I created my own crude equation for minimum "safe" quench distance. You could go a little tighter than the equation does and most likely be just fine but this is what I would recommend if you're more concerned with keeping a safe distance than trying to run it on the edge.

[2/(bore + stroke)]/100 = minimum quench distance

*For every .001" of piston-to-wall clearance over .003", add .001" quench distance to account for piston rock in the bore.

*For every 200rpm over 6,000rpm, add .001" quench distance to account for rod stretch.

Your engine for example:

[2/(4.030" + 3.000)] / 100 = X
[2/7.030"]/100 = x
3.515"/100 = x
x = .035"

You have .003" PTW clearance so no extra distance needed.

Let's say you intend to spin it 6600rpm which would add .003" to the distance.

Total quench distance: .038"

If spinning it 7k rpm, would be .040"

If spinning it 8k rpm, would be .045"

If spinning it 8k rpm with .005" PTW clearance, would be .047".

and so on...

Not an exact science.

In your case, you could probably get away with .031" clearance if it you didn't intend to spin it more than 6k or so. It would be running it really close. Your current quench at .041" is safe and effective so I wouldn't mess with it. Another crude chart...

.025-.035": Very tight, low rpm use only, tight clearances
.035-.045": Ideal quench range, safe distance, plenty of quench action
.045-.055": Very safe, production loose spec range, less than ideal quench
.055-.060": Borderline too safe, quench action cut in half, carbon builds in quench areas
.060" or more: Little to no quench, detonation prone, efficiency suffers, power suffers

The only time this doesn't apply is when using aluminum rods. You have to add .025-.030" distance to whatever you'd normally run with steel rods due to aluminum rods stretching a lot more at higher rpm.

As for the cam, it will work very well with those heads. It was designed to work well with them. It just might want a little more compression than you currently have, but I don't think it'll be a dog at all. If you're concerned with low rpm response, advance the cam an additional 2 degrees to a 106 ICL to build a little more cylinder pressure.

Man, I'm very thankful to be getting all of this info that you're giving me. I'm feeling like I'm actually starting to understand a little of this camshaft and compression math that you're talking about. I'll admit, I can't completely wrap my head around all of it at the moment, but more than likely, I'll use a lot of this knowledge to eventually build an even better motor for my car. Probably won't happen until I'm finished with college though.

Obviously, I would love to be able fix this "compression issue" since I've got a good idea of what it would take to do so (mill the block and heads a little bit and buy some real flat-top pistons). However, the motor as it sits right now (with the low-ish compression numbers) will probably be just fine for what I intend to do with it. The car that it's going in is mostly going to be a fun street-type of application that might even possibly see some daily driver duties. I say that because the gas here in Kansas isn't all that great lol. The pumps only have up to 91 octane around where I live, and I don't want to be worrying about the motor not running right on pump gas. I can just (sort of) go crazy with advancing the timing.

The reality of the situation though, is that getting my engine's compression where it should be would require me to spend even more money on engine parts, tear the motor completely apart, put it through EVEN MORE machine work, and put it all back together again. That time and money needed to make the compression right is time and money that I just don't have right now, being that I'm a full-time student Monday - Friday and work all day on weekends.

Plus, this is just a little aluminum-headed 302 motor that I’m working with here. It’s not like I’m building some high-dollar Dart-based boosted stroker where every spec has to be absolutely right on the dot for the motor to make power, let alone run right. I just don’t see the point on spending a whole lot more time and money on this motor just to “make it run a little better.”

Even if I’m not going to do anything more with the motor, it’s a good thing for me to know that it’s got room for improvement. I really do appreciate you pointing all of this stuff out to me. If I ever put my car on an actual dyno, and it doesn’t make the power numbers that I was hoping it would make, well now I know the reason why.

---------- Post added at 12:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:05 PM ----------

Had work off this weekend so that I could rebuild the T5 transmission for my Mustang.

