mustangsrus

I have a 1985 mustang gt hatchback with a 302 stock everything. the only thing ive done so far is put a k&n air filter and put bbk shorty headers with a offroad h pipe dual hump cross member with flowmaster exhaust. Im looking for some more horsepower but with about a 5000$ budget. the car has 116kms on it and has been well taken care of. what would be the most bang for my buck.

ive never owned a mustang before so im new

65Raven65

That's a nice sized budget.

Heads, cam, intake, and a good carb is where I'd start. Throw in a 3.73 gear and you'll have a nice running beginning for your first Mustang!

Congrats!

mustangsrus

any certain brands or sizes you would recommend?

65Raven65

Some of the carb guys here on the site would probably know better.

I know back in the day when my friends had carbed foxbodies, a lot of them used Dart heads and Victor Jr. intakes, and Holley 750s, but these cars were making some big HP. (for the time at least)

I'm fuel injected, when I finally do heads and intake I'm going with Trick Flow for both.

mustangsrus

great thx. do u think putting sub frame braces on would be a good idea. and I was also thinking of an aluminum driveshaft or do u think that's a waist of money?

bluebeastsrt

The stock drive shaft is fine. That's always something you can upgrade down the road if you still have the mod bug. With a 5 grand budget you should have a pretty stout running fox when your done. Trick flow offers a top end kit that's makes 360HP for $2800. Throw in a grand worth of exhaust and a few suspension mods along with some decent gears and you'll have a pretty quick car.

UPRSharad

IIRC, 85 5.0s had a 7.5" rear end. A junkyard 8.8" would be a nice upgrade. Then a budget HCI package and of course, Suspension & Tire upgrades. If you shop around, this can all be done on a budget and you'll end up with a nice cruiser.

88 orangepeel notch

Welcome to the forum. With that kind of money, you'll be set with a very nice Fox. I'd start be just digging around in this forum with the "search", type in anything you want to know about. It's all been covered before, what works, what doesn't. You'll be reading for days and getting a good education on modding. I personally would start with a set of gears for the rear. Best bang for the buck there is on these cars. Good luck and keep us updated.

Edit: but as Sharad said, swap in an 8.8, don't use the 7.5 that's in there now.

65Raven65

I think the general consensus around here is that sub frame connectors are a good idea no matter what.

I'm putting them on mine, not really because I'm making a lot of HP, but my '87 is a T-Top car, so I imagine it's more susceptible to flex.

As far as the aluminum driveshaft, I don't have one on my '87 yet, but I had one on my '89 GT and it was by far one of the best mods I ever did. It knocked out vibrations that I didn't even realize I had. The car felt like a new car afterwards. I'll be putting one on my '87 but it's fairly low on the priority list right now.

65Raven65

Interesting, I didn't know that.