Big Daddy is a 1985 LTD LX. It is based on the fox fairmont chassis. In stock form the car weighed 3300. The car came with a 302W rated at 165HP at 3800 rpm and 245 ft-lbs at 2400 rpm. I bought it from a local guy for $400. At the time I was in a 89 Mustang GT. That car was my baby, the body had started taking damage, and my wife was pregnant at the time, so we needed to get out of the car payment and insurance situation the GT put us in. I figured I'd buy a $500 dollar car with either a 302W, a 351W or even a Chevy 350. I figured these were all reliable motors, and most people can't beat em enough to put them to their paces. A local guy at work saw I was looking for a car and told me about his friend who was trying to get rid of his LTD. I was like cool, I looked under the hood and saw the engine. Looked just like an 85 GT. The original owner told me he had the motor replaced with a Pep Boys replacement long block. So cam/heads/shortblock wer non stock.

Coming out of the mustang, the car looked like a boat, but when I drove it I could feel the similarities. I knew the car could not be that heavy from the way it felt.

The car would bounce several times after hitting bumps, so I figured the suspension was shot, plus the brakes were really bad, the rear wheel cyllinder had a leak, the front brakes didn't stop very well and the car overheated in bad weather.

James Lawrence happened to be selling some used gear. Among the parts was a 3 core radiator, all the stuff to go to the lincoln/SVO front brakes. It was a good deal so I jumped on it, I found some 93 cobra front struts, polyurethane bushings and 94 GT rear shocks on the net real cheap. The parts sat around in my storage closet for a few months and I finally got them on. I had some 10 hole wheels off of an LX too. The car handled 10x better, and stopped better than the old GT. The 10 holes look very good on the LTD, almost like ford should have installed them from the factory..

People from the mustang group I was in thought I was crazy. In my mind a fox is a fox is a fox. I have a 5 liter powerplant, let me have power and a descent handler on the street.

I told them that one day I was going to be able to beat stock and mildly modded mustangs. one of the group members told me it couldn't be done. So there goes the challenge - to beat stock and mildly modded mustangs.

I knew to get the 302 to really wakeup, its weaknesses had to be addressed. Me with another boat anchor - the CFI itself would have to fight harder than the typical owner. Most people simply abandon CFI and go to carb or late model injection. They say no mods can be done to it, but I was out to prove them wrong. After I hopped the CFI up to its furthest limits and beyond the point Ford engineers had imagined, I would go to a single 600cfm carb setup, adding a shot of nitrous for the track.

My goal is to get over stock mustang numbers at the rear wheels, with the CFI in place. Later on, I can rip away with the addition of the carb and nitrous.

The heads and intake on 302's typically are very bad, and must be addressed if you want to make some serious power. With the right heads, right cam and right induction I will be able to beat these cars pretty handily. Plus they don't know my car is spec'd at around 3300lb with a 1/2 tank of gas. Lighter than SN95's and around same weight as Fox3 GT's and lighter than convertibles.

So I started lining up deals for engine performance items. I got a set of 1.72 roller rocker arms and tuned the car up really good replacing all filters and setting TPS to .99V, and bumping timing to 14 degrees. The car felt really torquey on the street. With its E5AE truck heads, cast manfolds and wheezy 2 to 1 exhaust system it had as much torque down low as a pickup truck.

I took it to the Texas Motorplex in ennis to baseline the car. I pulled a 17.058 at 80.05 mph. I figured I'd hit the high 16's at above 80mph, and I accomplished the 80mph, but not the 16's. I pulled a 2.4 60ft which I didn't think was bad for the low horsepower motor.

I had a ton of parts laying in my storage closet awaiting installation at the time: some dart windsor jr heads, some JBA shorty headers, a stock mustang cats and stock mustang lx tailpipes and mufflers. I really didn't have much time to get all the stuff on, so I got a set of pulleys and installed them, I also installed my Accel coil. I ripped off a 16.705 at 80.89. The pulleys were worth .3 and about 1 mph. I pulled 2.371 60 ft time, which wasn't bad for the crappy stock motor 1.72 rr's and pulleys.

Finally I started to get tired of the performance, i had all these parts laying around. I already could handle and break pretty good, I wanted to upset a few mustang and camaro owners with my "piece of shit". I set out to get the dual exhaust on, it was going to be important for the later mods. I installed the JBA headers, mustang cats and LX tail pipes onto the car. I had to change the location of brake lines, and reroute fuel lines. I added aluminum 3/8" tubing to run the fuel to the throttle body. I took it to Team Dynotech in Dallas to get a few pulls. I swore that thing felt like it pulled harder to a higher rpms. I was hoping for a 160 or so at the wheels. Which is nothing for a late model mustang owner. I ended up with a crappy 148HP at 3800rpms and torque was 250 at 2300 rpms. The torque was pretty high at the wheels at a low rpm level. So much for "low end torque" it does nothing at the track. Well it does get you going.

Took her to the track, now knowing where my shiftpoints would around 4500rpm. I pulled a 16.1 at 84.85 mph. not bad, a 4 mph gain for the duals and dropped .6 seconds. I figured with good induction the exhaust would have been worth more. I ripped off one 2.295 60' time and scared a few people at 330', I also started getting consistent .5 second lights. Good. Now all was needed was to get rid of the crappy induction, heads, intake, cam all have to go.

My goal was to to get 300HP at the wheels using natural induction so I could beat most mustang and camaro owners with my "piece of crap". Nitrous would be added to keep off the faster guys. Carbs are the cheaper way to go, so I did that. Plus would give more peak HP in a tuned setup. T5 would likely have to go on to free up some of the parasatic HP losses from the AOD, and lose some weight in the front end.

Did a compression check on shortblock. turns out I get 130-150 psi on all cyllinders EXCEPT #5. I get random measures on #5, sometime 30, sometime 90, once in a while 120. That plug is always oily too. Sucks. All these parts and a crappy shortblock wastes my power. Looking for roller shortblocks, will cam it to HP peak somewhere at or barely over 6000 rpm for some good HP.

10/20/97 Pulled that driver side rocker cover and noticed that rocker arms for #5 were completely off the valve tips. Studs were not torqued down, and the studs worked their way up letting the rocker arms float over to the side. Fixing this brought compression up to the 120+ that the other cyllinders had. Car felt a lot stronger.

Got it dynoed a week later, pulled 207HP at 4700rpm and 259ft-lb at 3900 rpm. I was a cam swap away and AOD-T5 swap away from some big HP at the wheels numbers. Added the flowmaster catback the dyno owner had laying around, and I swear, that the engine must have at least 10 more HP. I can definately feel something. Plus the spark plugs changed color from a light tan, to a white color, and engine runs hotter. So we have leaned it out from the increased exhaust flow the flowmasters offer. Going to get it dynoed and hoping for a 220+ at the wheels.