1988 Mustang convertible LX 5.0
- Thread starter 95busa
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I remember that vintage Mustang quite well and they were very popular. They had only been fuel injected for a couple of years at that time. Really light and fast! Lots of FUN!
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Originally Posted By: 95busa
Not after some weld in subframe connectors.
Bingo
Not after some weld in subframe connectors.
Bingo
Congrats! But now: We need some pictures of your nice new '88 Mustang ragtop. And BTW- I couldn't pick a better color combo than red & white.
Drove her today. Long story. Oil pressure reads low end of normal. OCOD installed by p/o. Monday I will change it with an fl1a and some 10w40 or 15w40. Topped off trans, p/s and torqued valve cover bolts. What a cool car. Honest, light, simple. 5.0 H.O. runs strong. I am kind of spoiled, my last sports car was an lt4 corvette, so it isn't overwhelming for sure. Just a nice strong cruiser. 3.73s would spice things up quite a bit I imagine.
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OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Originally Posted By: 95busa
Drove her today. Long story. Oil pressure reads low end of normal. OCOD installed by p/o. Monday I will change it with an fl1a and some 10w40 or 15w40. Topped off trans, p/s and torqued valve cover bolts. What a cool car. Honest, light, simple. 5.0 H.O. runs strong. I am kind of spoiled, my last sports car was an lt4 corvette, so it isn't overwhelming for sure. Just a nice strong cruiser. 3.73s would spice things up quite a bit I imagine.
These things are NOTORIOUS for the oil pressure sending units dying and giving low readings. Verify with a mechanical (Autometer makes a nice dual gauge pod that replaces the centre heating vents if that's viable in your case) oil pressure gauge if you like, but I would probably just replace the sender.
I'd run (and have run... about a million times) M1 0w-40 in it before I'd run 10w-40 or 15w-40. The engine calls for a 30-weight and M1 0w-40 isn't heavier by a large margin there. Also, the thick oil is hard on the oil pump driveshaft and distributor gear.
Drove her today. Long story. Oil pressure reads low end of normal. OCOD installed by p/o. Monday I will change it with an fl1a and some 10w40 or 15w40. Topped off trans, p/s and torqued valve cover bolts. What a cool car. Honest, light, simple. 5.0 H.O. runs strong. I am kind of spoiled, my last sports car was an lt4 corvette, so it isn't overwhelming for sure. Just a nice strong cruiser. 3.73s would spice things up quite a bit I imagine.
These things are NOTORIOUS for the oil pressure sending units dying and giving low readings. Verify with a mechanical (Autometer makes a nice dual gauge pod that replaces the centre heating vents if that's viable in your case) oil pressure gauge if you like, but I would probably just replace the sender.
I'd run (and have run... about a million times) M1 0w-40 in it before I'd run 10w-40 or 15w-40. The engine calls for a 30-weight and M1 0w-40 isn't heavier by a large margin there. Also, the thick oil is hard on the oil pump driveshaft and distributor gear.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Originally Posted By: 95busa
Owners manual lists 10w40 as an option down to 0 degrees
Yeah, it may even list 20w-50 above that, LOL! But I think they have 10w-30 or 5w-30 with an arrow that goes right across, correct?
Regardless, I've owned a pile of these engines and wrenched on even more and because of how the oil pump is driven, it really is a smart idea to use something that isn't going to be retardedly thick on start-up. I assume you won't be putting on a massive amount of mileage either, so an OCI of 0w-40 is probably going to last you an entire year......
Owners manual lists 10w40 as an option down to 0 degrees
Yeah, it may even list 20w-50 above that, LOL! But I think they have 10w-30 or 5w-30 with an arrow that goes right across, correct?
Regardless, I've owned a pile of these engines and wrenched on even more and because of how the oil pump is driven, it really is a smart idea to use something that isn't going to be retardedly thick on start-up. I assume you won't be putting on a massive amount of mileage either, so an OCI of 0w-40 is probably going to last you an entire year......
