Mustang 5.0 is back
 

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/12/28/d...ll-new-5-0-v8/

Mustang now available with the 3.7 V6 or the 5.0 V8.
Nice

The V6 will be 305hp, and with 10 less hp than the camaro, but 4-600lbs less weight, it is going to be a rocketship!

http://jalopnik.com/5434979/the-50-mustang-is-back

7000rpm v8!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwvLEx10KgE

drive and walkaround
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlR8hbpkHkw

I owned a 92 Mustang LX 5.0 and loved that engine...easy and cheap to work on and hop up. I ran nitrous on it for a little while and one day I screwed up while on a dyno and ended up cracking part of the block so I just tossed it in the trash can...ordered a block for about $250...maybe even less from Summit Racing and then we built a killer engine and added a Vortech Supercharger to it and it rocked. I miss that car...it was a fun little car.

The 5.0 from Ford and the 5.7 from Chevy are my two favorite engines of all the cars I've owned.

Don't get me wrong...I've owned some sweet imports and like them too but the two engines mentioned above were/are just so much easier to find stuff for and to work on yourself...at least in my case.

I haven't looked at the new 5.0 mentioned above in the op so it's probably totally different but it just reminded me of the Stang I owned. :idk:

I was glad when Ford switched from the 5.0 to the 4.6 back about 15 yrs ago............The 4.6 was smoother and didn't start shaking at high rpm, unlike the 5.0.

I hated when they switched to the 4.6...at least at first. I didn't have the shaking issues with mine so I'm not real sure about that part.

I just prefer high-rpm power :idk:
The 5.0 seemed to run out of breath unless modded. Sure it had more low-end than the 4.6, but I've always thought too much low-end is useless if you're breaking loose all the time.

At a sub-15k price point during 80's, what vehicle offered the performance of the Mustang and offered a smoother high breathing engine?(85 Gt could be had for around 10K)

The nice thing about the old 4.9 is that it made the Mustang fun. Sure there were engines that you could wind it out, the 4.9 got you there just as fast if not faster and it all came down to shift points.

So what if it had the power delivery characteristics of a modern turbo diesel?

Yup... I want one.

Too bad the pickup has to come first, and I'll be paying for that for awhile.

rocket ship? :Lmao:

My 5.0 never shook at higher RPMs. I shifted at 5200rpm when it was stock, and with a stock rebuilt bottom end, a big cam and rebuilt heads, it did not shake at 7000rpm either.

We used to call em 5 O slow...

I had 2 5.0's, an 85 Mustang GT convertible, and an '89 F150, both with 5-speeds, and they both started shaking before 5K rpm. You could feel it through the shifter big time. Course, both had a lot of miles when I got them, so maybe the motor mounts were worn or something.

If I had $10-12K back in those days, I would have bought a 2 yr old used car that was formerly worth $15-18K. Such as an RX7, Taurus SHO, or a million other things more refined than a Mustang. Knowing what I know today, of course. Back when I was a kid, sure Mustangs "seemed" cool. Until you drove them and then compared them to other cars.

The draw of the 5 liter to me is the aftermarket.

I've never driven one, so my opinion doesn't hold a ton of weight, but from what I hear its easy and cheap to bolt on power.


And slice, some of enjoy fighting to keep traction and the tq it can provide. Top end in a car? That's not very important to me. I don't speed too much, but I love acceleration.

Despite the fanboys RX-7 was a POS.
You would be posting up how you loved it but you were always sinking money into it. Lets not forget that for the most part of the decade the RX-7 was a bit of a dog unless it had the turbo.

Taurus SHO didn't show up until the end of the decade and there was no way you'd find a used one before the end of the 80's. Remember the SHO was just about DOUBLE the price of a mustang (points though for putting it on your list. Didn't think you'd list it because of the styling: Body cladding on a first gen Taurus)

Seriously lets think about it.
1981-1989
New car @ same price point as a Mustang 5.0
or a used car available in the 80's (so that excludes cars sold in 89 and even 88)

What cars (besides the RX7?)

Plus one!

