MarkVII5.0

I am in the middle of deciding between which mustang to buy, I have lined up to decide either a 87, 88 or 89 GT, or my other choices are a 90, 91, or 92 LX. The choice I make is in the $2500-3000 price range.

But whatever the decision ends up being, the cars are all basically stock with miles averaging from 70K to 100K. So, needless to say i'm going to have to do some rebuilding to kill the stockness because I am going to make some nice HP. I do have somewhat of a budget to work with which is about $2000-2500 to spend putting into the car so I have created some ideas:

My main theory is to start with the engine and leave everything stock for the time being due to my budget.
1) I can purchase a shortblock with a decent amount of horsepower for around $2000-2500, but I will be leaving the heads & intake stock for now as well as all other bolt ons to the engine.

2) I can buy a Crank & Stroker kit ranging from $1000-2000 and also a nice cam & lifter kit to go with this, also leaving the rest of the engine stock, intake, heads etc. One question with this, do you suggest that I buy a new block with this idea? If not why, if so why and maybe a suggestion to which one, i was thinking maybe a new sporstman.

Could you please give me all your thoughts because I really need all the input I can get so I can decide which way to go which would be the cheapest with the most horsepower I can get for my $2000-2500. And if there are any other aspects that I left out or that I must also consider or research please do share all info.

Of course down the road after that part of the engine is rebuilt I will throw on some nice heads & intake & headers, probably trickflow intakes and heads, any suggestions?

Purpose of car is not to be a strick drag car, I want it to have lots of HP eventually, but it will also be driven on the streets, just not daily car though.

roundman

I'd go for the newest model year I could afford to make sure I got one with MAF control instead of speed density as this will allow more mods later on without having to replace the computer. The LX models are lighter than the GT or vert, so I would go with one of these if it has the 5.0 drivetrain in it. I'm still racing my stock motored '88 speed density Stang and it has over 108,000 miles on it and still is running strong, so I wouldn't just jump in and do a rebuild or engine replacment right off the bat. See what you get will do first, you might be surprised.