Graeme's 87 FC V8 Drift Car Build
 

Hi everyone,

So I have an intro thread on the forum, but I don't really add details there often. I thought I'd start up a thread and keep it semi-updated with what I'm doing. I'm sure I'm going to run into issues and there's loads of knowledge here I'd like to tap into.

I'm building my GXL car into a drift specific car. It's on a bit of a budget, but I don't mind doing most of my own work. The car will be v8. I grew up with v8s - love everything about them. I also tried drifting the T2 setup last year. While it did work great, they're too tempermental and I hate having to rebuild the motor over stupid little things.

I had originally wanted an LS setup, but the cost of the transmission is a little too high for me. I could source a 4speed for it, but then driving on the streets to and from the track would be hell. Because of this I've decided to go ford 302. It's a good platform to build up slowly (add aluminum heads, better cams, supercharger)...there's just so many possible (and affordable!) upgrades. Not to mention blocks are cheap and easy to come by.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Z...-283341024.jpg

The car is a custom color - need to find out the code so I can paint the new bumpers and skirts the same color. If I can't get a decent match, I'm tempted to try this dip-your-car kit and plastidip the entire car.

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y97IueWwQ...ear_struts.jpg

Cage is out of the budget this year, since priority #1 was getting it running and looking how I wanted. Given that's the case, I'll be building some custom bracing for this year. Cut the speaker towers off in the rear so I could run a bar across the rear towers - possibly tie that into the floor somehow.
Also, I pulled the entire wiring harness out. This car's harness was a mess. I'm going with a cleaner, 12-circuit painless wiring harness for street race cars. Just the bare minimum things needed. Along with that, I'm running a nissan (s13) 240sx dashboard and building my own custom switch panels for it:

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XxzIeY6z3...0/s13_dash.jpg

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bvtBO5-wF...0/IMG_0427.JPG

Prepping the engine bay so I can mock up how the v8 will sit. I know the 302s have hood clearance issues, but I want to ensure i can run the stock hood. If I have to modify the oil pan, I will...and if that won't cut it, looks like we'll be modifying the front cross member.

I think that about does it for now. I haven't posted anything suspension wise because that was all done before when the car was T2 swapped. It's got godspeed coilovers with 8k/10k springs, DTSS eliminator kit in the back, mazdatrix steering angle adder kit in the front, T2 brakes with slotted/drilled rotors, stainless braided lines, new ebrake cables. Also will likely be running the T2 diff and axles for now, as this is the easiest option currently. I shouldn't be making enough power to break those yet (though I wouldn't be mad if I was, lol).

haha holy shit, 240 dash fits!

following.

haha. Well, the windshield isn't the same curve radius as the 240, so it doesn't fit snug. I have some ideas though. Also, we had to do some trimming to get it to fit:

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lBHcAcNAJ...e_grinding.jpg

Next is custom brackets to hold'er in there.

Thanks for following!

Strange looking at that dash. Seems like it fits but for me staring at an FC dash for 20 years this just seems strange. LOL.

Have fun building. Its all about the projects!

Awesome another build thread! I like following these. Graeme let me know when youre doing cool stuff on it or need a hand and ill come by. ...I also gotta get your help with that bolt that I snapped off on my LIM.

Are you planning on having the initial stages done drifting it this year?

Luke

LOL. Yeah, I can imagine since they're very different. I just like the way the dash looks in general, plus it's a much better setup for racing gauges and switch panels (in my opinion, of course). I'm excited to have a project again tho.

Any time buddy. I can't guarantee the "coolness" of whats going on but you're welcome to hang out/help out any time.
Bring the LIM over next time and we'll get that dealt with.

The first track day of the season is April 14th. I would love to have the car drift ready by then. It's not unrealistic, but...I do have a lot to do and a lot to learn. Really hoping I can find the time to devote to it though.

