Lazlo

Thanks guys alot of info there. To answer your qustions, unfortunatley it doesn't have T-tops, my camaro is and will be my daily driver as well as my "hot rod", so my budget for the stang is very little. It's just an extra car for when I'm working on the camaro, or family and friends cars, and it might become my winter beater. I need to get it dependable and safe first, but I want to wake it up a bit as well.

First thing is the rear, it's leaking bad, I think from the pinion seal. The door sticker is worn off, so that's no help, how do I tell if it has 7.5 or 8.8 rear before I open it? Will the 8.8 bolt up if it came with 7.5? If I buy gears 4.10s are out, but how well do these cars hook up, will 3.73s cause any traction problems?

It is an automatic, but I think it's just a 3 speed auto, though I need brakes and tires before I hit the highway, I suppose it might have a 4th up there. Shifter goes 1-D-OD so if it is 4spd there's no selectable 2nd? There's definitely a shift kit in it, not sure about the torque converter, what's the stall on the stock one?

The engine has been apart, atleast to the short block, but I don't know if it was for repair or upgrade and I have no idea what is stock or not. It has an open element edelbrock aircleaner and a 2.5" x-pipe with no mufflers. It has what I would consider headers, not exhaust manifolds, but each primary is pinched for bolt clearance and they have all the emissions junk so I think they may be stock. It is definitely FI, has 2 injectors in the throttle body, GM calls it TBI(throttle body injection) what does CFI stand for? Looks like all the emissions controls and junk is still there. The A/C lines are gone, but the compressors still there and the bearings sound bad. It has serpentine belt setup, so how would I go about dealing with that if I start removing some accesories? I assume theres a different belt or idler pulley for cars with no A/C, but what about if I ditch the smog pump and go with electric fan, anyone done this and know what belt/pulleys are needed? How can I tell what else has been done? Any idea on how to check the cam without measuring it with a dial indicator? Where would the casting numbers be on the heads, and what numbers indicate which heads they are?

I definitely want to ditch the fuel injection and smog crap and put on a carb. The wiring under the hood is pretty bad, and all the vacuum lines are rediculous. I plan on tearing it all out and rerun my own wires for the necessities. Will the stock tach work with an aftermarket distributor? I talked to a tech at edelbrock today, getting info on a "power package", he said an aftermarket carb won't work with the tranny. There's an adapter or cable or such that lokar sells to make it work, but he still suggested I get a performer intake and cam and find a factory ford 4bbl carb. What's the issue here, was he talking about the bar that goes from the throttle linkage to somewhere down by the trans? What's it's function, I'm thinking it's the kickdown for WOT, is that right? Any suggestions on what setup to go with? I want to keep the power in the lower/mid RPMs and stay away from rough idle/hard starting issues, and I'm at high altitude. I'm not real sure I want to do a cam, I don't want to get into buying a whole new valvetrain, but I want to get it running good. Can I reuse the rest of the stock valvetrain and just get a cam or is that a bad idea? Is the edelbrock performer package the way to go(carb/cam/intake, no heads) or should I piece together my own? Where could I get the right ford carb? If I get an edlbrock or holley carb what size? I think the package had a 650, seems a little large for a 5.0L. Do I have to keep EGR, AIR, EVAP and the cats to pass emissions for '85?

Quik

wow thats alot of words lol

Carbed
Fuel
Injection lol

a 575 - 625 is more then you will ever need on that motor. stick with the smaller one if possible

ZachW04Stang

The 8.8 will bolt right up. If you get boxed upper and lower control arms and better tires you will have no problem hooking with 3.73's.

Its a 4 speed auto. You can't manually select second but I believe there are after market valve bodies that allow you to do that.

Those are the stock headers. To remove the ac you have to buy a special braket that moves the powersteering where the ac is. I by passed my smog pump and re routed the belt around the water pump and crank pulley differently. With this setup I used an 850k6 belt no problem but I have a/c. You could probably use 835k6 with no ac.

ACE

yeah that bar that goes down from the carb to the tranny is the kickdown bar. I had that on my pickup and i swapped it for the lokar kit it was only 50 bucks and it makes it kickdown alot quicker i liked it.

tinman

Ford used a 585CFM 4100 series Holley on some of them and a 6ooCFM on thers, dunno why.
That price for a reaend seems sort of high to me. Thay (8.8's) are on the wreckers here with tru-trac and 3.27 gears for $75-100.
Try the pull-a-part type wreckers for thr rear axle.
I sure wouldn't spend ANY $$$$ for a 7.5".......
BTW, hope the'stang can get you over your Chebbie, Chevy ownership is part of growing up, a stage you go thru. Took me about 10 years to get thru it.....