late 80's 5.0 HO motor

[marquis_82_withneons]

so i guess ill stick with the plan but opt for an explorer block instead of the mustang HO. bolt my stock box accessories on, upgrade the cam, and put my shelby intake and 4bbl on

[His Royal Ghostliness]

Speaking from personal experience: HO blocks accept GT40 (Explorer) heads, Explorer blocks accept HO heads. Additionally an Explorer block can drop right in place of a HO one, know of at least two cars that got that treatment.

Spark plug angle can be an issue with GT40P heads (97-up Explorer), buy appropriate headers for those if that's what you end up with. Altho running factory headers on a supercharged engine seems bit odd to me, you got all that air getting rammed in with a fairly restricted way out. If that were a naturally-aspirated engine I could see the point of using what you got cause you already got it, but with the hair-drier in there you're already into custom build territory. Besides idk about you but I strongly dislike exhaust work, and headers replacement is up there in the list of annoying exhaust jobs while engine is in the car.

Either block/head combination will accept Mustang accessories up front.

Make sure your Shelby intake will fit more modern heads. I know it can be an issue with 460 big blocks, haven't played with ancient 5.0 stuff to know how that situation is. Bolt pattern is probably the same, so port size and shape would be key.

[gadget73]

Roller blocks is roller blocks basically. The only difference worth talking about between parts out of a Mustang and parts from an Explorer are the pistons. 87-92 Mustang had forged pistons, 93+ everything else uses a hypereutectic piston that looks identical. Unless you're going for a lot of boost or a lot of spray, this makes no real difference. The Explorer heads are considerably better than anything a standard 5.0 Mustang ever got too.

The forged pistons are more expensive to replace too. When I rebuilt mine and had to get the block bored out, I replaced the original forged pistons with hyper pistons at about half the cost.

[Brown_Muscle]

Nice to see the ambition, I have a couple things to add, and ask.

I assume you are going with carb'd due to simplicity?

I personally have the E-cam and it sucks. Yes it works, yes it puts out decent power once you get it high enough in RPM's, but it sucks down low and street-ability could be better. I'm ditching it the first chance I get, so I, like the others, advise you to look at something else. The letter cams are old-school, outdated tech, and suck.

It would probably be a good idea to get a higher stall torque converter if you can afford, depending on what setup you decide to go with.

[marquis_82_withneons]

stock shortys will be replaced at some point down the line when i get to the SC point. for now its what i got so ill stick with it. for ease of acquireability and price point, i believe the explorer 5.0 is gonna be my option now that i know its the same stuff if not a bit better than a HO. if the E cam sucks that bad i guess ill toss that idea. i was kinda taking into consideration the SC making up for the low end down the road but if its gonna be that bad then ill look elsewhere.

as for the intake its an oldschool intake from the 289 era. dads had it for years. assuming it will bolt up perfectly, i will have the heads port matched whether by my own hand or by a shop. but i got a soft spot for the intake since it was my dads so i really wanna use it. as for the carb situation, yes simplicity, but also because of the intake choice. that and i highly dislike the use of computers on my cars. better drivability i know but i dont like the "drive by wire" aspect of things. granted this is a little more primitive computer tech compared to todays, its just a little outside my comfort zone. plus itll be a summer car ONLY, so i dont have to worry about temperature really being a factor for my setup.

if anyone else has suggestions or pointers feel free to chime in. thanks!

[His Royal Ghostliness]

The hair dryer won't be much help at all down low, they tend to make little boost at low engine speeds. Course you candrop in a big blower to boost at low RPMs and then a bigger BOV to vent other overboost at higher RPMs, but them things need lots of power to turn them so you may not actually gain much from the whole affair.

The headers plan sounds decent, if you won't be installing the hair dryer right off the bat then you could run the stockers for the time being. That may actually be a decent idea, since the blower will move lots of air and could make use of headers with large runners, whereas those exact headers can play hell with exhaust velocity (and thus scavenging) on a naturally-aspirated engine.

Intake should bolt up then, I was thinking if it was some Boss 302 part that may not fly. What carb you gonna run on it? Also have you thought about ignition setup yet?

[marquis_82_withneons]

alright then, so the E cam is out the window in exchange for something else, SC later along with different headers, probably shortys still but something significantly better none the less. as for carb im not sure. i dont wanna go overboard because ill have to spend more later on for a passthrough/blowthrough style or whatever for the SC. thoughts so far are for holly or edelbrock. not sure on cfm yet, but it will be 4bbl. as for ignition i havent thought too much on it. it will be upgraded, probably go with accel coil to start with, easier to come by for me and ive heard bad things about newer quality of MSD although that WAS my first choice a while back, and then some nice beefy silicon motorsport wires. not sure on dist. yet either.