First of all, I’ve gotta mention my little shop buddy that I’ve had here with me lately. A stray cat I found a few months ago that was pretty much out living with the cows (I live in a rural country-type of area, which is to be expected in Kansas lol) and surviving somehow. I don’t have a name for her though, I just call her Cat lol.



It seems like somebody used to own this cat in their house, and just decided to abandon it one day for whatever reason. Her front paws have been declawed, she seems to have been spayed some time in the past, and she appeared to be reasonably healthy when I found her. The thing that amazes me the most about this cat though (and why I think she’s worth keeping around), is that it’s surprisingly tame, calm, and loving, not just for a stray cat, but for any kind of cat in general. She meows a lot, but she’s not all jumpy, scared, and people-hating like most little asshole cats are lol.

Just to show how chill this damn cat is, I was running the loud-ass air compressor and some loud-ass air tools a few days ago (cleaning some transmission parts), and this is what she was doing behind me the whole time.



I took her in, feed her food and water every day, give her some treats every now and then, make sure her litter box doesn’t get too shitty (literally), and just make sure she’s got everything she needs to live. She’s gotten pretty attached to me in the short time I’ve had her. Sadly though, cat’s gotta stay out in the shop since the house has to stay clean, and apparently she sheds too much hair to live in a clean house. So she sleeps on my Mustang’s back seat in the shop every night.



Well, reason I’m mentioning this cat is because she was jumping up on me all the time today (trying to get my attention) while I was working on the transmission. Something she does all the time now.



Anyway, on to the transmission rebuild. What you all are came here to read about.

Once again, I’m posting these T5 transmission videos with Paul Cangialosi and Eric the Car Guy to better explain what all I did to rebuild my transmission.



Hammered the front counter gear bearing race into the case. It was a bitch to get it seated all the way.



Reverse gear installed, counter gear endplay set, and counter gear stabilizer plate installed.



Shit! Cows broke down the gate and ran loose! Had to wrangle them back in and feed them their hay.



Found this fancy little stool vice to rebuild the main shaft



Main shaft all put back together with new synchronizer rings, bearings, etc.



Shift forks (with new shift fork pads) put back into the top cover



The grand reunion! Main shaft put back into the case.



The 5 – Reverse shift fork has a roll pin holding it onto the 5 – Reverse shift rail. Punching that pin in while keeping that rail in place was a real hemorrhoid to do. Er, I mean pain in the ass to do.



Tail housing reassembled with the output shaft seal, mid-pipe hanger, transmission mount, and transmission vent cap.



Tail housing installed



Input shaft installed, main shaft endplay set, and front bearing retainer installed.



Shifter installed and shift stops set.



Finally! Yes! The transmission’s rebuilt and ready to go into the car!





I bolted the handle onto the shifter, went through the all the gears, and each one feels real good. They all required a pretty good amount of effort to turn (especially 5th and reverse), but I’m sure that’s due to the transmission assembly gel I was using. That shit was REALLY thick because of the cold weather these days, and I put it on every single bearing in the transmission.



I’m sure that’s why it was pretty difficult for me to spin all the gears by hand. Even so, I bet that things won’t be so hard to turn once the transmission gets ATF in it and gets broken in.

Welp, transmission’s bagged up right next to the engine and ready to go. Next step of the project here is to buy a clutch, get the motor and trans bolted together, and drop both into the car.

Great build! I can't see any of the pictures after you started using the new phone. What am I missing?

Same here. None of the pictures are showing up.

Ugh, damn new phone and its Google Photos. I'll see if I can fix it.

Sorry it took a while, but I THINK the pictures are fixed now.

I see no pictures at all, previously there was an image that had a symbol indicating an issue for all of them, but now there is just a blank line where the pictures were.

I can see the images now.

Same, now that I think of it, may have been cause I was on the work computer that there was an issue.

Hoping to God that's the problem lol.

---------- Post added at 10:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:59 AM ----------

This past weekend, work was cancelled for me because of fixes / renovations being done to the building I work in. With no work, I decided to get in my car and just drive around Kansas. It’s something I like to do when I’ve got a day to myself, with no obligation to do anything or be anywhere. I’ve put a shitload of miles on my daily driver over the years because of this.











