This is my 1984 Thunderbird élan i bought last Christmas eve, for $450. I bought it as roller having a 5.3l already put together by me for a fairmont I was gonna put it in but this car popped up and it was to good to pass up. The car was a 5.0l élan with a c4/3? I want to say it had? Now it has currently a 5.3l and 4l70e I will be adding more pictures and info on the build as a post them up.
The motor combo is a 2001 5.3l lm7 gen 3 motor, with a 220/224 cam, speed engineering ls swap mustang headers inch and 7/8 to 3inch. I milled the heads and did a valve job on them. For an intake it has a holley dual plane intake and a 750 double pumper carb, I can only go carb with this car since it still has tbi pump and tank and it's more out of my budget to do so.
I tried to use the 5.0l k frame, but the conversion mounts I bought didn't work because the guy lied and sent me 4.6 to ls swap mounts, and so then I had the extra k frame laying around for the fairmont the motor was going to go in and used that, but I had to make a half inch spacers for the front mounting points. I used an aje mustang k frame and the spring perches to use the stock tbird a arms.
Then I put the trans in it after I got the motor in it and etc. I put the 4l70e in and I modified the stock crossmember that came with the car, and used the stock drive shaft with 1330 joints. Then I put 3.45 gears and a posi in the factory 7.5 and 8.8 xr7 axles since the factory ones were done and I put a turbo coupe rear sway bar on the rear from my turbo coupe that had strut tower issues. Then I ran the exhaust, it is a custom made exhaust system other than mustang tail pipes, it is 2 and half inch all the way back. Then I bought a turbo coupe shifter, I had to cut the cable part out to make it fit thru the small area, but I am gonna use a rod to connect the trans linkage to the shifter.
I used the truck accessories on it with the smaller 4.3l alt, I had to modify my turbo coupe hoods scoop to make it work, but i should have bought a flat hood and sold the TC hood but oh well, which I did buy one and I would recommend if you are going to do this swap to a tc to do so as well. And here's a photo of the header i bought and the steering shaft i made.
Looks pretty good, for GM guts in it. LOL
I really like the LS motors in my pickups.
I like em just from a pure reliability stand point on the trucks from 99-02. My daily driver is an 02 Silverado 1500 extended cab with a 5.3l and it has 545k miles on the clock. I plan on daily driving this bird, and use the truck as a work vehicle only.
My gosh, that is the most ive ever heard. What has been replaced large item wise?
The motor and trans lol, the motor was leaking oil Soo bad and started burning oil
at 486k soo I pulled it out and swapped in a junkyard one with 86k miles, then the trans went out at 432k. That's about it just maintenance other than those 2.
Nice clean job on that conversion.
How is it driving?
Not driving yet, gonna find out how it drives tomorrow, I'm swapping a new transmission in it and finishing up a couple odds and ends on it then I'm firing it up and then possibly am going to test drive it.
Skinnies in the front so I guess you are headed for the strip.
Driving yet?
Looking good! Did you keep the digital dash in it?
It is running and driving now, it has an issue with blowing the tires off at 1/4 throttle and wheel hopping at 1/2 throttle. But other than that rides and drives and feels like a brand new tbird other than the cammed ls sound lol. And yes I kept the digital dash. I have a Ford speedometer to gm 700r4 speedo cable I'm going to buy once I measure out the old one.
Also does anyone know how many gph a stock tbi tbird pump pushes out because my stock pump isn't doing , I have a cheapo $20 pump running it all currently and I know it's not good to be pulling fuel thru the stock pump when it's kinda working.
As far as I know they are a 60 lph pump so around 15.85 gph…not near enough for any kind of hp.
My God, I'm just going to drop the tank and delete the in tank pump and run my cheapo pump or a Carter on the frame rail.
So let me back up here. I did not realize that you are dealing with an '84 car here so you have what I had in my '83 which is a low pressure in tank pump and an external inline high pressure booster pump if it is still factory (should have paid more attention to your first couple of posts). If I remember correctly the intank pump is good for somewherw around 30 gph or 115 lph so yeah your motor is starving to death. You can remove the intake pickup and try and make a pickup for a carb style externally mounted pump but they do not like to draw fuel from a tank rather they like it to flow to the inlet side of the tank i.e. a sump in the bottom of the tank. I am pretty sure you know all that already though.
On that K frame. Does the Mustang one just not fit right ? Is that the reason for the spacers ? Im about to start this swap in an 84 as well. Picked up a DI LS 5.3... Figured I would just order an AJE K frame to start with.. Love your car.. Here's my start. Very clean little car.. (https://i.imgur.com/2ccbYDz.jpg)
The fox body tbird and mustang are very similar, but still difderent cars.
The mustang is just ever so slightly different. Firewall forwards they are basically the same car. Most nothing is really designed to work with our cars because every thing from a mustang is close enough.
The tbird is basically a distorted mustang underneath. You will have to space the rear part because the mounting points are ever so slightly different. I know a guy that's doing a boosted di 5.3 power glide 88 tbird on the FB groups. He has a YouTube I believe too.