

Did you get the motor mount fixed up yet? I still have those Moroso if you want to try them.

 

Geddy, nice build!!! Hope my 85 turns out half as good as yours.

 

I know exactly who Crawford is. Their shop was about a mile from mine. They had too many people pulling big paychecks there. Too many chiefs, not enough indians.

Ronnie is still around building motors.

 

thanks for the prop guys. i will post more pictures of thing i had done in the past.

i should be getting those off set rack bushings today. I will see if that solves my problem.

 

I upgraded my brake kit for this project. I bought a Wilwood brake kit last year. It came with the parking brake kit that worked with c clip eliminators which was what i was looking for. The rotors were a little over 12". Pretty straight foward installation. I couldn't center my caliper to my rotors so i had to mill down the backing plate 1/16".
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I also bought a rear QA-1 rear coilover kit. The 175lb springs were too heavy and made the car sit too high so i am down to 150lb springs. I might eventually go to 140's or 130's. Fully expecting to pound the inside of my inner wheel wells because i am running a 10in rim with 6.5" backspacing. To my surprise, everything clears. I didn't even roll my outer fender lip yet. It doesn't stick out of the fender.
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I even borrowed my friends 28x10.5 MT slicks and they cleared too. I may roll the lip just incase if the car squats too hard.
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upgrade all my rear suspension components with Team Z products
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wow........!!!!! time + patience + money = quality.........me likey!!!!

 

got to be one of my favorite cars ever! sweet build

are you welding the axle tubes?

 

man they didnt tell you those "carbs" dont work lol wink

 

I was going to get the guage panel that Florida 5.0 makes for mounting all of my guages in my dash but decided to just try and modify my factory dash bezel to fit the guages. I think it came out ok. Besides the tach looking out of place against all of the ultra lite guages, lol. Had that tach for over 15 years and still looks new plus i rather put that money towards the AMS boost controller .
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lay down the sound deaden material on the interior floor

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battery box mounting finished
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made my own hidden compartment. Going to have to cut a slot for the shut off switch rod.
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VERY nice car man!

 

Awesome build but please do yourself a favor and ditch the fram oil filter. Ive seen a few with the element pulled through the oil pump and galleries in a few motors. Google fram and engine failure. HTH love the build.

 

thanks, i just welded two 1" short bead where the tubes meets the center section on each side. I don't know enough to properly prepare that area to really weld it because the center section is cast iron and the tubes are steel. You also need some kind of jig to keep the axles tubes from distorting from that kind of welding heat.
My theory is, if you are making too much power for the 8.8 rear to handle, it is going to snap no matter how you weld it. You are better off just buying a aftermarket complete rear like Moser or Fab 9. It is just like using the stock block, too much power, it is still going to crack, even with a main gridle.