My driving around last weekend took me to a small town called Independence, KS which is in the southeastern end of Kansas and about 3 hours south of where I live. I was minding my own business, driving around, admiring the scenery of the town and everything. Just as I was about to drive out of Independence, this thing sitting near a little run-down motel-like apartment complex caught my eye.



“HOLY HORSE SHIT!!!” I thought to myself. “A black Mustang just like mine! Looks like it’s been sitting back there for years!” I pulled up to the car, looked around / inspected it, and learned a few things about it:


1) The car wasn’t originally black. The underside of the hood, the rest of the engine bay, and the insides of the doors were yellow, so the whole thing was probably originally yellow way back in the day.

2) The car was a 1995 V6 auto Mustang with 138,000 miles on it. Supposedly, it was parked due to transmission issues.

3) The body was pretty beat up, the windshield was smashed, and the paint job was pretty shitty.

4) The interior was filled with junk, and quite a few of the interior parts themselves were missing.

5) Like the interior, there were also quite a few under hood parts missing too.

6) The plate had a 2014 tag on it, so the car itself hadn’t been on the road in over 2 years.


So yeah, that 1995 Mustang I found was pretty worthless sitting the way it was. However, it had one part on it that wasn’t missing or messed up in some way, and it’s the only body part that my 1994 Mustang is missing. THE FRONT BUMPER!!!





I never got a good picture of it, but that bumper I pulled off of my car 2½ years ago was torn and fucked up due to a little deer hit-and-run. For some stupid reason, I decided to junk the thing instead of fix it. Ever since junking that ripped up bumper, I’ve DREADED the day that I’d have to go out and try to find one that looked like the rest of my car (old, worn out, shitty black paint), but wasn’t structurally damaged somehow.

As luck would have it though, the front bumper on that 1995 Mustang I found in Independence was PERFECT. The black paint on it was shitty. The clear coat on it was shitty. The paint itself had all sorts of chips, cracks, scratches, scrapes, and scuffs on it from years and years of abuse. Yet somehow, even though it was pretty beat up, the bumper itself was completely intact (structurally speaking, that is).

With that in mind, I set out to find the owner of that 1995 Mustang. Thankfully, I found the car’s owner in the apartment complex where I found the car. Oddly enough, this 1995 Mustang owner lady had the exact same first name as the name of the lady I bought my 1994 Mustang from back in 2014. Weird. Anyway, I offered to pay her for the bumper, but to my surprise, she said that I could just take it for free since I offered to pay for it instead of stealing it. Plus, the car that the bumper was attached to was just worth absolutely nothing, so she saw no point in making someone pay money for a simple little body part off of it. That was too nice of her.

With my limited amount of tools on hand, I had that bumper off pretty quickly, and made sure to put the headlights and everything else back exactly how I found it. I would’ve taken that headlight panel off too, but the middle part of it where the little pony emblem mounts to was broken off. Plus, I kinda destroyed it by taking the front bumper off of it lol.



Loaded the bumper up in the old daily driver Volvo, and made my way back home.



---------- Post added at 10:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:18 AM ----------

Some better pics of the bumper itself and the condition it’s in.



These little studs use nuts to secure the sides of the bumper to the front fenders (you can also see that this bumper was neither black nor yellow originally WTF).



Most of the time (like when I took the torn bumper off of my car) those bumper-to-fender studs are all rusted up and snap in half when you take the nuts off. Thankfully the studs on this new-ish bumper weren’t all too rusty and didn’t snap off on me (having WD40 with me didn’t hurt either).

The baked clear coat on this bumper looks exactly like the baked clear coat on my car.



The pic might not show it too well, but this bumper’s got plenty of wear and tear on it, which matches the rest of the car that it’s going on to.



Another shot of the exposed original paint on the bottom of the bumper.



Seems like the bumper was patched sometime in the past. Oh well, doesn’t matter to me.



After getting the bumper, I bought a new headlight panel and the little pony grill emblem to complete the front end of my car (minus the headlights).

