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From New 5.0 to Old 5.0

8K views 50 replies 20 participants last post by  brianadams03 
#1 · (Edited)
Well I guess now is better time than any to show folks my "new" car. This is going to be somewhat lengthy since I've had the car for almost 6 months now and ran into some issues.

Back in August I sold my '11 5.0 for a number of reasons, one being me and the wife were planning on extending the family. A few weeks later, we found out that'll be happening sooner rather than later so I figured it was time to get me another car while I could. Looked around for a while but never found anything within my range(only wanted a cruising car that didn't have porno red interior, A/C, decent paint and interior, not really beat on type car ect, not a race car by any means). Buddy pointed me to one that was local and guy wasn't really wanting to sell, but said if I show up with cash, it's mine. And that's what I did.

It's a '92 LX hatch with a baby turbo on it. Previous owner did push a head gasket in the car from the fan relays acting up and ended up rebuilding the engine with a polished stock crank, custom rings, and a few other things to help the life of the car.

Here's the run down on all the goodies on it:
80k original miles
No wrecks and paint is a 8 out of 10
"garage queen"
Car weighs 3060lbs last time on scale.

Engine
Stock 5.0
Quicktime Turbo system (not Chinese crap)
67mm Precision
Magnaflow catback
GT40 Heads
Explorer intake
60lb Siemens injectors
BA2800 MAF
ARP Head studs
MLS Gaskets
Mishimoto radiator with ramchargers fan and contoller
MSD Digital 6 / 2 step & revlimiter
2 step is wired to clutch and works flawlessly
255 walbro intank fuel pump

Drivetrain
TKO600
SteedaTri Ax shifter
B & M Handle
Promotion clutch 680 HP
Ford Alumn driveshaft
3:27 gear
Differential girdle cover

Suspension
Tokico Illuminas adj shocks & struts
Baseline Upper Adj control arm
Maximum Adj lower control arms
Full length sub frames
Torque boxes welded

Misc

MT 255/50/R16
Innovate wideband
Battery relocated to trunk
solenoid is in trunk
brand new battery
SCT 4 position flip chip

Pics:








Very clean car, fun to drive, actually rides very well for a foxbody, and interior is immaculate. On top of getting it for a pretty good price for mileage and mods, was pretty damn happy to get the car. Got it towards the end of Nov and drove it around every couple of days. Did have some issue with the fans not cutting on and car somewhat over heating, but a little bit of jiggling or replacing the fuse would fix it quick.

Well here's where the fun begins. Since I knew the fans acted up, I debated completely rewiring the entire fan controller and all that but wanted to wait to make sure they(being the fans, the controller, and hell even the radiator) were worth keeping. Went out to just drive around some the day after Christmas, get on a long road with no one on it and decide to make a test it but notice the temps are a little higher than they should be, so jump out of the car to try and get the fans to cut on, and nothing. Wouldn't cut on for anything. Sat there a min let the car cool down and started checking things, coolant in the radiator, getting power to the fan controller(there's a light on it to know that's got power), then grab the coolant hose.... sure enough, it was "cold". Tstat wasn't opening up. Well you might think, why not just turn the heater on full blast and force it open.... Previous owner took heater lines out to clean the engine bay up some(granted, it does look good). Well hell, gotta limp home(luckily only a few miles away) and the simple task of replacing the tstat begins.
You'd think that'd be an easy task.... Well I end up rounding out the tstat bolt hole that's right behind the water pump because my wrench was to fat to come out("That" -She)... So figured since I'm pulling the intake off to fix it, might as well put a new intake on it. Get a used Trick Flow Track Heat from a friend. Well took a little bit of time to piece everything together(had to delete the 1" spacer, so had to get new bolts, needed new egr/throttle body gaskets that were back ordered for over 2 months), and it had a larger gasket so had to order it, but finally got it all together and ready to go.

How it sits now:




Getting it retuned at buddy's local shop:



We took it out that night just to ride around and make sure everything was fine and it was. Car pulled hard, felt great, and was making the power I wanted(was hoping for 400hp on pump, previous owner ran it on 110 and made 444/500 from a JMS tune). Took the car out the next day to enjoy the weather, ran around town some kept checking temps like I always do and everything was fine.... Until 5pm, then it decided it wanted to be a garage queen again.

I know it's kind of hard to read, but that's 250 degrees.... And the switch above it is a manual cut on for the fans, so I know they are ALWAYS on when the car is on.


And video from it going home after putting coolant in it...


Pulled right after I got home... Doesn't look murky, but that's 3x the amount of oil it should have, so somethings pushing it up.


I'm guessing it got low on coolant and in the 2-3 mile span I was cruising on the interstate and didn't check the temps it shot up. Previous owner did tell me there was a small leak in the radiator, but if this is the cause, that's definitely no small leak after <150 miles of riding around since it was full. I should have checked it after the dyno, or before I left that day, or when I was at a buddy's house, but it is what it is and future steps will be taken to make sure it never happens again(I'm thinking along the lines of an alarm when/if it gets over 200 degrees). But I'll eventually pull the heads and find out if they are cracked or warped, if some how the MLS gaskets failed, or if the new seals on the intake manifold are shot.


