Read this http://www.mustangandfords.com/howto...ade/index.html your looking a easy 3 grand that's not counting the engine or tranny its cheaper to sell your car and buy a v8 one.

 

A thrifty person can do it cheap, and then a person can spend a lot...

It might be cheaper to sell the 6 and buy an 8,,,,

But on the other hand,,,,

If a person is going to end up updating suspension, springs, engine, transmission, brakes, etc,,,,, ANYWAY...

Like a VERY LARGE PERCENTAGE of Classic Mustang owners on this forum HAVE DONE....

Then it really ain't any cheaper to start with an 8.....

In SOME CASES, it might actually be cheaper to start with a nice clean I-6 car....


"Variables" can and do make a difference...


Often, at best, "one size fits all" answers are incomplete,,,, and at worst they just suck...

 

I have about $1,100 in my conversion. As JMD says, you can spend a lot or you can spend a little, kinda depends on if you use your head.

I also agree with JMD that it is often cheaper to convert an I6 car than to buy a 289 car.

 

Here's a rough list of my current project:

V8 Mustang? Anything within several hours was stupidly priced.

I6 - 3 hour one way drive and it's in my shop for $1700 complete with Granada spindles and calipers in the trunk. Rear quarters and front floor were shot, but I coulda put a sticker on it and drove it. http://advancedautorepairsonline.com...and%20more.htm It's a good bit beyond these pics but due to a computer crash killing tons of data I still have a ton of work to do before bothering with web page updating.

Donor car with roller cam 302 and AOD $500 with a car left over afterwards. An intake and cam will be about $500 new. I haven't shopped yet. I can do better once I put the time in. Carb and heads still to be determined but expect $1000-1500 for good heads. I could stop at the $500 donor cost and use all the parts as-is plus an inline fuel pump and odds-n-ends. Nahhhh...

9" rear end still unavailable at a decent price so I'm looking to probably shorten an Exploder 8.8 for about $300 all said and done with disc brakes and a locker. I can live with that .

Front coil springs were either $60 a pair or apiece. I don't remember... I've already done the Shelby drop - not because I want it lowered. I want the handling. It was free.

I'm really expecting this to run around $6k-7k all said and done. That includes the car, paint, a/c, tires, wheels, quarters...

I'm doing everything myself. My build expense is parts only. Total value for me to sell it? $642,386,214.53 and that's cash only, not negotiable. How much each project costs relies entirely on a person's ability to be patient, lucky and shopping skills.

 

i've done the whole lot myself, but I spent a fortune on parts. bought about everything new. all brakes, rear axle, diff, transmission (rebuilt), etc etc etc.
I had to go this route as I had to ship the parts from the states and needed to make sure it is good stuff (no point in shipping half ton of parts that are rubbish). but saved a fortune again in doing it all by myself (and friends).
I have at least 100hours in it and quite a few upsets ;-) so unless you are doing it yourself and go cheap with 2nd-hand parts you really might be better off buying a V8 car instead of spending 2 grand on labour

in my experience what you buy is always cheaper than what the owner has put money in it. if someone buys a car for ten and spends another 10 on parts it'll always sell for under 20 (unless he made an unreal bargain somewhere)

 

Some people may not be to interested in paying higher V8 prices for an I6 VIN car is probably right, but alot of buyers may not even look at that.

I have heard 200s with all different kinds of exhaust and none of them sounded like a V8. I wasn't saying they sounded bad though.

Yours does really sound good but I can still tell that its a 6 cylinder. It sounds better than mine did when it was still a 200.

At one point in time mine had a transverse mounted Firebird style muffler on it to get the dual exhaust look I wanted. At idle it did sound good and close to a stock V8. It sounded ok at lower to mid rpms but as soon as the rpms went up you could tell it was a 6 banger.

I'm not sure how yours got that kind of miliage. I had a few friends with 65-68 I6 Mustangs and none of them got better than high teens for mileage. A few other friends had 289 and 302 and most of the got about 12-15 mpg. None of these cars had an upgraded overdrive transmission. Wonder what kind of mpg a good running tuned up 200 would get with a T5?

 

Frankly we spent a lot,,, but we would have upgraded everything we ended up changing out anyway... so we could have paid more for a v-8 that needed more work and ended up spending even more...

We did not build the car as an investment. And even with what we did spend we could not have bought a new car as nice for the $$...

If we had bought a new car instead, we would have lost a third of the value when we drove it off the lot.....

Hmm... the 66 certainly was not an investment,,,, but still, we are a LOT better off now than if we had dumped the same money into a new car. This imaginary new car would now be worth even less than the coupe we built...

Just depends on how a person looks at things...

Who has a car that they bought new that is now worth as much as it cost?

I don't think we will get MANY credible POSITIVE answers here....

 

Man I would never want to convert my 200 to a 289. If I really ever wanted a 289, I'd do what stangtjk said and sell it and get one with a V8. And that also is probably a never.

Oh and by the way, the I6 200 sounds really great with 30 year old cherry bombs. Honestly, it sounds nothing like the v6 or 4-cylinder fart-cars of today and thats what matters to me.

 

Thats bull$hit

 

I am with you, it is BS, the little 66 was a kick with the 6 and 4.10 gears...