The headlight panel, from Late Model Restoration, didn’t have the nice fit and finish that I remember the OEM headlight panel having. But, that’s to be expected with pretty much any aftermarket body part for any car.



This pony grill emblem is also from Late Model Restoration (sold under the name of Daniel Carpenter Restoration) and it looks very nice. It even came with the torx screws needed to mount it to the headlight panel.



Should be able to put this front bumper and stuff on some time soon.

---------- Post added at 10:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:31 AM ----------

Got around to putting the front bumper on yesterday.

As I expected, the headlight panel I bought from Late Model Restoration didn’t fit quite right on my car. Sure, the pony grill emblem bolted right on and the attachments on each edge of the headlight panel to the fenders lined up.



But the problems I had were where the headlight panel bolts onto the core support. The bolt holes (or slots I should say) there just didn’t quite line up right. They took a little bit of “massaging” to line up, but even then, the bolts just didn’t completely go on exactly perfectly.



As for the bumper itself, it went on without too much trouble. The tabs / tongues that go into the bottom of the headlight panel were right on. The studs that go into the fenders were right on. The push pin holes that hold the bottom of the bumper to the bottom of the core support were right on (bought some new push pins for that too).

Couldn’t find any of those plastic body pins that were big and long enough (lol dat means two tings lol) to fasten the top of the bumper to the top of the headlight panel. So I put through-bolts through it.



The plastic nuts that help fasten the back ends of the bumper to the bottom of the fenders were missing from my car, so I through-bolted them as well.



Did my best to put the inner fender liners back in (dusty since they’ve been in a barn for 2 years lol). You can also see where that through-bolt is at the back end of the bumper (left end of the pic).



Another thing to be expected with probably just about any bumper replacement. The bumper-to-fender gaps aren’t quite straight on both sides of my car. But then again, the whole thing looks like an open autopsy, so who gives a shit?



And just like that, my car’s got a (ugly) face again! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the wear, tear, and shitty-ass paint on that front bumper matches the rest of the car PERFECTLY!









This is a HUGE milestone for my car! Because as I mentioned before, I thought that finding a front bumper like this (black, worn out, and beat up without any rips, tears, or holes) was going to be a COMPLETE PITFA for me to do. Probably about 90% or so of the 94-98 Mustang front bumpers in junkyards are either structurally damaged somehow or completely missing altogether. Plus, there are never really any people in my area selling 94-98 Mustang front bumpers on E-bay or Craigslist. So finding that perfect black front bumper in Independence, KS FOR FREE was an EXTREME stroke of luck for me.

Still waiting and saving up money to bolt the engine and transmission together.

Right now, I’m in school and slowly saving up money from my weekend job to buy more Mustang parts. I’m specifically saving for the parts I need to bolt the engine and transmission together and drop both into my Mustang. However, I still need something to actually pick the motor and trans up in order to drop them both into the car. Luckily for me though, I got the solution for it just yesterday.

I would’ve liked to be able to use my grandpa’s tractor again (what I used to pull the old motor and trans out), but it’s not too practical for dropping an engine and transmission into a car. The hydraulics would need to be controlled from inside the cab, and I won’t exactly be able to see where the motor and trans are going from inside the cab of the tractor. Even with two people (one running the hydraulics and the other guiding the motor and trans in), the tractor’s loud-ass engine would make communications real difficult.



My grandpa’s also got this cable hanging from the ceiling of his shop. It could lift and hold the 500 lbs. of engine and transmission with ease. That would be nice too, but the motor and trans would only be able to hang in just one place the whole time. Plus, the cable itself is real slow to raise and lower. Any adjustments needing to be made would require the motor and trans to be sloooooooowwwwly lifted up, the whole damn car would have to be jacked up and moved around, then the motor and trans would be sloooooooowwwwly lowered back down. That whole process would just be a time-wasting dammit-all-to-hell affair.



