1987 mustang coupe turbo ls swap
#1
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Join Date: Oct 2009
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1987 mustang coupe turbo ls swap
Year: 1987
Make: Ford
Model: Mustang
Price: $9500
Mileage: 1
Private or Dealer Listing: Private Listing
Location (State): TN
Color: Black
LS Engine?: Car has LS engine
Mod list:
Gen 4 5.3
arp rod bolts
arp head studs
ls9 gaskets
btr 660 springs retainers and locks
ls7 lifters
317 heads
ls6 cam
76mm turbonetics turbo (new)
35o turbo trans built
stall converter
built 8.8 rear with strange axles
weld rts wheels
sub frame connectors
big fuel system i think its a aeromotive 1000 but will have to check
sumped fuel cell
battery relocation
brand new recaro 2000 race seats with 5 point harness
nice cage
any other questions just ask and if i dont know the answer i will ask the guy that built it.
Car runs awesome. Never been to the track but it ran a g8 last weekend that ran 9.89 at 140 and this coupe out ran it by two cars
#6
Not as advertised
I ended up buying this car from LS1TENNESSEE last year. I came across this post just now while researching turbo placement options for ls foxbodys and it made me realize I should post up my experience.
First thing we noticed when we rolled it off the trailer was it had trouble starting. The fuel pump made it about 15 more miles before dieing completely. It was a holley dominator, not an Aeromotive. Changed the pump and found that there wasn't a fuel filter in the canister. Rewired the pump from 14 gauge to 10 gauge and added a fuse that was never there.
Looking the car over couldn't confirm if it had 317 heads or not because the numbers on the head were ground out. The 5.3 seems to be a gen 3 and not a gen 4 because the cam position sensor is in the back and not the front. The crank position sensor is black which also leads me to believe that it's a gen 3. Maybe the rods have been swapped out for gen 4. Won't know until I tear that far into it.
Back on the road after the fuel pump replacement, we made a 5 mile trip to walmart and got a handful of 2nd gear pulls in before second gear decided to completely go out in the "built turbo 350". Up to this point we never had a 1st gear launch on the car. Dropped the pan and found a lot of metal, along with black transmission fluid filled with clutch material.
The old th350 wasn't a direct swap with our new fti powerglide because it came from a truck and had the 9" tailhousing. This lead me into learning about the driveshaft. Trans slip yoke is an old 1350 series but the ends on the shaft are 1330 series. The shaft is 3" steel which seems fine. The "built 8.8" still has the stock companion flange on it.
Also noticed while I was under the car that the weld rts wheel on the front drivers side was scarred up pretty good on the inside. Found a flat spot in that rotor and an big old dent in the drivers fender. The wheel had fallen off the car at one point! When i went to take the wheel off to look at it more, one lug was missing, two lug nits were stripped on there so good that I had to use an impact to break the lugs off, the last one came off fine
He did tell us that the car had cooling issues because the rad fan was too small. The turbo location was taking up too much space for a larger fan. He forgot to mention that the hotside piping was pulling the turbo into the water pump and grinding a hole into the exhaust housing. We just put a new hotside on the car to prevent the water pump from completely ruining the turbo housing and fit a larger fan on the radiator. We're using the old dinky fan as a transmission cooler fan now. The old hotside had tons rust falling off of it when we took the heat wrap off. The welds on on it had cracks in them to the point that I can see my hand on the other side of the pipe.
The subframe connectors are thin gauge rectangular tubing with welds that I'm afraid to do a kick test on.
The "cage" is actually a 6 point roll bar with rusty welds on the floorboard. The 76 mm turbo has a 75 mm part number on it. The street ets have very little life left in them. I dunno how many spiders/hornets/mice have lived in this thing but I keep finding signs of them everwhere.
I will say that the car did pull well when we got to make a couple 2nd gear pulls with it.
We should have asked more questions before committing... way more questions.
First thing we noticed when we rolled it off the trailer was it had trouble starting. The fuel pump made it about 15 more miles before dieing completely. It was a holley dominator, not an Aeromotive. Changed the pump and found that there wasn't a fuel filter in the canister. Rewired the pump from 14 gauge to 10 gauge and added a fuse that was never there.
Looking the car over couldn't confirm if it had 317 heads or not because the numbers on the head were ground out. The 5.3 seems to be a gen 3 and not a gen 4 because the cam position sensor is in the back and not the front. The crank position sensor is black which also leads me to believe that it's a gen 3. Maybe the rods have been swapped out for gen 4. Won't know until I tear that far into it.
Back on the road after the fuel pump replacement, we made a 5 mile trip to walmart and got a handful of 2nd gear pulls in before second gear decided to completely go out in the "built turbo 350". Up to this point we never had a 1st gear launch on the car. Dropped the pan and found a lot of metal, along with black transmission fluid filled with clutch material.
The old th350 wasn't a direct swap with our new fti powerglide because it came from a truck and had the 9" tailhousing. This lead me into learning about the driveshaft. Trans slip yoke is an old 1350 series but the ends on the shaft are 1330 series. The shaft is 3" steel which seems fine. The "built 8.8" still has the stock companion flange on it.
Also noticed while I was under the car that the weld rts wheel on the front drivers side was scarred up pretty good on the inside. Found a flat spot in that rotor and an big old dent in the drivers fender. The wheel had fallen off the car at one point! When i went to take the wheel off to look at it more, one lug was missing, two lug nits were stripped on there so good that I had to use an impact to break the lugs off, the last one came off fine
He did tell us that the car had cooling issues because the rad fan was too small. The turbo location was taking up too much space for a larger fan. He forgot to mention that the hotside piping was pulling the turbo into the water pump and grinding a hole into the exhaust housing. We just put a new hotside on the car to prevent the water pump from completely ruining the turbo housing and fit a larger fan on the radiator. We're using the old dinky fan as a transmission cooler fan now. The old hotside had tons rust falling off of it when we took the heat wrap off. The welds on on it had cracks in them to the point that I can see my hand on the other side of the pipe.
The subframe connectors are thin gauge rectangular tubing with welds that I'm afraid to do a kick test on.
The "cage" is actually a 6 point roll bar with rusty welds on the floorboard. The 76 mm turbo has a 75 mm part number on it. The street ets have very little life left in them. I dunno how many spiders/hornets/mice have lived in this thing but I keep finding signs of them everwhere.
I will say that the car did pull well when we got to make a couple 2nd gear pulls with it.
We should have asked more questions before committing... way more questions.
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