Ford Mustang Short-Block Engine Rebuild - Recession Special Part 3

Over the course of the last two months, we've been rebuilding a mild-mannered 302ci short-block for our daily commuter. It generally gets a full tank of 87-octane fout every third day due to our 80-plus-mile commute. That, and a desire for perfect driveability, were paramount in its redesign. Obviously, with these compromises, ultimate power can't be had, but we expect the fun factor to go up considerably, not to mention we won't have to listen to the engine knocking anymore.

In the Oct. '08 issue of MM&FF, we ended our "Recession Special" buildup missing some important parts of the engine that were keeping us from completely assembling the long-block. If you're performing this build with your one and only engine, it probably won't be a problem. However, we were using another core while we continued to drive our daily beater. Eventually we had to tear it down to retrieve things like the camshaft dowel pin, roller lifter dog bones, timing cover, and cylinder-head dowels. We had sourced a bunch of items from a Mustang shop or two, but they didn't have everything, so it was time to get dirty.

Your author spent two eight-hour days pulling the engine and transmission assembly by himself. Since he wasn't working on a flat rate, taking the occasional break to hydrate himself and clean the immense amount of grease from his hands occurred often. If your Mustang resembles the Exxon Valdez under the hood like ours did, you might want to head to the parts store and pick up a box of latex gloves. It's cheaper than buying bags of red rags and is much easier on the hands.

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap. Your author pulled the engine and pretty much rebuilt its replacement at home. You can do it, too.

Our drivetrain-and its home-were loaded with a thick layer of grease and grime. Luckily, we have a parts washer at work, but don't be afraid to bust out the purple power and get to it. We did just that with the transmission.

There's Not only a lot of heat damage on the stock flywheel, but there's also grease and grime inside the bellhousing and on the clutch fork.

Since we were on the verge of installing the new engine, we moved the long-block from our buddy Dave Young's shop to our home garage. Dave, along with Jason Combs, offered key information on this buildup, but now it was time to do the hard work. After pilfering one of our company engine hoists-we actually disassembled it and brought it home in the subject notchback Mustang-we pulled the oily 5.0 powerplant along with the transmission and disassembled everything. We removed the needed parts from the tired engine and completed our new bullet.

We planned to install the new engine the same way we removed the old one; that is, the engine and transmission as one unit. Before we did that, we cleaned the engine bay with some degreaser, pulled the wiring, scuffed the engine bay with an abrasive pad, wiped it down with brake-parts cleaner, and sprayed it with dark-blue enamel from the parts store. The transmission needed a full detail as well, as just about every gasket on the old engine was leaking. The rear main and rear intake manifold gaskets leaked so much that the inside of the bellhousing was completely slimed. Clutches like the ones used in 5.0 Mustangs don't really like lubrication, and it may have been the reason ours would occasionally slip. Given that we had some future power mods in store for the coupe, we opted to upgrade the clutch using Fidanza's new 2.1 clutch kit. Our stock flywheel was in really bad shape, so we replaced it with Fidanza's nodular iron flywheel.

After installing the engine and turning the key for the first time, we realized there was a humongous exhaust leak at the header collector where it met up with the midpipe. After investigating the issue, we found that the cone flange on the midpipe was coming in contact with the header bolt flanges on both headers. To solve this, we broke out our angle grinder and knocked off about a quarter inch of metal from the midpipe, and that seemed to do the trick. After that modification, the car started and ran pretty good. We then needed to set the fuel pressure, timing and TPS voltage. Base initial timing was set at 12 degrees, but we had to wait until we got the car to the dyno at HP Performance in Orange Park, Florida, before we could set the TPS and fuel pressure, as we didn't have the tools.

At this point, we headed to the parts store and purchased some supplies. Latex gloves are a whole lot easier than using abrasive soaps and a bagful of rags. Don't forget the Oil Dri for all of the spills and leaks that are looking to tarnish your fresh garage floor. Sealable sandwich bags will help you keep track of all the nuts and bolts.

We Couldn't stick our nice and clean engine in a nasty engine bay, so we pulled the harnesses and such away from the fender aprons and repainted the bay with rattle-can enamel. It may be a shade or two off of the stock color, but with the engine back in the car, you don't even notice.

Getting back to finishing the engine, we installed the camshaft dowel pin and then the timing chain. The cam was installed straight up, which is fairly easy to do. Just line up the dots.