We picked up the 302 with T5 transmission today. It was a 3 hour mission each direction, but well worth it. For $500 I got the full engine/tranny/harness/mounts and driveshaft out of a running (not severely rotten) 90 Mustang GT.
This picture sucks, but, it's all I have so it'll have to do. I forgot to take a real pic of the motor tonight:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.n...56733010_n.jpg

I'm going to pull the valve covers off as they've been leaking oil clearly. Do a general cleanup on the whole motor, remove all the emissions crap, relocate the PS pump, and figure out my mounts.

I am excite! lol

Just going to put it out there you could of went with a truck 5.3 chev v8 Still an LS technically, run a scatter shield and thrown a T5 tranny behind it

the motors are like $3-600 make around 300whp tuned

Interested in how it works out. Are you using the Granny's Speed Shop kit? I really want to see how low you can fit this motor. The ones I have seen have the engine pretty high in the chassis.

This is an interesting option as you can easily make over 350 hp NA on pump gas (reliably) and do it for under $5000 all in. the car will weigh about 100 lbs more, but have a ton more torque. The Ford is very interesting to me as I have a ton of Ford connections.

Might be the easy go fast button for me.

Eric

Why do they tend to sit high? (anyone?). IIRC, the Ford small block is both lighter and more compact than the SBC, at least compared to pre-LS/aluminum block Chevs. With the aluminum GT40 heads, maybe pistons, cam, and headers, I would think the Ford 302 would be a pretty hot RX7 swap, but it doesn't seem to be.

Its the way the oil pan sump is configured. Ideally, you want a sump like a small block Chevy with the sump at the rear. The standard Mustang sump is 2 sumps with a raised portion in the middle to clear the Fox body rack and pinion. Some fab work would allow you to build a rear sump small block Ford, but that is beyond most people.

I will see what else is available as I would prefer to use the small block Ford for all the reasons you stated, plus you can buy a crate 340 hp 302 for under $4000 that weighs about the same as a TII setup and you can go to Canadian Tire and get parts for.

Eric

Great info on oil pans to help out the OP and anybody else looking to do this swap.

Eric

Ford 302 6 Quart Rear Sump Oil Pan/302/351W/429-460 Dipstick Tech

I was guessing it was something to do with the sump - although I also would have guessed there would be aftermarket ones around to get a different configuration. But I suppose all or many of the aftermarket ones would also be designed with Fox Mustangs in mind. There must be some that used rear sumps in the earlier 70's 'Stangs, Mavericks, and so on that had 302s.

Lol. I was just about to post the same link, then saw you had posted before I finished my previous post. Looks like the Ford van pan would be the only solution - Moroso's site only shows front sump and Fox-suited double-sump pans.

That was a thought...

If I was going this route (which I did investigate, though only limited), I would've probably gone LQ9 6.0, and they're readily available. The availability and cost of parts, including the specific t5 bellhousing required were reasons I didn't investigate further. I want something that is easily sourceable and repairable so that the majority of my time is spent building instead of waiting.

I had a Granny's Speed kit for a 302 swap before (for a project I never finished, for stupid reasons). I believe in their work, however, for the price, I'm not sure it was worth it. The kit I bought required some tweaking (didn't bolt as easily as I expected it to for the price). I also found that the kit sat the engine very high. I would like to do my own work to get it as low as possible, and since I'm doing that anyways I may as well just make myself mounts.

Thanks for this! I'm going to look further into it. I always assumed the fox body's oil pan was the best one to use, because Granny's said it was required. If there's a better option out there that's fully rear-sump, I would probably try that before making my own oil pan setup. My real goal is to try to do anything I can to avoid moving the stock steering rack while getting the motor to fit under a stock hood.

This arrived yesterday:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...95018195_n.jpg

I'm excited! Even though I really can't put it to use until we're done working on the chassis. Found some nasty holes where the floor meets the rockers...the rust was hiding in the seam sealer. So we'll have to find a way to patch those up and paint the interior before starting to put it all back together again.

