[rod n az]

This meesage was make by my friend in a different forum.

"So I've been stuck driving around my wife's '89 T-Bird lately. The POS has 198k miles on it, the tranny is goin', and the interior is crap.
So I'm thinking, since she's getting a new(er) car or something soon, I could claim this bird as my own.

Heres what I'd like to do. Swap out the old 3.8L V6 for a carburated 5.0 Mustang engine and a tranny to support it. Then I can scrap all EFI and computer controlled crap.

Also I think it needs a blower/supercharger. eh...a big one.

Then I want to take out the A/C, ABS, and Power steering. (Might keep ABS, but I dunno).

Lastly would be cleaning the interior, redoing the dash w/ normal mechanical gauges, cleaning the carpet, etc.


What do ya'll think. Also what type of engine and tranny would (should) I use. The '89 Mustangs and T-Birds shared the same engines, so the EFI engine would be a direct swap, but I dunno about a Carb."

 

[primetime]

Shouldn't be too hard. I did that swap in my 84 T-Bird and it was no biggie. I was even able to use the same tranny. He may need a different one, but probably not. Everything should mount right up. He may just need a few brackets for alternator, PS pump, etc - but they should be easy to find in a junkyard.

 

[stinger]

Later model "MN-12" thunderbirds and cougars came from the factory with 5.0s, so it oughta be a real easy swap. about the only thing i could think of would be how much power the rear halfshafts could take, the center section is an 8.8, so it would be pretty easy to hop up. you could even swap in a modular if you wanted to, they had the 4.6 in the last few years of production