When your other car is a ‘94 Lightning with a Procharger running low 11’s, your daily driver runs the risk of getting neglected. Over at Purposebuilt.org we found an ’87 Mustang that got the upgrade treatment with a 5.0 Coyote crate motor.
When Clint read a post about doing this swap, he said he was thinking about it. He didn’t waste much time thinking before he made it a reality and it turned out great.
The car was sent out to get paint and body work done, and the crate motor was ordered. Some patch panels were put in place to clean up the engine compartment and the 5.0 was installed, giving the owner much more room than he thought he’d have.
The new Coyote motors are a popular swap that we’re seeing more of…in all sorts of cars. Days of buying cams and adjusting carburetors are going by the wayside in favor of tuning profiles to get the kind of performance you want out of these newer engines. In stock form the Coyote is putting out pretty impressive figures to begin with, and with an installation kit supplied by Ford Racing, a running engine is only a few connections away.
Fearing that TR-3550 5 speed wasn’t going to be able to handle it, the Mustang received a 4R70W overdrive trans from a Lightning to keep costs down, doing away with the clutch. There still is some work to finish it up, but it’s a clean installation with plenty of room to upgrade even further. Future plans may include a T56, and there has been talk about a Procharger. It sounds like the Lightning has some competition.