Just last weekend though, I found the solution to my motor and trans lifting problem. I was looking through one of those Car and Driver magazines at work, and I stumbled on the good ol’ Harbor Freight coupons page. In it was a coupon for a 1 ton engine hoist for only $99, which my boss was kind and generous enough let me cut out. I went to Harbor Freight the next day, bought that 1 ton engine hoist for only $111, and brought it home. Put it all together last night. WOOT, $100 ENGINE HOIST!!!



I still don’t have too much disposable income right now, and I’m doing my best to save up for more Mustang parts. But like the front bumper situation, that $100 engine hoist was just too good of a deal to pass up.

Another lucky find for me today. I’m starting to think that these great deals I’ve been coming across lately are some kind of good karma for me after getting screwed over on a Craigslist “deal” almost 2 years ago. In a nutshell, I paid a guy for the drivetrain out of this 1986 Mercury Capri RS that ran and drove, the guy ended up junking the body and reselling all those good drivetrain parts to people other than me, and then he pretty much got his ass out of the Kansas City area to run away from me and whomever else was after him.



Anywho, on my way home from work last weekend, I saw a junk Mustang sitting in someone’s yard. From a distance, I could tell it was a 94-95 due to the horizontal taillights. Up close though, I found that it was actually a 94-95 5.0 Mustang GT since it had a GT rear bumper on it. Like any other car that I pull parts off of, it seemed like that car wasn’t really worth anything. Especially considering that it had no motor or trans, the whole front clip of it was gone, the interior was trashed, and it was sitting on an old flatbed truck.



I found the owner of the property and the Mustang, and asked him if I could take some parts off of it. The guy said that the car was going to the crusher next week (by crusher, he meant driving one of those two Chevy mudding trucks over the Mustang lol), and if I bought him a case of beer, I could take whatever I wanted before he crushed it. Eh, fair deal. A 30-pack of Keystone Light was only $16 at Walmart lol.



After the quick beer trip, I tore into that old 5.0 Mustang to pull out some of the parts I wanted. Once I was finished up, the property owner and I bullshitted and talked about about car / truck stuff over a few of the beers I just bought for him. Pretty cool dude. Loves his 4X4 Chevys.

Now on to the parts I actually got from that junk Mustang GT.

150 MPH gauge cluster. The cluster itself looks pretty good, I guess. It’s gonna need a plastic screen since the old one seems to have been ripped off, and I’ll probably have to put a new odometer gear in it.



T4M0 PCM. To my surprise, this T4M0 computer was in the car, which is basically what was used to control 94-95 5.0 5-speed Mustangs.



Sadly though, it looks like somebody pulled the chip out of it before I got my hands on it.



Now I’m glad that I found a proper gauge cluster for my car, but I’m not too sure if this PCM will work right for me, or if I’ll even need it at all. I’ll be buying a Holley carb and an HEI-style distributor for my engine, so I’m obviously not gonna need a computer to run it. The reason why I bought this computer though, is because of how I think my car’s speedometer is set up. IIRC, the speedometer circuit in 94-98 Mustangs goes through the PCM to move the speedo needle around in the gauge cluster. I don’t know for sure whether that’s true or not, but if so, will the PCM I bought even work the speedometer since it doesn’t even have a chip in it?

My good karma streak continues, ‘cause I found myself more parts for my Mustang that I’m pretty sure I got a nice deal on.

Last weekend, there was an auto parts swap meet going on at the fairgrounds here in Lawrence. It was basically a bunch of rednecks and old dudes trying to liquidate some of the parts that they didn’t need anymore. Loooooooooots of old Chevy stuff there.

Within all the rows of small block Chevy parts and Chevy truck parts, there was a younger guy selling off some Mustang stuff that he didn’t need anymore. He was selling a set of wheels that I wanted for my Mustang, but I didn’t have any cash on me at the time. I told him, “Hey man, I don’t have any cash on me right now, but if you can’t get these wheels sold this weekend, I’d love to meet up with you to buy them sometime.” Happily, he agreed, even though our schedules would be difficult to line up.

Well, we finally met up last night, and for only $200, I came home with THESE.



