11/5/06
Mustang Motor I

You may have recalled that I own an old Mustang Fastback. I bought this car in 1991, and have enjoyed owning this car over the years. I rebuilt the suspension with heavy duty components, lowered the the car 1 inch all around following Shelby GT 350 specifications, and installed front disk brakes. This 4-speed car now drives real nicely, but she has always been lacking in the engine compartment. The history of this car is unknown to me, and signs on the car shows that it had a speckled past. The engine is worn, but at one time was removed and painted the wrong color for the year of the car. I decided it was time to do something about this tired engine.

Winters in the Northeast are long and cold, perfect for an engine rebuild. Mike Meehan came over to help me pull the engine, and lent me his hoist and engine stand for the winter to rebuild the motor at my leisure. Although I helped remove and rebuild several engines, I’ve never done one on my own car, so I figured now was a good time as any to learn how to do it, especially since V-8 engines are simpler than a Ferrari V-12s!

My garage ceiling is too low to pull an engine, so the car had to pushed outside to extract the motor. With winter weather fast approaching, this weekend was as good as any to get it done!

Days before Mike came over, I began the preparation for the engine removal. I bagged bolts, and took pictures of how the accessories bolted to the front of the motor.

I’ll use this website to store some of these pictures so I can reference the “before” pictures when I put everything back together.

The engine came out of the car very easily, and I soon had everything inside my garage for the rebuild. My biggest problem is not to get carried away with this rebuild. The cheapest thing to do on this engine would be to keep all the useable parts and machine the cast iron heads for a decent valve job. The other end of the spectrum would be to make a stroker 347 cid engine by replacing the crank and going with a high tech valve train matched to aluminum heads and even fuel injection. My plans are to stay closer to the cheap side, but spending money my where there is the most value. I’m pretty sure I’m going with aluminum heads with a matched intake and cam from Edelbrock. Considering I would have to pay for the machine work on the cast iron parts, I could add that money to the cost of assembled heads with proven performance with plenty of power to scoot my Mustang down the road. Believe it or not, with any more power to this engine, I’ll create more problems with the rest of the car. More power will only show the weaknesses in the clutch, 4-speed gear box, and 8-inch rear end. It could end up being a never ending array of upgrades that I can’t afford the time, or the expense, to do.

I’m sure many of you guys out there have more experience than I do when it comes to Ford V-8s, and I welcome the knowledge and advice. Let’s see how this project goes over the next few months!

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