Well, here it is, my 79 fox mustang 2.3. My intentions were to buy a junk car and put it on the strip for less than 2000 dollars, as well as make it reliable enough to go back and forth to work.

Here is a shot of the popped 2.3 that resided in between the fenders when i got the car....not to mention the oil, grime, and numerous life forms that shared the space there in.

The tweed, gotta love the tweed....not to mention fords famous orange tweed...think this looks bad, look at a factory bronco II.

Ok, got the car, now for the drive train. I got this 5.0 out of a 89 lx from Mustang parts specialties in winder georgia, and a 5 speed to boot. Bot togeather cost me about 600.00. Gotta love the hook ups.

As you can see, i started to prime the car...didn't really need to spend the money, but it looked soo much better than the orange. The hood scoop is off of a 76 cobra II that i used to have a while back, and the turbine wheels were given to me by a buddy that was cleaning his garage.

Now that i have the old motor out of the way, i can get rid of the unimportant wires and do something about the grease, crud, and infestations dwelling inside.

Ok..ok..ok, note to self for future endeavors like this one.....don't try pulling the trans out through the engine compartment when you are dead tired and forget to plug the tailshaft.

remember the old EFI 5.0 about 4 lines up or so...well here it is after i stripped it of all it's electronics and test fitted the victor jr intake, 1 3/4 long tube headers, and barry grant 670 race demon....this combo i got off of my good buddy Billy Adams for 400.00....thanks billy, i needed it.

Now that everything is test fitted, i take it all appart and do my thing. I figure if i have the motor on a stand, go ahead and change the oil pump, head gaskets, cam, timing set, valve springs, and scope out the bearings in the bottom half. Oh, by the way, the bottom end looked awesome.

Ok, here is me...sitting on the couch, with a cylinder head on the coffee table, tools, my smokes and a beer. Yes i am a red neck, and no my ol lady does not mind it as long as i clean up any mess i make.

Allllllright, here is the motor about to go back togeather. The camshaft sitting there is the motorsport X cam with a .542 lift and 282 degrees of duration. The heads did get valve springs with enough pressure to meet the requirements of the cam. Also, before i put the heads on the motor, i did some minor port matching and ground down the thermactor bumps in the exhaust side.

here is the long block going togeather.....ok people, move along not much more to see here....

AAAAAAhhhhhh, all back togeather, painted up and just waiting to fire up. I almost didn't want to put it in because for a budget motor it looked soo good and i knew it was gonna get dirty. Yeah, that moment lasted all of about 30 minuites till i was dragging it out of the shop to go into the car.

And here it goes....notice how much cleaner the engine compartment is....purple power is your friend....but not on ford blue, learned from past experience...it will make it polka dotted....

Now for the 5 speed conversion. This is really a simple task, all you need to convert from an auto to manual are transmission, bell housing, flywheel, clutch set, clutch pedal assembly from a junkyard, clutch cable, shifter handle, and if you have EFI and want to get rid of the check engine light from a lack of torque converter lockup signal...get the computer. Me, i always took out the bulb. It was always cheaper that way. But it is a total bolt in swap, no modification required.

Well, here it is, the motor is in, MSD is almost in, tranny is in, most wireing is done. Another point of advice. The ford duraspark II distributor works great with MSD and the electrical hook up is simple as all get out. MSD uses a purple and green wire, duraspark distributor has a green, purple, and black pigtail coming off of it...get rid of the black wire on the dist, color coordinate the other two. SIMPLE and cheap

Yep, all done, car washed to get hand prints off the primer, car runs great, sounds good, but something is missing........

TIME TO GO TO THE TRACK. The car ran a best time of 9.3 in the eighth mile. Not too bad concidering I never put in a posi rear end and it had skinny tires on it. However i did drive it to work every day for about 3 months before i sold it to my brother. I averaged 16 MPG city and 22 on the highway, I sold the car to my brother this past fall. Since he got the car he has redone the body, updated the tail lights to 87-93 standard, installed a 3.55 posi 8.8 rearend and a set of Granatelli Motorsport control arms upper and lower in the rear, installed supframe connectors, fabricated his own 6 point roll cage, and tuned it on the dyno at Nashville Auto Diesel College where he just recently graduated with honors. The car put out 304.5 HP and 397 Lb ft of torque. Love ya bro, have fun with our lil monster.

SPECIAL THANKS TO MY GOOD BUDS JR (LEFT) AND YEP, THAT'S MY BEST FRIEND STATEN WITH HIS FINGER IN HIS BELLY BUTTON....BETER THAN WHERE HE USUALLY PUTS IT. LOL, JUST KIDDING. I COULDN'T HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT THESE GUYS.