As you can all probably tell, these are a complete set of old Cobra R wheels. This style of wheel came on all 1995 Cobra R Mustangs, all 1998 Mustang Cobras, and was offered in the aftermarket by Ford Racing for many years. I’m pretty sure these wheels I’ve got here were made by Ford Racing since they’ve got the Cobra R center caps (1998 Cobras had center caps that just said “SVT” on them), and there’s no way in hell that they came off of a real Cobra R Mustang.

Getting a closer look at these wheels, you can see that they’ve clearly been used and abused. The chrome is starting to peel off of each one, they all have some corrosion going on, and they’re all covered in brake dust. THEY’RE EXACTLY WHAT I HOPED I WOULD GET!!! THEY’LL MATCH THE REST OF MY CAR’S SHITTY POS RAT ROD LOOK PERFECTLY!!!



When I first brought these wheels home, I thought they had a width of 8” like what the factory used. However, I later measured them out to actually be 9” wide. That means I’ll be able to put some pretty wide-ass tires on them (up to 275’s IIRC).



Obviously, only two of the wheels have tires on them, but the tread on both are completely gone. I’ll be getting two more shitty-ass tires for the other two tireless wheels (to bolt all the wheels onto the car and be able to roll it around), and eventually, I’ll buy some much nicer summer-type tires for them. I’m thinking some NT555 Nittos will be a nice upgrade over these lol.



The clutch and a bunch of other little parts to bolt the engine and transmission together should be here soon.

Looks good man. I'm excited to finally hear it start up lol

Don't remind me dude lol. I've still got a shit-ton of shit to do before I can fire the thing up and drive it.

Getting ready to put the engine and transmission into my Mustang.

This is a 157-tooth flywheel from Ford Racing. Since I’ve got my hands on a 94-95 5.0 T5 bellhousing, something I thought wouldn’t happen before, I bought this 157-tooth flywheel to replace the 164-tooth one I bought over a year ago.



Something I noticed when I put the flywheels next to each other was the size of both of them. That 164-tooth flywheel is a lllllooooooot thicker and a good bit heavier than the 157-tooth one. I’m sure that putting the 157-tooth flywheel in will help with keeping the rotating mass of the motor down. 157-tooth flywheel on the right, 164-tooth flywheel on the left.





SVE high-torque mini starter. I’ve heard good things about this starter, and it seems pretty simple to wire up and install. Figured I might as well buy it now and install it BEFORE the motor goes into the car. With my car’s stock K-member having very little working space, it would be a bitch of a job to try and get this starter installed with the motor in the car. Much easier of a job to install it outside of the car.



Sadly, I think my starter slipped through quality control somehow. The upper stud on the starter solenoid (what the positive battery cable attaches to) was a little stripped out.



Luckily though, I was able to use the nut on that stud to recondition the threads somewhat.

10-spline Ram HDX clutch. It’s basically one of those stage 1 type clutches that’s a slight upgrade over stock. The disc itself has more aggressive friction materials in it than the factory stock clutch, the clamp load of the pressure plate is higher than stock, and the whole thing holds up to about 400 HP or so. Even with the more aggressive friction materials and the higher clamp load, this clutch is still very streetable as it won’t be too chattery and difficult to release with the clutch pedal.



Along with the new clutch, I bought a new clutch fork, throw out bearing, and clutch fork stud. All Ford Racing parts.

The Ram clutch came with a throw out bearing, but I don’t completely trust the quality of it. So I bought a much higher-quality OE Ford throw out bearing.



The bellhousing I bought did have a clutch fork stud in it, but that old stud was all rusty and worn out. Replaced it with a new OE Ford clutch fork stud.



The clutch fork itself, well I just didn’t have one at all. So I bought an OE Ford clutch fork for my car.



Bought some bellhousing bolts from 5.0Resto. They attach the bellhousing to the engine block.



And finally, I bought some of these little bellhousing dowel pins. These pins go into the back of the engine block and help align the bellhousing to the block. Bought a new pair of these pins because my engine’s missing one of them.



