🔧 BUILD Strtcar's 1986 Mustang Convertible

General Information

I've always had a soft spot for fox vert's so I bought this in 2015. I'm the third owner (60k miles), the car spent it's entire life in IL and surprisingly has zero rust, it's spotless. Originally this was going to be a coyote swap car however, already having one swap I missed the sound of a classic sbf (and the oil leaks) so decided to keep this one more of a traditional 90's build.

Car started its life out as a 1986 LX 3.8 v6, c5 auto, 7.5". The goal is to make it a great handling car with 325-350hp 400-425hp and do autocross events, perhaps even some HPDE, this won't be a drag car.

Planned mods are as follows, I have 90% of this stuff collected already:

Strip and paint engine bay, leaving the swiss cheese
Full Stifflers Catalog (FIT system, driveshaft loop, cross member)
Full MM Catalog (kmember, PHB, TA, CC Plates, Steering Shaft, Hydroboost, etc...)
Koni coilovers on all 4
2003 Cobra R&P
2003 Cobra Brakes
2003 Cobra Hydroboost
All new SS Brake Lines (Hard & Soft)
Stock block 331 (10:1)
AFR 185 Heads
TrickFlow Track Heat inake
Custom FTI Cam
Holley Terminator X EFI (LS CNP)
T5Z 5 Speed
Built 8.8 w/3.73 5 lug (wheels still tbd)
Bassani/AFM 1.75" shorty headers
2.5" Flowmaster 40 series (Is drone such a thing in a convertible?)
Paint the trim, but leave the rest of the car as is, maybe swap to black top
Leave interior 100% stock, hope to just use the terminator x 3.5" dash for gauges.
Rollbar for autocross & hpde

etc.... etc....

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strtcar

Regular
Oct 28, 2007
489
2,381
If you were going to just yank the engine you should have probably done it as a unit honestly. Something like that it's almost always easier to yank both.
I thought about that but honestly once all the stuff was pulled off the the trans it was easy to just pull it out and not deal with the crazy angles pulling them together.
 
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strtcar

Regular
Oct 28, 2007
489
2,381
Over the weekend I did a big garage clean-out, moved the car over to the other side for the "winter build season". Over the winter I'd like to get the following completed:
1) Remove interior and install new heater core, ac evap, manual pedal box.
2) Build 8.8
3) Replace the entire front and rear suspension along with new brake lines
4) Install hydroboost
5) Paint engine bay


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