If the used 5.0 you're looking...
If the used 5.0 you're looking to buy still has the air silencer in the passenger-side fender, then you can safely declare it a "virgin" that has not been disgraced by speed-hungry performance freaks such as us!
It was all going to be so easy. Pick up a lightly used Fox-body 5.0 Mustang for $3,000-$5,000, and then show our readers how a few well-chosen bolt-ons can turn a commuter car into a real performer. The catch was we were going to do the entire story in just one weekend. Instead of going piece by piece on a chassis dyno, we would do the whole package and see what we got. We'd buy the parts early, plan it out, invite over some friends, and have one weekend thrash to put it all together. So much for the best-laid plans. As it turned out, this became an interesting foray in the world of 'Stang-ology. While we fell far short of our intended goals, we think you can still learn from our experience.
The 5.0 Mustangs established a new level of return-per-dollar-spent by performance-car shoppers during the '87-'93 model years. Affordable, practical, and loaded with potential as new cars, today they're even more of a bargain as used vehicles. With regular maintenance and caring previous owners, these cars can now be had for anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 depending on year, wear, and condition. Usually they need only a little TLC, some minor restoration, and a few bolt-on parts. And the recipe of turning a street 5.0 into a strip monster is well documented.
Removing this silencer is...
Removing this silencer is the first step in unlocking the hidden power these cars have right from the factory. Michael Young, one of the people helping us with our LX, hasn't pulled an intake silencer in more than 10 years.
The Car The Mustang we're utilizing for this experiment is typical of what you can find out there if you are patient. The car is an '89 5.0 LX in the desirable coupe body style. It has only 80,000 miles on the clock, with the majority of them being spent in the dry (no rust) climate of Texas. It does have a failing second paint job, and the interior shows signs of wear. However, the real selling point of the car is that it's completely stock and still has the factory-installed AOD, which drastically cuts down on the abuse it could have received during its life. With a dry undercarriage, a rock-solid trunk area, signs of only minor bodywork, and those timeless 10-hole rims, it screamed potential to our evil little minds.
What we hope to accomplish in one weekend is a transformation from the LX's former commuter-car status to that of a spirited performance Mustang anyone would be proud to own. The first order of business is to try to erase, or at least correct, some of the aged and damaged systems typically found on a 5.0 Mustang such as this one. A few of these problems are purely cosmetic-something you could live with if you had to. Others, such as new hoses and a serpentine belt, increase the reliability and safety of this car as it enters its golden years.
On the performance side of things, we have gone through most of the basic systems looking to unlock maximum horsepower without unlocking too much loot from our wallets. Big-ticket items such as blowers, heads, and intakes were not part of this deal. The recipe for making a car perform better is to ease the intake of air and the exhaust of spent combustion. Making sure everything works to its peak in between is also essential.
 |  Typical interior damage can...  Typical interior damage can be found in the ashtray door area. They will all break eventually. Luckily, the good folks at MavroMont Industries make a complete kit to repair it. The company's instructions (provided both in the kit and on its Web site at www.mavromont.com) are so detailed there is no need to try to explain how to install it here. [Plus, we did a complete installation in a prior issue.-Ed.] |  Bassani Xhaust systems are...  Bassani Xhaust systems are just what the doctor ordered. You can buy cheaper exhaust components, but you'd be hard-pressed to buy any exhaust of a higher quality than Daryl Bassani's work of art in stainless steel. Equal-length headers, an X-pipe with catalytic converters, and a full Bassani after-cat system combine for a boost of about 20 rear-wheel horsepower and a sound that will be music to your ears. |
 Honestly, when the entire...  Honestly, when the entire Bassani system is pieced together, you end up with one of the nicest-sounding 5.0 Mustangs ever. We can't wait to hear it with some heads and a blower pushing air through those pipes! Good buddy Shawn Andrews installed the entire system on our notch with little assistance. The most difficult part was cutting the old, rotted system from underneath the car. |  Once the air silencer is removed,...  Once the air silencer is removed, you will want to add an affordable cold-air intake system to guarantee the torque-rich 5.0 receives a blast of fresh air. Remember, the cooler and denser the intake charge, the more power you will make. You really can't go wrong with any of the kits marketed for this job, but we had a Moroso cold-air intake left over from the Outlaw car. Since stock mass air-equipped cars are saddled with a 55mm mass air, we highly recommend upgrading to an aftermarket unit as soon as you can afford it. We chose Pro-M's 75mm Bullet because it opens the intake path, provides nearly 10 horses, and comes calibrated and ready to install. Our mass air came from Granatelli Motor Sports. |  Our tune-up items include...  Our tune-up items include a new fuel filter, a cap, a rotor, spark plugs, and Ford Racing Performance Parts spark-plug wires. We're also switching to synthetic motor oil with a Prolong oil treatment. Don't laugh-the stuff has always been worth a tenth in our race cars. Besides adding a solid spark and a slippery crankshaft, the real power here is bumping the initial timing from a factory 10 degrees (ours was found to be only 4 degrees initial!) to 13-15 degrees. You will, of course, have to run premium fuel in the 92-94-octane rating. While under the hood, we will also replace the original (and rotted) hoses with an FRPP silicone hose kit and add a new serpentine belt. This is done to increase the dependability of the car as well as to add a measure of safety if the old hoses explode while the car's rolling down the road at 140 mph! Not that we'd ever go 140 mph, but just in case. |