Should be able to put all this stuff together, bolt the transmission up to the engine, and drop both into the car sometime next week.

---------- Post added at 10:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:34 PM ----------

I did a little bit of googling, and found out about the switches on the pedal assembly that I was confused about.



This switch here next to the clutch pedal is the clutch pedal position switch. It basically keeps the car from starting if the clutch pedal isn’t pressed. The switch is always open and only closes when the clutch pedal is pressed. When closed, this switch allows power to go from the fuse box, to the ignition switch, and finally to the starter solenoid trigger wire.



However, since my car was originally an auto trans car, the clutch pedal switch connector was jumped from the factory to bypass the non-existent clutch pedal switch.



So honestly, I’m not gonna need that clutch pedal position switch in my car at all.

This switch next to the brake pedal, but connected to the clutch pedal, is the cruise control cancel switch. The switch is always closed, but when the clutch pedal is pressed, the switch opens, disabling the cruise control. I ripped the whole cruise control system out of my car, so I won’t need this switch either.



Lastly, this switch connected to the brake pedal is a brake vacuum switch. Since the cruise control system in 94-95 Mustangs is run off of a vacuum canister, this switch creates a vacuum leak in the system when the brake pedal is pressed, thus disabling the cruise control. Again, I won’t need this switch in my car since its cruise control system is gone.

Alright ladies and gents, big day today. It’s finally time for the Mustang to get its engine and transmission installed.

Before I say anything else, I’ll mention that anybody dropping an engine and transmission into any vehicle should have a few extra people to help out with the install. My grandpa, dad, and one of my brothers came out to the shop to help me with bolting the motor and trans together and dropping them into the Mustang. You might see them in a few of the pictures. And believe me, I REALLY needed and am very grateful for their help since this motor and trans install was a 4-man job.

Let’s do this…

Started out by doing a little fix on the bellhousing. If anyone remembers right, the hole in the clutch fork cover didn’t exactly line up with the threaded hole for the screw in the bellhousing.



To solve the problem, I began by drilling a small pilot hole in the bellhousing to center the screw. Because the bellhousing itself is made of fairly soft aluminum, I then carefully used a ratchet to start the clutch fork cover screw in question into the bellhousing. This cut the threads in the bellhousing that the screw needed to hold the cover in place.



Uncovered the engine and prepared it for the big lift. I did my best to plug up every single opening into the motor using a combination of masking tape, NPT plugs, latex gloves and zip ties. Then I attached some pieces of chain (wished they weren’t so rusty) to the accessory bolt holes in the heads (much stronger than the bolt holes on top of the intake manifold) using some grade 5 bolts. I ran the chains diagonally to form an X pattern over the motor and trans to lift them. To keep the rusty chains from scratching the shiny heads, and to give the bolts something to tighten up against, I wrapped towels around the bolts between the shiny heads and rusty chains.



Took the motor off the stand for the first time with the $100 engine hoist. While in the air, my grandpa braced the motor with a pry bar on the crank pulley bolts, and I installed the block plate, flywheel (bolts were torqued with Loctite on the threads and assembly lube under the bolt heads), and clutch (bolts were torqued with Loctite). Should mention that I wiped the flywheel and pressure plate down with lacquer thinner before installing the clutch.



Moved over to the transmission on the table and installed the clutch fork stud, clutch fork + throw out bearing, and clutch fork cover into the bellhousing. I used some of that transmission gel to grease up the input shaft splines and the front bearing retainer sleeve, then I bolted the bellhousing to the transmission.



With the motor and trans both ready, I raised and moved the motor to the transmission for the grand union between the two. Engaging the input shaft into the clutch and pilot bearing, plus lining up all the bolt holes in the bellhousing to the bolt holes on the motor was no easy task, but we got ‘er dun.



You may notice that the upper bellhousing bolts are new and the lower bellhousing bolts are old. That’s because in the 5.0Resto bellhousing bolt kit that I got from Late Model Restoration, two of the included bolts were too short to thread into the back of the block.



