5.0 gods! quick question, need your help!

[04fullitgt]

almighty 5.0 gods, lend me your ears my GF's dad has a 1986 5.0 mustang stock block. Stock pistons, rings, etc, etc...... He was wondering if it was possible to put 1989 5.0 stang heads on it which I believe are stock as well (he might have done alittle porting). If so could he run a E303 cam in it as well? I dont know what to tell him since im a 4.6 guy any and all help would be greatly appreciated

 

[86bluecobra]

the cam is the least of his concerns. Actually the 86 H.O. cam is a great torque cam. What he really needs to do is update the TB and heads. a more agressive cam with those e6 heads would be useless.

 

[68keyblr]

He should be able to bolt on the stock heads from an '89 without a problem.

 

[Rick 91GT]

The stock 86 pistons do not have reliefs cut in them, so he will have to mock them up to be sure with out notching, with out reliefs that cam will not work....

 

[ninety15.0]

Yup no valve reliefs in the pistons means that lift is limited. I would say slap the E7's on there and leave the stock cam...always check PV clearance.

 

[5spd GT]

The pistons are 'flat-topped', and the 4 valve reliefs were not on the pistons until 87+...

The heads shouldn't be an issue, I don't recall the valve size is that much different...but as for the cam, I would suggest not doing that

He needs to swap out the bottomend with a rebuild with pistons with valve reliefs, so he can see benefits later or otherwise he will probably hit a plateau eventually

 

[Mustang5L5]

Make sure he ditches the '86 UPPER intake and TB/EGR and swaps on an 87-93 upper intake/EGR/TB setup.

 

[v8only]

actually the heads may very well be an issue. More times than not, e7 heads won't work with an 86 block. I've had two friends personally try unsuccessfully. I'd just pull the motor and swap it with an 87+ block, it's about the same amount of work as what you're going to undertake anyhow....do you really want to rip it all apart just to find that it won't work? My .02

as for the 86 cam, I'm not a huge fan of that either. It's a stock cam, but it will work great with the e7 heads. If you upgrade to gt40 heads or ported e7's, ditch that stock pos cam in a hurry. My bro and I built essentially identical combo's.....both 86 mustangs with gt40 headed motors. the difference was that I kept the 86 cam, and he went with a tfs 1 cam. His car has about the same amount of torque (No seat of the pants difference),.....however my car quits making power maybe 5400/5500 TOPS, and his car makes power and pulls like a mother all the way to 6 grand.

 

[04fullitgt]

Thanks for all the replies everybody I knew I could find some answers for him on :SNSign: I talked him out of doing it yesterday. Now he wants to put the 86 heads on the 86 block. But now theres even more questions

1.) The stang is an 89, but the original motor bit the dust a while ago so the previous owner put an 86 motor in it. My question is........ is there anyway to make sure that this is a 86 H.O. motor? He not sure what it is since its not the original motor. All he knows is that its an 86 5.0L.

2.) and I cant get him off the cam deal. Now he wants to know if the E303 will work in the 86 motor with the 86 heads This guy just wont give up

Sorry for all the newb questions and thanks again!

 

[v8only]

there should be some casting #'s on the block near where the starter goes.

Man, this guy won't give up eh?! Let him learn on his own. There is a reason I ditched that block for one with dished pistons. Why would you want to limit yourself?

 

[04fullitgt]

thanks again. He did have a 89 engine he built, nothing special, but it bit the dust with only 7 miles on it. All caused by a bad torque wrench So now hes trying to figure out what he can do with all the extra stuff he has thats still good.

 

[68keyblr]

Those '86 heads are the "High Swirl" heads meant for good emissions and crappy performance. He'd be much better off with '89 heads and the stock cam.

 

[5.0TailPipeHump]

1 thing i did to find out if its an HO motor is take off the plate that sits on the intake , under there on the intake not the plate it should say HO

 

[5spd GT]

Any more confirmation on 87+ heads not bolting up to 86 blocks...I haven't heard this yet...

More thoughts welcome on that...

 

[v8only]

http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthread.php?t=27040&highlight=e6*

read that,....a thread with one success and two unsuccessful's.

anythonydalrymple is my buddy and I sold him that e6 motor that didn't have clearance to fit the e7 heads....the other guy, evil86lx, I've known him for a while and he's as hardcore as it gets too.

We get a lot of e6 to e7 head swap questions on foureyedpride, and i've seen this crop up a LOT. It seems about 50/50 whether it'll work or not. the clearances are that tight. Certainly leaves NO room for roller rockers or a cam, so it's still kind of a waste IMO even if you can get them to work.

 

[5spd GT]

http://vb.foureyedpride.com/showthread.php?t=27040&highlight=e6*

read that,....a thread with one success and two unsuccessful's.

anythonydalrymple is my buddy and I sold him that e6 motor that didn't have clearance to fit the e7 heads....the other guy, evil86lx, I've known him for a while and he's as hardcore as it gets too.

We get a lot of e6 to e7 head swap questions on foureyedpride, and i've seen this crop up a LOT. It seems about 50/50 whether it'll work or not. the clearances are that tight. Certainly leaves NO room for roller rockers or a cam, so it's still kind of a waste IMO even if you can get them to work.

Thanks, interesting...

So even the 86 cam doesn't work...

So basically, if you got an '86 - rebuild it with pistons with valve reliefs...

 

[NOmoreHONDA]

damn thats pretty weird. me and my buddy just built an 86 bottom end with 89 top end. and its working awesome. everything is bone stock besides the intake and he put a carb on it. he walks away from my 87 as if I am standing still.

 

[04fullitgt]

thanks for the info everybody! I kinda talked him out of the head swap, now he ran into another problem, he installed the E303 into the 86 block, put one of the 86 heads on and checked for clearance, but the valve isnt moving now its the ford racing cam for 83-93 5.0L H.O.'s. why is this turning into a PITA!
basically all he's trying to do is getting it running so he can move it. the stock cam for the 86 is shot so he junked it. We also noticed that the bottomend has different pistons (TRW i beleive)in it which means it was rebuilt. we tried getting the serial # off the block but its to old to read what it says. I even tried putting paper over it and going over it with a crayon and still couldnt read it
So any ideas why the E303 wouldnt work in the stock bottomend of the 86?



P.S. I talked him into getting a 347 as well! He's basically building a track only car so thats why we are going big.

 

[86bluecobra]

I would say the valves are hitting the pistons.