TLDR: Bought new car in Nov, had to go down from Christmas till basically this past weekend because of my stupidity, 22 hours after getting tuned, blows head gasket/warps/splits heads. Now it's down again for a while till after baby probably gets here.
 
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2 11
#4 ·
Good looking car.... oh and by the way..... love the color
 
#8 ·
Video's have been uploaded and original post has been updated.




Yup, it was actually higher than that... I took the pic after I jumped out and made sure I could open the hood(no steam what so ever) and checked things over.

I'm going to hopefully tear into it next week if I'm not busy preparing for a big bowfishing tournament and I'll post of pics of the carnage(if there is any).
 
#11 ·
Still haven't gotten around to breaking the car down, but I have a feeling the heads are gunna be cracked/split/warped. So the question is... what would you do?

A. Replace heads with another set of GT40(assuming no scoring on the block)
B. Used set of heads like AFR 165's(if the block stays stock, I'll never max the flow of the heads out vs strength of the block)
C. **** it all, build it right(and most expensive, $5k+ with everything else being upgraded). Meaning Dart block, AFR 185 heads, new rods and pistons, new crank, ect ect.
If I were to go down the C road heres the kicker... It'll probably no longer be a "street" car. I'd go 4r70, good converter, 5 lug for brakes, and turn the turbo up to damn near it's limit.

And a little piece of info, I am expecting a kid at the end of the month... so having a little bit of extra money in my pocket for if **** hits the fan is definitely something I'd like to have, so I'm leaning towards A or B.
 
#13 ·
Honestly it would come down to money for me. A if it's right, B if it's not too right and C if you can say screw it and go for it


Sent from AutoGuide.com App
 
#14 ·
Decided to go the cheapest route I can with the heads at this time... Only to spend the money on getting the engine bay smoothed. Going to drop the motor to put a Team Z K member in, so while it's out, gunna get it smoothed and painted. If the heads are unrecoverable(Pics below, I've pulled one off so far and it's apparent it got hot but doesn't seem to be cracked), then I'll be getting a new set of GT40x, which will lower the weight of the car a little more with the new K member. Under 3k pounds w/ 400+hp would be pretty damn nice.

Few pics for those who are interested.




You can see right above this one it's just a weeee bit clean. And the gasket below is apparent as to why.


 
#15 ·
I wouldn't buy the GT40X heads without checking, Ive read that they don't flow near as well as other alum heads for not much more.

Sucks to hear about your head gasket blowing. These motors are easy to work on so you should be back up real soon.

I would keep the TKO no matter what your end goals are, though. Just my .02
 
#16 ·
I wouldn't buy the GT40X heads without checking, Ive read that they don't flow near as well as other alum heads for not much more.
This.

Trickflow Twisted Wedge heads are $50 less at Late Model Restoration and offer WAY better performance. Less money and more power? I wouldn't think twice. If you do get the TFS, be sure to get the versions with the upgraded dual springs. The valve train stability above 5000 RPM is night and day.

Trick Flow Mustang Twisted Wedge Heads w/ Upgraded Valve Springs (79-95) 5.0 5.8 51400004M61 - LatemodelRestoration.com
 
#17 ·
I know they don't flow as much, but on a stock block, it won't be hard to max it out w/ a 14# spring. So I would think head flow won't be anywhere near it's limit before the block wanted a new window. If I got the hook up on TF's, I'd get them w/o thinking.... But since a buddy's shop can get the GT40x for more than half the price of the twisted bnib.... I'm leaning towards them. I have been looking for some used one, hell used AFR's, TF's, anything other than GT40, but when folks think a used set of AFR165's are worth $900+... It makes it hard to find some at a good price.
 
#24 ·
It already has them.


Nice looking car!

IMO, you'll be better off with aluminum heads like TFS TW heads. They are more rigid and flow better. That means you can make the same power with less boost and less heat, so for the same power it is much easier on the engine. This is especially true with a turbo.

Head gaskets blow because of pressure and heat, **not horsepower**. It is silly for everyone to rate all blocks by some imaginary maximum horsepower number.

Running a lot of boost on an engine that cannot breathe, and choking off the exhaust flow with a /turbo that is trying to push air through tiny head ports and cam, makes the internal temperatures and pressure go way up.

If you were making the same power at 6000 RPM from better heads and cam you'd have about 15% less pressure trying to lift the heads than at 5000. The exhaust wouldn't have to push the turbo so hard, so the engine could get the hot exhaust out easier.

IMO you would be better off with better flow and less boost a few more RPM, if you want to make things easy on the block. 15lbs is a lot to run on a stock 302. That is where I had constant issues with gaskets with my factory 1989 302.