Thankfully, the transmission hardware kit that I got from the Midwest Mustang junkyard (that came with the T5 transmission and bellhousing I bought from them many months ago) included a full set of the proper length bellhousing bolts that I needed.



Also made sure to bolt the starter onto the bellhousing. Don’t wanna forget that.



The grand union! The engine and transmission are bolted together!



You might see here that the motor and trans aren’t hanging from the hoist any more. That’s because when we lifted them both up, the motor was hanging pretty close to the hoist’s hydraulic cylinder. Close enough to where the cylinder would hit against the car’s front bumper before the whole motor / trans assembly would be hanging over the engine bay. So, we removed the motor and trans from the hoist and hooked it to my grandpa’s shop ceiling cable I mentioned before. With the motor and trans hooked to the shop cable, we lifted them waaaaaayyyyy up into the air (probably 10 ft. lol).





Removed the hood from the Mustang and FINALLY got it rolled into the shop.



Here goes…



As I mentioned before, dropping the motor and trans into the Mustang was a 4-man job. My grandpa lowered / operated the cable that held the motor and trans in the air. I guided the motor into the engine bay and the motor mounts to the K-member. My dad guided the trans through the transmission tunnel and jacked it up with a floor jack. And my brother pushed the car forward and back whenever necessary. This motor and trans install was basically a coordination between lowering the motor, lining up the motor mounts, jacking up the trans, and pushing the car forward.







I got the motor mounts set onto the K-member, but as I expected, there was a small hiccup with this motor and trans install. When my dad was jacking up the trans, he noticed that the whole car started lifting up before the transmission cross member could go into place. I took a look inside the car, and noticed THIS. The shifter was hitting the transmission tunnel, keeping the trans from going up all the way.



So for anybody planning on putting a T5 transmission into a 94-98 Mustang that originally had an AODE or 4R70W transmission, just know that you WILL have to cut part of the transmission tunnel for the T5 shifter to go through.

For me, I just used some tin snips to trim about an inch off the front of the shifter hole. 15 minutes later, I had the clearance in the tunnel needed for the shifter.



Jacked the trans up all the way, manhandled the transmission cross member into place (everything was pretty tight since the tail of the trans needs to be pointing RIGHT AT the pinion flange of the rear end), and tightened the bolts for the cross member and trans mount.



Torqued the ever-living daylights out of the motor mount nuts.



Finally, my dad and I put the hood back on.



At long last… MY FRIENDS, THE ENGINE AND TRANSMISSION ARE IN THE CAR!!!











Now when I finished rebuilding the Mustang’s suspension back in the summer of 2015, I remember somebody saying, and I quote, “Holy 4X4 Batman!” I don’t remember who it was that said that, but I AGREE WITH YOU. My car has the SVE lowering springs (supposedly a 1.1” drop all around) and some Prothane spring isolators on it, but even with the motor and trans now in the car, HOLY 4X4 BATMAN.





Obviously, the 205/65/15 tires currently on the car aren’t doing its looks any justice (will be putting those Cobra R wheels and some 275/40/17 tires on it but don’t know if that’ll help). I’m thinking that taking those spring isolators out will help drop the car to where I’d like it.



Hoo wee, that starter’s gonna be a fuckin’ joy to get to when the time comes.



Wonder if the radiator and fan will clear that water pump. An SN95 5.0 water pump is a little shorter than the Fox 5.0 water pump that I’ve got on the motor there.



Other than the driver’s side motor mount (mentioned before that it was rubbing against the header tube) the headers look like they clear everything in the engine bay nicely.





Finished the day up with putting a little “bling” on the car.



I think the next step of the project here will be addressing the rear end situation. Other than the whole thing being cleaned up and painted black on the outside, the rear end under my car is the exact same as when I got it from the junkyard nearly 2 years ago. I’ll be fully rebuilding it with a set of 3.73 gears at the end of this summer.



Also plan on replacing the old 230,000-mile power steering rack and pinion with a manual setup.



Stay tuned. I've still got more jobs to do and parts to put on during my school / work break this week.