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Originally Posted By: 95busa
Overkill, thanks for the advice. Looks like oil pressure sending unit, fuel filter, pcv and trans service in the near future.
No problem.
Fuel filter is easy as pie to change as long as the bolt holding it isn't rusted to heck, which it shouldn't be. It has the little pull clips on it.
For the PCV, I cannot stress enough that you need to get the PCV SCREEN as part of what you are replacing. So you want the screen, grommet and valve. All Motorcraft. The screen plugs solid and renders the entire PCV system non-functional, which leads to sludge and varnish as well as blow-by. Many of the guys who had those types of issues (dirty engine, sludge, blow-by....etc) with the 302 had them because of this. If anything was changed, it was just the valve, which did absolutely nothing due to the plugged screen.
I have a story about that actually with respect to the 302 in my Town Car. It was my dad's car, serviced primarily by a garage in town back when we lived down east. In the late 90's, when the car was less than 10 years old, I had of course moved out and gone to school, so wasn't involved in the maintenance of my parent's vehicles anymore.
Several years later, my dad gave me the Town Car when I had kids. Figured it was a more appropriate child mover than the Mustang, and he was quite right on that one. I noticed the engine, which had been regularly serviced, and many times with Mobil 1, had quite a bit of blow-by. I found this interesting, as at the time, the 302HO in my Mustang, which had been beat-on like a red-headed step-child its entire life, didn't have any blow-by at all....
So I started digging into the PCV system and pulled out the ORIGINAL PCV screen. This was on a car with more than 300,000Km on it. It was plugged SOLID. CAKED with varnish. I fired the engine up with the screen removed and you could hear what sounded like freakin' WIND coming out of the grommet. "Oh great" I thought........
So I went up to Ford and bought all the parts I recommended you buy and then started running M1 0w-40 and Delvac 1 5w-40 (I had both in my stash) in it and beating on the car pretty hard seeing if I could clean-up the ring lands and get the blow-by under control. The contents of the oil filter seemed to confirm this was working.
A while later, a buddy of mine bought a freshened 302HO (for the shortblock) out of a Mustang that had been wrecked. I scored the heads off of it, which had been milled and had all new hardware on them. Bought a set of ARP head bolts, an Explorer intake, Lightning EGR spacer, what I thought was an HO camshaft (ended up being an E-cam, came out of the same engine as the heads came off of) and a 65mm throttle body and went to town on it. Had to swap the ECM to one from a Lincoln LSC to run the 19lb injectors and HO firing order, but the car didn't run right (low vacuum) and that's when I used a dial indicator and mapped the camshaft, discovering I had an FMS E-cam. Lovely
So then I converted the car to MAF with an A9P ECM from a Mustang, which involved a bit of wiring, but ultimately left me with a proper running warmed-over 302HO in the car. I continued to drive it hard and the blow-by continued to reduce to the point that it was no longer significant. It was never as good as the engine from the Mustang, but it was a LOT better than when I started.
I will add that internally, the engine with the baffed PCV system looked nothing like the 302HO from the 'stang, which was immaculate, despite them having essentially the same mileage on them when torn into. It had some funky deposits in the lifter valley, which I cleaned out, and the heads had some varnish on them, as did the valve gear.
So I've said all of this to stress that the PCV operation is very important, and don't forget the screen!
Overkill, thanks for the advice. Looks like oil pressure sending unit, fuel filter, pcv and trans service in the near future.
No problem.
Fuel filter is easy as pie to change as long as the bolt holding it isn't rusted to heck, which it shouldn't be. It has the little pull clips on it.
For the PCV, I cannot stress enough that you need to get the PCV SCREEN as part of what you are replacing. So you want the screen, grommet and valve. All Motorcraft. The screen plugs solid and renders the entire PCV system non-functional, which leads to sludge and varnish as well as blow-by. Many of the guys who had those types of issues (dirty engine, sludge, blow-by....etc) with the 302 had them because of this. If anything was changed, it was just the valve, which did absolutely nothing due to the plugged screen.