[His Royal Ghostliness]

I'd go with a 600cfm Holley, vacuum secondaries of course. Not that a double-pumper can't be made to work, it can and I've done it, but it's a lot of tinkering... Edelbrocks I've never been impressed with (personal preference), but being this is only a temporary setup if you can get one for a good price I supposed it would work as well.

As far as ignition, I have heard the same things about the quality of newer MSDs. I actually have a brand new Holley ignition box I bought long ago for a project that got scrapped (literally), it's a nice piece with built-in rev limiter and such, something like that would be my choice if I was going for a fancy ignition. Tho realisitcally chances are I'll never actually get to use it on anything, seeing how I'm all devil-fueled these days... Or you can look into the HEI-style setups, yes it was GM who came up with them but the aftermarket makes them for Fords now as well, they make for nice self-contained ignition system, just feed the coil 12V thu a nice thick wire.

[marquis_82_withneons]

HEI looks a bit too cluttered for me. i know its got its benefits but for aesthetic purposes id rather use a traditional distributor. cheaper too depending how i go. for the time being it will probably stay stock with an upgraded cap, rotor, wires, and plugs. also a higher voltage coil (nothing crazy though) im not one for speed or high reving motors anyway so a limiter may or may not be needed. realistically id like to stay as far from electronic as i can, im more of a mechanical kinda guy.

i too was leaning more towards holly and your words kinda echo me in that direction. i feel edelbrock is more known for intakes anyway. i believe holley is also what dad is running on his lopo 84 Vic Wagon. but i feel like 650 is a number ive heard form him before. not sure. seeing as how simplicity is my best option ill def go vacuum secondaries.

[gadget73]

Edelbrock carbs are a 1950s Carter design. I've yet to see one that wasn't better than "meh". I gave up on carbs years ago when I realized that I just don't like working on my car constantly. I like to drive it, and EFI goes every time.

[knucklehead0202]

Only carbs I ever got OK with were on Briggs & Stratton motors I worked on in high school. Owned a couple carb cars at first but didn't really do anything with them. After that it was all EFI, so much simpler...mostly. I dunno, I'd like to do something old-school, with a dual-carb or triple-2 kinda thing, but it IS a total ballache. Sure to hell looks cool though. I see a single-carb and I go....meh. Saw a t-bucket once with a 331 hemi and 6 strombergs on it though and I'd have bet he'd beat all those fags at that car show with their lame SBC-motored t-buckets. This thing looked like total shit at a glance; primer, ugly interior, but the running gear was top-notch and it was running well. That's a true hot-rodder, not some nerd that spent more on the paint than the drivetrain.

[DerekTheGreat]

I hated carbs up until it was do or die/sell the Fury. Up until that point I also thought Ecklebrock made manifolds, not carbs and that Holley's were the way to go. Now I'm a firm believer of that. Haven't had any problems with my carb for 3 years now but trying to tinker with one that's been tinkered with/modified by someone who doesn't really know what they're doing and has been on the car for ten years ect ect is going to cause mucho headaches. That's where I was initially with my carb, thought the POS would never run right but that was just me being ignorant and afraid of it. "650" is a good generic number that while not optimal, usually gets the turd in question to go down the road half way decent before you can figure out what the car wants exactly. There are formulas out there for which one you need but the way I understand it is if you're on the far left or right with your main jets then you need to go smaller/larger with the carb. The books I've read suggest that under CFM is better than too much CFM. Mechanical secondaries are used when you want to be a "Bro" IMO. If its not a dedicated track/race vehicle there's no need for them or dual carbs. I have no qualms about taking on the tuning of one carb but two is something I'll only dream about. Would need oxygen sensors and shit to see what I'm doing and a dyno would be nice too.

[Brown_Muscle]

I like EFI, but carb's aren't that bad if they are in good shape, and properly tuned. The problem is most people don't have them tuned correctly, so they end up with issues. I daily drove a carb'd car for years, and even though I'm still not driving it everyday, I can go start it up and drive it around just fine whenever I want. This is with an OEM ford carb though, not aftermarket.

If you really get into tuning EFI yourself, with any major engine changes, it is FAR more complex than tuning a carb, however once you learn how to do it you can get far better results in real time than with a carb.

Sorry for the threadjack..

[marquis_82_withneons]

I like EFI, but carb's aren't that bad if they are in good shape, and properly tuned. The problem is most people don't have them tuned correctly, so they end up with issues. I daily drove a carb'd car for years, and even though I'm still not driving it everyday, I can go start it up and drive it around just fine whenever I want. This is with an OEM ford carb though, not aftermarket.

If you really get into tuning EFI yourself, with any major engine changes, it is FAR more complex than tuning a carb, however once you learn how to do it you can get far better results in real time than with a carb.

Sorry for the threadjack..

this.... all of this... perfectly said. i too have had no issue with my carbs. both ford carbs and both rebuilt. run beautifully. the car this engine is going in currently has a ford 2bbl and gets me 20mpg on the highway. cant complain