Thanks!
I've heard if you go to TFS TW, you are "recommended" to change the pistons too, so trying not to go that route right now. I'm still on the hunt for some AFR's or just about anything better than the gt40. I've got a little time now that I'm getting some work done on the engine bay, but every set of AFR's I've seen come up FS are ridiculously high.
I'm only running 10-11#'s on it now, and don't plan on putting a bigger spring in it unless I upgrade some things. And since i'm going to clean up the engine bay now... it's going to stay on the 9# spring for the time being.
 
#23 ·
Nice looking car!

IMO, you'll be better off with aluminum heads like TFS TW heads. They are more rigid and flow better. That means you can make the same power with less boost and less heat, so for the same power it is much easier on the engine. This is especially true with a turbo.

Head gaskets blow because of pressure and heat, **not horsepower**. It is silly for everyone to rate all blocks by some imaginary maximum horsepower number.

Running a lot of boost on an engine that cannot breathe, and choking off the exhaust flow with a /turbo that is trying to push air through tiny head ports and cam, makes the internal temperatures and pressure go way up.

If you were making the same power at 6000 RPM from better heads and cam you'd have about 15% less pressure trying to lift the heads than at 5000. The exhaust wouldn't have to push the turbo so hard, so the engine could get the hot exhaust out easier.

IMO you would be better off with better flow and less boost a few more RPM, if you want to make things easy on the block. 15lbs is a lot to run on a stock 302. That is where I had constant issues with gaskets with my factory 1989 302.
 
#27 ·
I'm running a stock 89 HO short block with a comp XE266HR cam(216/224--544/555) with out of the box TW 170's with lots of PTV clearance. That really shouldn't be an issue unless you go with a very big cam!
 
#28 ·
Been a while since I've done anything to the car but finally got some motivation to get some stuff done over the past month or so.
Current status is just waiting on some free time to start reassembling everything.

TeamZ K member and A arms installed
UPR coil over and CC plates w/ Strange struts and 12-250 Vicking springs
Motor just had TF 185's installed w/ FRPP 1.6 rockers and comp magnum pushrods.
TKO600 had a few upgraded parts added to it from Hanlon Motorsports. Carbon rings for second, third, and fourth gears. Shouldn't have any more lockout issues under load.









 
#32 ·
it's been alot of oh, might as well replace this, well gotta replace that bs so waiting on parts has been my biggest hold up.
I'm running into this sooo much.... It's making the build last longer lol
 
#33 ·
Yup, using MLS again so if something messes up... Then that means should need new block and ready to go fast ha.
Block was actually fine. We think the previous owner might not have tightened down the heads all the way because it's odd neither the deck or the heads were warped or anything.
If it happens again, then it's destined to be a pos and it will be trashed. I missed out on a smoking deal for a A4 block with Bryant crank because seller wanted to get rid of everything and I only wanted block and crank... But that's how **** goes so oh well.


I'm running into this sooo much.... It's making the build last longer lol
Yes. God yes. And apparently I've lost a bag of bolts that were anything trans related.... So it's been fun going to fastenal and lowes every day after work getting parts. Not to mention, I bought stuff with the intention of reusing the GT-40 heads, so had to buy new header bolts(stainless steel), new valve covers(tall ones to clear pedestal rockers), and new breathers(previous ones were too tall).

---------- Post added May 3rd, 2015 at 12:11 AM ---------- Previous post was May 2nd, 2015 at 11:37 PM ----------

Well it's getting close, very close to being cranked.
Got trans in, driveshaft in, turbo and hotside mounted, and few little things on the inside done. Hoping to be at least on the verge of cranking it tomorrow if I can get away from doing a crap ton of chores that I've been pushing off the past week.

 
#34 ·
If you have to build another block someday try using the Valley Girdle Pro set up. It's an invention from Doug Pelmear here in Napoleon, Ohio that Don Garlets, Larry Dixon, and many others are using that you can attach to a stock Ford short block that webs the lifter valley to the block for more power potential. Just a suggestion. Look up HP2G.com to learn more about him. He is the one I bought the super coupe rear end off of and used to be a Ford engineer. He does seem to know his stuff.

Jerry
 
#37 ·
Thanks man, but if one more bs things comes up, it might get rolled down a hill and lit on fire haha.

Found this last night while priming the oil pump...


But going to stick some jb weld on it this after noon and get back to work on the other few things left to do. Hoping to at least put upper intake manifold on before the wife makes me move it to throw baby stuff up in the attic all night.
 
#38 ·
Just a small update today.
Jb welded the hole in the oil pan.
Spent countless hours trying to figure out how in the hell the previous owner had the turbo drain tube worked out. I wouldn't've had this problem if the machine shop would have left my **** alone and kept the fittings on the pan but w/e... It has -12an hose end and the hole in the oil pan is 1/4" NPT. No one makes any reducer close to that so I've pissed away a day driving around and searching online trying to find either a -10 hose, then a -10 male to -8 female reducer, then an -8 male to 1/4" male.... Think I got the right parts coming in today, so gunna find out if all this head ache is right or not.
And hunted for more bolts I've either misplaced or thrown away.

One day... One day it'll run.
 
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