Background:
Well, I picked up a $2500 87 GT hatchback recently that I am calling 'The Hudson Heap' for now, since I picked it up in Hudson, Florida, and well, it's currently a bit of a heap. My goal is to have a fun street car that I can daily drive, or at least use weekly, with some possible 1/4 mile fun at test and tunes every couple of months with friends. I am not looking at a restoration, but more of a restomod with some updates, but keeping the Fox feel.
My background has mostly been with Chevy products, and I have built quite a few small block Chevy's in my time and one or 2 Chrysler motors as well, but I'm not very familiar with 5.0's (yet), so I could use some guidance there.
The car is a 5.0/5-speed with a pretty thrashed T5 (pops out of 1st and reverse, etc.). Engine runs, but has a miss and a broken header bolt. It has some goodies already, but I am not 100% how far things go. Right now I can see:
Performer RPM intake (old school not Performer RPM II that I see quite a few of)
Edelbrock 70mm throttle body
BBK shorty headers
Beat to hell Flowmaster mufflers with no cats
There is some rust on the forward part of the driver floorpan that will need patching, but not too bad. The pinch welds are an abomination. Torque boxes and strut towers look pretty good so far and I don't see any major structural issues. Body is pretty rough with a small rust area below the back driver 1/4 window and below the back window on the hatch. These seem pretty isolated.
What I'm looking for:
I am looking for ideas on the engine/transmission and handling stuff.
Engine wise, I do like power, especially torque (my previous car was a Scat Pack challenger on airbags with 485HP/475lb-ft) but I want it to be streetable. I love the sound of a good cam. I will be going through the engine and am consider stroking it (347ci I believe) with an Eagle or Scat rotating assembly. I might eventually turbo it, so i want to build the lower end strong. I'm leaning toward a decent aluminum heads, but see that in many cases there may be valve clearance issues, so I would like understand what I need to watch for, and hopefully get some suggestions there. This is not a big HP monster, so I don't need the best, but do want good value for the money spent.
Transmission wise, I see some really low power handling capabilities on the T5. I know from the factor the 5.0 put out like 15 horsepower and 12 lb-ft or torque (Just kidding, but yeah, it was pretty week), so I'm bit concerned. Sinve this is a fun ride, I don't know that I need a deep overdrive like in a 6-speed, but want something that can handle 400hp or so reliably. Looking for ideas there.
As for suspension, I liked my airlift stuff, but don't know that I want to go that far on this car. Seems like a lot of work to get it to go really low, so I would rather work on a decent ride at about 2" lower than stock, but will be able to put some power to the ground. I've seen people say that keeping the stock upper rear control arms is OK with aftermarket lowers. The replacement K-member seems to be popular, but mostly for weight savings, something I am not too worried about.
So, any suggestions about these things, including pointers to relevant threads, would be great. I like to read and learn, but I am also wanting to understand things a bit more as get my feet wet in the blue oval world. I think the drivetrain is the first step, then I will work on the pretty stuff and suspension. THanks for any help. The heap is in the pictures
Well, I picked up a $2500 87 GT hatchback recently that I am calling 'The Hudson Heap' for now, since I picked it up in Hudson, Florida, and well, it's currently a bit of a heap. My goal is to have a fun street car that I can daily drive, or at least use weekly, with some possible 1/4 mile fun at test and tunes every couple of months with friends. I am not looking at a restoration, but more of a restomod with some updates, but keeping the Fox feel.
My background has mostly been with Chevy products, and I have built quite a few small block Chevy's in my time and one or 2 Chrysler motors as well, but I'm not very familiar with 5.0's (yet), so I could use some guidance there.
The car is a 5.0/5-speed with a pretty thrashed T5 (pops out of 1st and reverse, etc.). Engine runs, but has a miss and a broken header bolt. It has some goodies already, but I am not 100% how far things go. Right now I can see:
Performer RPM intake (old school not Performer RPM II that I see quite a few of)
Edelbrock 70mm throttle body
BBK shorty headers
Beat to hell Flowmaster mufflers with no cats
There is some rust on the forward part of the driver floorpan that will need patching, but not too bad. The pinch welds are an abomination. Torque boxes and strut towers look pretty good so far and I don't see any major structural issues. Body is pretty rough with a small rust area below the back driver 1/4 window and below the back window on the hatch. These seem pretty isolated.
What I'm looking for:
I am looking for ideas on the engine/transmission and handling stuff.
Engine wise, I do like power, especially torque (my previous car was a Scat Pack challenger on airbags with 485HP/475lb-ft) but I want it to be streetable. I love the sound of a good cam. I will be going through the engine and am consider stroking it (347ci I believe) with an Eagle or Scat rotating assembly. I might eventually turbo it, so i want to build the lower end strong. I'm leaning toward a decent aluminum heads, but see that in many cases there may be valve clearance issues, so I would like understand what I need to watch for, and hopefully get some suggestions there. This is not a big HP monster, so I don't need the best, but do want good value for the money spent.
Transmission wise, I see some really low power handling capabilities on the T5. I know from the factor the 5.0 put out like 15 horsepower and 12 lb-ft or torque (Just kidding, but yeah, it was pretty week), so I'm bit concerned. Sinve this is a fun ride, I don't know that I need a deep overdrive like in a 6-speed, but want something that can handle 400hp or so reliably. Looking for ideas there.
As for suspension, I liked my airlift stuff, but don't know that I want to go that far on this car. Seems like a lot of work to get it to go really low, so I would rather work on a decent ride at about 2" lower than stock, but will be able to put some power to the ground. I've seen people say that keeping the stock upper rear control arms is OK with aftermarket lowers. The replacement K-member seems to be popular, but mostly for weight savings, something I am not too worried about.
So, any suggestions about these things, including pointers to relevant threads, would be great. I like to read and learn, but I am also wanting to understand things a bit more as get my feet wet in the blue oval world. I think the drivetrain is the first step, then I will work on the pretty stuff and suspension. THanks for any help. The heap is in the pictures