I picked up the motor for this car a week ago. It came out of a running car, but its quite a mess. Looks like I'll be doing a rebuild of at least all the gaskets.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-l...-250490366.jpg

I also need to determine the lowest possible intake that can be used on the 302s. I hate how high they all seem to sit. I wanted to run a custom one forward, but the distributor is in the way. I know there's a way to swap them to run with a control module and not a distributor...sounds like its starting to get complicated though.

Anyone have experience with this?

From what I have been able to determine, the lowest possible intake for a 302 came out of the TBirds. They needed to be low to clear the hood. They flow like crap, so if you can dig one up, you may need to get it extrudehoned just to get decent flow out of it.

Eric

Lookin good buddy

The 5.3L v8 comes in chevy 1500s there are toooonnnnssss of them and they make 300whp stock, you could always have thrown an NV3500 transmission behind it, they are about $200 come in S10's and v6 1/2 ton trucks and can handle the power for cheap.

I'm in the planning phases of doing this, I can have a good 05-08 5.3L and NV3500 tranny for combined cost of $6-900 I've found them for these prices allday no special hook ups or deals, One day ill pull the trigger and buy this stuff

And any parts you could want for it you can get at performance improvements or from the dealer which is very reasonable

This changes everything!

That is really helpful info. The advantages being that this FITS under the hood without any insane work like I'm looking at for the 302. I also have a buddy in Mississauga with a shop and he just put an LSx motor in his fc. So the mounts he fabbed up would also work for the 5.3...if I'm not mistaken.

I took a look at NV3500s and it looks like the shifter will come out under the dash.
I'm doing more investigation into using t5s out of s10s with a ford tail stock to move the shifter back a good distance. I will post up what info I end up getting.

As an update, I pulled the trigger and picked up an L33 shortblock motor. It's a 5.3L aluminum block/aluminum head out of an avalanche. I believe it's the Flex Fuel motor. Anyways, the heads are the exact same as used on the Z06 (ONLY difference being that the z06 has sodium filled valves...ALL other parts are same part #).

I'm grabbing an LS1 intake with fuel rail and injectors to use on it. Then its a matter of sourcing the wiring, the rest of the accessories (can use LS series parts OR truck parts...making it easy to mix and match what fits in the car) and the rest of the drivetrain.

Pretty stoked on this setup. Thanks to BWEK for kicking me in the right direction.

I'm thinking L33 myself - it's a pretty solid choice. Mind my asking what you paid for your's. Around here, the yards seem to want $2000, but if I drive to to the wilds of BC or Sask, $12-1300 - still higher than I've heard many saying.

Ya Brad Carlton, he is doing the V8 fc lol, T5's are glass, that's another reason why I want the L33 the heads lol those are pretty sick and the motors are everywhere, how did you pick yours up for?


Seen this awhile back, See how the tranny shifter Sits really far back and they made an extention to move it a foot forward next to the steering wheel, could do the same thing and just move the shifter back from under the dash, the Nv3500 trannys are like $200 on Kijiji, I believe the older style ones use a cheaper clutch slave like what an Fc uses stock and the newer ones have the expensive Clutch slave that sits on the input shaft
http://image.importtuner.com/f/featu..._Side_Seat.jpg

I scored mine for $300. It's literally just block, heads and pan...however, it's best to find an F-body oil pan anyways (though I've heard something about having to drill the block for the dipstick and I'm not a fan of that plan). It came with the truck intake and flexfuel injectors, but I won't be using that stuff.

It's got a stuck lifter on cyl. 1. I'm going to look closer at it, but worst case I'll just be replacing the single one.

Getting 4.8 coilpacks from the same guy for $100 later this week, and next weekend picking up an LS1 intake, with rails and injectors for what I think is a good deal at $220.

Now debating if its worth making my own brackets to adapt and fit the rx7 accessories (to make power steering piping easier), or if I should just find F-body brackets. Then the oil pan fiasco, sourcing a harness/ecu, and solve my transmission dilemma. Should be pretty good to go driveline wise after that.