Mustangs of the 80s sold in the millions for good reasons. they were affordable, good looking, fast, comfortable and for the time, refined.
Rx7s in the 80s were not very refined either. Sure the motor was smooth, but they would leave a pool of oil everywhere they went, and the turbo model, which was still slower than a 5.0 mustang, cost twice as much to buy and twice as much to maintain. On top of that, Mazdas build quality was pretty crappy(don't even mention the cost of replacement parts back then) before ford bought them.

dodge daytona shelby z. stock for stock they were right next to each other in the quarter (15.3/15.4). dodge had better brakes (1.00 g of force in 1987!), could likely best the stang on the skidpad and would be far cheaper to up the power on in the short run. commence crying about how its wrong wheel drive

The old oil burning RX-7s were no match in reliability for the mustangs of that era either!

You guys are making me nostalgic for my 93gt that I sold last year, it evolved from my only car when I bought it in 94 to fully modded-money pit with a 12:1 solid cam 377 cubic inch motor making in excess of 600 hp naturally aspirated.

I still have a 93lx that is a project car to be finished by the time my son can drive and I also have an 86gt project car as well.

I could have sworn that the Mustang was into the 14's by the time Dodge slapped a turbo on the Daytona and the Daytona was slower (15 sec car). Sounds like you are referencing the GT automatic.
Daytona was still a decent scoot though especially the last gen with 224HP motor but by then it cost a decent amount more than the Stang.
Stock I don't think the Daytona kept up with the Mustang year for year. However, I think it did have better handling.
Going back to Homeslice's point....was the drivetrain more refined?

Keep in mind that the Mustang to get during the late 80's was the LX 5.0...not the GT. So careful with the comparisons.

I wouldn't mind picking up a LX notchback.

My buddy had a Daytona Shelby Z, and it was quick, but not as fast as the mustang(it did handle far better though, and I would put it against pretty much anything from that era for handling). Mustangs were anywhere from the low 15s to high 13s stock, with the majority ending up in the mid 14s(even the heavier GT models).
It was definitely not refined though.

As for upping the power, in the 80s turbos were still black magic. NA V8s could be tuned by anyone, turbo magic did not start really catching on until the 2000s when engine management systems started getting cheaper and more popular.

You asked what I'd buy :shrug:

Some people like myself care more about the overall experience, rather than what the quarter mile time is. Going WOT isn't fun if the engine starts shaking or if the torque curve starts dropping too early. I was raised driving 4-cylinder cars, so of course I'm going to feel that way.

And you say RX7's were pieces of shit.......maybe so, but you couldn't find a smoother engine when wound out........Also, Mustangs of the 80's weren't exactly great quality either. Thin paint, flexy chassis that needed a lot of bracing, awful driving position.

Hell I might have even considered an 82-86 Supra, or an 83-87 Prelude, or a 16V GTI/Scirocco............. Of course they were a lot slower, but still very fun to drive in a different way. I'm not a big guy, so for me a Prelude is a perfect-sized car to toss around. You can't toss around a Mustang in a residential area.

What you'd buy at the same level of performance...


A CRX or Accord from that era had a smoother engine but it was no where near the level of performance a Mustang was.

A Supra brand new cost a lot more than a comparable year Mustang, the earlier Supras being cushy dogs and if you were shopping in the 80's and you had to choose a used Supra or a new Mustang you would choose a 4-5 year old Supra?
I don't think so.

You certainly wouldn't be grabbing the later models and though the earlier long nose Celica' jobbies are decent cars of the era...they are are not even close to Mustang performance.
Perhaps a reminder of what started this conversation

In stock form...yep...but not the one I had and that's part of my point about liking them...parts available everywhere...easy to modify and not expensive to play with.

