I personally would look into a nice 5.0. And if you can find one with say 90k to 110k that has good compression and pulls hard, it will stay that way till 180k if your good to it, with say a rebuild. "The proof of how long a stock motor will run is in my garage, with 192k on it." If your luckly you will find a 5.0 that was driven by some little old ladie only to church, yes I have seen this. Infact, my uncle is selling a 88-89 blue & silver 5.0 GT 5spd with 110k for $2,500, its hard to beat that! Then you can take another 2-3 grand to do mods with, the rest can be tucked away. As far as reliablility goes, the fewer opions on the car, the fewer things that can go wrong.....






Sure they picked up a few horse, but they also pick up a few hundered pounds! You might also want to look into the cost difference between the two on insurence......

 

I have a fox forsale, the motor has 23k miles on it and runs great and has alot o fmods to it as well and the car itself look good.