I have a story about that actually with respect to the 302 in my Town Car. It was my dad's car, serviced primarily by a garage in town back when we lived down east. In the late 90's, when the car was less than 10 years old, I had of course moved out and gone to school, so wasn't involved in the maintenance of my parent's vehicles anymore.
Several years later, my dad gave me the Town Car when I had kids. Figured it was a more appropriate child mover than the Mustang, and he was quite right on that one. I noticed the engine, which had been regularly serviced, and many times with Mobil 1, had quite a bit of blow-by. I found this interesting, as at the time, the 302HO in my Mustang, which had been beat-on like a red-headed step-child its entire life, didn't have any blow-by at all....
So I started digging into the PCV system and pulled out the ORIGINAL PCV screen. This was on a car with more than 300,000Km on it. It was plugged SOLID. CAKED with varnish. I fired the engine up with the screen removed and you could hear what sounded like freakin' WIND coming out of the grommet. "Oh great" I thought........
So I went up to Ford and bought all the parts I recommended you buy and then started running M1 0w-40 and Delvac 1 5w-40 (I had both in my stash) in it and beating on the car pretty hard seeing if I could clean-up the ring lands and get the blow-by under control. The contents of the oil filter seemed to confirm this was working.
A while later, a buddy of mine bought a freshened 302HO (for the shortblock) out of a Mustang that had been wrecked. I scored the heads off of it, which had been milled and had all new hardware on them. Bought a set of ARP head bolts, an Explorer intake, Lightning EGR spacer, what I thought was an HO camshaft (ended up being an E-cam, came out of the same engine as the heads came off of) and a 65mm throttle body and went to town on it. Had to swap the ECM to one from a Lincoln LSC to run the 19lb injectors and HO firing order, but the car didn't run right (low vacuum) and that's when I used a dial indicator and mapped the camshaft, discovering I had an FMS E-cam. Lovely
I will add that internally, the engine with the baffed PCV system looked nothing like the 302HO from the 'stang, which was immaculate, despite them having essentially the same mileage on them when torn into. It had some funky deposits in the lifter valley, which I cleaned out, and the heads had some varnish on them, as did the valve gear.
So I've said all of this to stress that the PCV operation is very important, and don't forget the screen!
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Got the oil pressure sender replaced, changed oil with some QS defy 10w30 I had around and a motorcraft filter. New fuel filter, chassis lube done too. New front swaybar bushings are now in the mix. Got the Pcv valve and filter looks like upper manifold needs to come off to get to it, so I need a gasket and extra Pcv hose. Then heater core and she is about perfect
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Originally Posted By: 95busa
Got the oil pressure sender replaced, changed oil with some QS defy 10w30 I had around and a motorcraft filter. New fuel filter, chassis lube done too. New front swaybar bushings are now in the mix. Got the Pcv valve and filter looks like upper manifold needs to come off to get to it, so I need a gasket and extra Pcv hose. Then heater core and she is about perfect
Nope, you don't need to pull the upper, it is right underneath the wiring harness at the back of the engine. A bear to get at (and you need needle-nose pliers to get the PCV screen out) but nothing needs to come off.
Got the oil pressure sender replaced, changed oil with some QS defy 10w30 I had around and a motorcraft filter. New fuel filter, chassis lube done too. New front swaybar bushings are now in the mix. Got the Pcv valve and filter looks like upper manifold needs to come off to get to it, so I need a gasket and extra Pcv hose. Then heater core and she is about perfect
Nope, you don't need to pull the upper, it is right underneath the wiring harness at the back of the engine. A bear to get at (and you need needle-nose pliers to get the PCV screen out) but nothing needs to come off.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Originally Posted By: Jarlaxle
You know you need a spring compressor, right?
To do it safely yeah, LOL! But they can be done without one if you are feeling creative
You know you need a spring compressor, right?
To do it safely yeah, LOL! But they can be done without one if you are feeling creative
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