He11 I've got a Dodge Neon SRT-4 toy in the garage and stock v.s. stock...it's faster than my 5.0 was...brakes better and handles better too...but yep...it's still a Neon. :lol:

hookay, for starters i thought we were comparing to the gt. The shelby z was your luxury sport and as such was a direct competitior. You guys wanna talk lx we had the c/s ags lightweight stripped out competition model. As for black magic, in those days ma mopar sold quite a few goodies for those cars via their direct connection catalog the most potent being the super 60 kit which included a larger turbo, cam, +40 injectors, 3 bar map sensor, ecu, and a higher flowing intercooler that punched output up close to 300 hp. Iirc it was fully available by '88

It was gneral Mustang comparisons so the basis is the best stang for the money per year.
Overall, I consider the LX's the better bang for the buck though the pre 87 GT's were still good.

The Daytona was marketed as a competitor and definately had some advantages over the stang.
Wasn't any shame in picking a Daytona over a Stang back then.

Who was picking a CRX or Accord? I said Prelude.

And I said used Supra, not new. The Mustang didn't become a legitimate performance car until 1985, and by that point there were 3-yr old Supras on the market. Were they slower, sure, but they were better-looking and better-handling. And a Prelude was even better-handling.

Whatever...... There were a lot of other cars I would have rather spent the same $11,000 on than a Mustang. Are you saying that EVERYONE back in 1985 should have bought a Mustang, or else they weren't a true performance enthusiast? Why is speed alone the measure of performance? What about handling?

I guess speed isn't my biggest criteria. :shrug: Guess I'm not a true performance enthusiast.

So you are saying you cannot answer the question.
You have come back with some vehicles with smoother powertrains but you have not offered anything that came at a comparable price point or comparable level of performance.

The question isn't what new or used car you would choose over the mustang.

id really love to bring up the starion/conquest but those things were practically unmoddable due to the boneheaded choice of tbi. not sure on price either. Maybe an mr2 supercharged? I know those were solid 14s when they decided to engage the clutched blower

CRX's...:lol: Boy that sure brings back the memories.

I've owned 4 of them.

1984...the first year. Carberated so we took all the smog stuff off...75 lbs. worth...went with Webber carb..cam...header.

1987 SI

1988 SI

1991 SI

Man I love all types of cars.

The CRX was shaped like an egg but very light...fun to modify and a decent stereo would thump in one of those things. :lol:

This question never put a requirement on NEW cars......Thus I took the liberty of discussing used cars. Furthermore you didn't say "offered the speed of the Mustang" you said "offered the performance of the Mustang." Performance = both speed and handling last I checked.

an excellent candidate for the muscle car title though, ive enjoyed many heated arguments over that one :)

Starion\Conquest were awesome looking cars. I THINK they had a 5G price premium over the Mustang (unless you loaded it up to a GT conv and they were about equal price).

MR2 SC is pretty much the same case.
One of my all time favorite cars.
The MR2 SC comes pretty close but at 17K 1988 dollars it was pretty pricy.

My dad had a Starion Turbo...I almost bought a Conquest.

The mr2 supercharged was good for upper 14's in stock form with average driver...drove one but never owned one. 200 hp I think and handled well.

The GLHS turbo came out in 86, and had the same quarter-mile time as an MGT (remember, we're only talking 14.9 here, it's not like the MGT had God-like speed)

Assuming the argument is only about speed of course

dont quote me but i think it was 160s, id been looking for one for a while as a project car and had to give up. They held value far to well, cant even touch one over here under 5k. A shame really, im a turbo guy at heart but i love the whine of a roots

Figure common sense would have applied when I posed the question what car at the same price point offered the same performance of a Mustang.

This started with your complaint of the 4.9 I thought it obvious we weren't talking handling. We're talking engine performance.

:lol: :cheers: It's paid for and the wife likes playing around in it so we'll keep it for now.

She'd like a 370Z...amongst several other rides as well.

ever see that video shelby put out at the launch? They had an omni glhs up against a tweeked to 300 hp gt350 at rome roadcourse and the omni wipes the floor with the stang. Wasnt even pretty

Do you think the GLHS had a smoother engine?

Maybe it was but I thought 200 but maybe that was a modded one...I honestly don't remember...but it was fun to drive.

