You're not going to do it with GT40 heads, cobra intake, and an e-cam, so turn a deaf ear to the ones telling you that crap.

The TFS package will get you close, but not quite there. Most of those will see 280 - 290 at the wheels with the proper supporting mods. My old coupe was trapping 109 with the track heat package and stage 1 cam, hitting the fuel shutoff for the last 200'. That cam is absolute garbage though, there's NOTHING below 3500 rpm with that package.

AFR 185's will NOT work without fly cutting the pistons for 99% of the cams out there. The only 2.02 valve head that will really work with a stock piston is the tfs head, and there, you're limited to about a .540ish lift cam, which is plenty anyway.

My suggestion is a basic AFR 165, edlebrock performer manifold, custom cam combo. Perhaps call Ed Curtis at flowtech (http://www.flowtechinduction.com) for the cam as he's the one who put this combo on the map. He did a cam for one of my combos in the past and I was really happy with his service and the results.

As far as how high you can rev it, the block isn't the concern, its the stock rods. You should definitely get yourself a set of ARP rod bolts for piece of mind. I'm running a stock shortblock with stock heads in my fox and shift at 6500 and get real squeamish every time. It's not really a matter of if it will go at that kind of rpm, but when.

By far the best person on this board to talk to on this matter is Tim (LethalEFI).

 

I made a little over 300 HP in my 87 with Edelbrock performer heads and intake and a Motorsport F cam. Cam really came on above 3500 RPM. I would walk away from a friend with TFS heads and intake with an e-cam with everything else the same. E cams are for fags. Edelbrock makes quality parts that you can count on. I've seen A few cracked TFS intakes int he past. Summit sells the Holley set up pretty cheap and It's pretty good. If you want to talk to someone with more knowledge and parts laying around for Fox's than you could imagine, let me know.

 

I'll add another for some AFR 185's, custom cam(or off the shelf with your desire specs), and an intake. Anderson Motorsports seems to make pretty good NA systems, they also have a PMS tuneable engine management system.

If you spend some time on research you can get much more bang for your buck with a custom setup. Thats one of the nice things about the 5.0L, chances are it's already been done, so with enough research you can find someone else with the exact same setup.

I personally have cast iron Roush windsor jr heads(180cc intake, 1.90/1.60 valves), an Explorer intake(Cobra), Comp cams NX164HR(wide lobe separation(nitrous), .512/.512 lift) with stock bottom end(rebuilt). I'm running around 10:1 comp with the smaller combustion chambers, so still street gas friendly. This is a major budget engine, its all about how much money you want to dump into it.

 

I forgot he was on this board.

 

300hp out of a mustang? Easy, a 300 shot.

/thread.

 

Thanks for the input guys... it's getting me in the right direction. I wan't reliable and budget if I go this route... I'll be more forthcomming w/ details once I'm further along.

The guys at anderson seem to have some good NA packages... I need to dig more as the motor seems to allready have an explorer gt40 intake... need to see which heads it has.

 

the afr's are good, the trickflows have a good price. you would prob be better off calling a few cam companies and seeing what they reccomend

 

AFM's package w/ TFS, custom cam, and some intake is making 320 rwhp w/ proper tuning. However it's $2400. Need to see what kind of equipment I'm starting with.

 

Man I need to get out of Hondas.

This whole making more torque than hp thing is sounding awesome.

 

I second this advice. Give Ed Curtis a call and tell him your goals for the car and he can steer you in the right direction. I would probably go with something very similar to the package that Nic stated above.

Also any of the ford alphabet cams are outdated and not that great anymore.