Interesting - though the '5.0' is simply the displacement and it's clearly not the old 302 Windsor pushrod motor. I 'spect it's simply the 4.6 bored/stroked. As such, the tons of aftermarket & cheap/easy to mod factor won't be as high, but still pretty good compared to many other performance car offerings (esp. import). As a bang-for-the-buck hod-rod platform, back in the mid-80's ~ '93 the Fox-body was like a sore pecker - hard to beat!


As for the old fox-body - man I still miss my old '89 Saleen sometimes. It was what it was, with the inherent limitations of a live-axle, relatively flexy chassis, and 'only' 250hp or so - but damn it, it was just a cool car & fun to drive!

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s...S/P8040005.jpg

see i cant get behind the 370 solely because they put in that rev matchs for you bs. Other than that i love the car

btw, z06: i have a turbo manifold for that id let go fairly cheap if she wants to go bonkers with it. I was gonna drop a 2.4 in my daytona but i no longer care about fwd.

Smoother, probably not, but it didn't run out of steam as early, which was part of my original complaint about the 5.0 (which was really a 4.9 by the way)

145hp, but it was light as hell.

When I say top end I mean high rpms, not top speed. My first 2 cars were 4-cylinders, so that's the type of power curve I became accustomed to. I don't like it when the torque curve falls off too soon.

block wouldnt split in half at redline either

Where did the 4.9 (in the ones you drove) start petering out?
bout 4K?

my 83(non-roller cam) carbed car would run out of steam after 5500 with the stock cam. I shifted at 5200.

I for one loved the low end torque of that motor. I really didn't like it when it was rebuilt and it did not feel very strong below 3000RPM.


BTW, Homeslice, would you prefer a low revving vtwin sportbike, or an R6?

Huh ? I'm not even aware of that. I'll look into it though.

I looked it up just now...1995 Toyota MR2 Turbo did have 200 hp and 200 tq....I knew I wasn't totally ignorant...just partially. :lol:

That is the second gen turbo car.

The first gens were fast, just because they weighed nothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_MR2

Speaking of Saleens...here is my Z06 and a friend's Saleen S-380.

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b4...D550/ry%3D400/

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b4...D550/ry%3D400/

Right and I never said you were wrong but when I mentioned the MR2 Turbo that I drove and thought about buying had 200 hp...it was suggested that it didn't twice here. :idk: I never said first gens...vs. 2nd...etc.

The supercharged MR2 came up in the thread, and you said it was 200hp.
I was correcting you. The turbocharged ones were 200(245hp in Japan)

It was so long ago, I have no idea........Sounds about right though. The F150 even lower.

I grew up driving little 80-90 hp 4-cylinder shitboxes.......So revving it up to 6K or more was just par for the course. Hopping into a car that petered out a lot sooner than that was a disappointment. Didn't matter if it was blazing fast on paper.

The R6........I've had a couple v-twins (an SV650 and an RSVR), and while they were nice between 4-8K, they were less than nice above and below that.

Below that they feel like they're going to stall out or snap a connecting rod.

Above that, the whole frame shakes with the throbbing. Too much of a distraction.

In contrast, 4-cylinders are smooth at any RPM. Do some of them make your hands or feet numb on the highway? Yes, but I can tolerate that more than I can tolerate what most v-twins do.

Wow, this thread is chock full of good info on the ALL new 5.0 aluminum block Mustang powerplant. Even has clean sheets heads...

Ahh...just reread post #34...my bad...I was indeed thinking/talking about the turbocharged one but posted supercharged.

yep, it was all aw11 chat

412hp? yeah, I'll take 2 please. :dribble: It won't handle for shit in the snow though. That isn't an SVT (Cobra) is it? I wonder what an SVT 5.0 is putting out now? 450 maybe?

Arent the Cobras all Shelby now?(Asks the guy with the 5.0 Mustang....)

yeah, since they cut the SVT

The full Shelby transformation on the current 4.6 adds bout 24 thou and makes 450 ponies, wonder what he can do with mods to the 5.0? still Ford wiped out a generation of engine mods in one production year. forced by the competition really.

They did? What a shame. I thought it was cool how the SVT motors had the signatures of the 2 engine builders on the valve covers. Just seemed a little more custom with that.