My Donor Car

[Brad.Walker]

Well.. The process of building a Factory Five car has begun. I'm not sure my wife understands what I'm trying to do (though she is incredibly tolerant of me and deserves a new piece of jewelry). My kids just think of this as a fun project.

I've attached a picture of my donor car. It's a 1999 Ford Explorer 5.0L. I bought it at a Copart auction for $350, excluding taxes and fees. I have a daily commute of about 40 miles total each day. So my plan was to drive it for the next 6 months while I get ready to purchase and receive my kit, as well as all the planning I need/want to do.

I took the donor car down to my local Firestone Auto and asked them to give it a complete inspection and report back. Amazingly, the car is in really good condition to have 262,000 miles on it. Here are some the major quirks:

1. rear main seal leak, seems normal and expected considering the mileage
2. front seal leak on the differential, ditto #1
3. differential cover leak, ditto #1

Here's my plan for the next 6 months:

1. Drive her daily for the next 6 months
2. Figure out the differential/rear end. This Ford Explorer read end has 3.73 gearing, 8.8 " spacing. I'm hoping to use it for my kit
3. Engine (Plan to rebuild it myself as I've always wanted to do this)
   
   • target specs after rebuild - 300-350 HP, 350+ (ft-lb) torque ?
   • locally who is going to do my engine machine work (those folks are starting to retire and the market demand is just not what it once was)
   • what transmission am I going to use
   • plan to use an Isky cam
   • refresh the GT40P heads w/ some light porting work, roller lifters, valve spring upgrades
   • replace all the bearings internally
   • hope that I don't have cylinder work to be done, won't know until I open up the engine
4. Need to get the garage ready for all the boxes I'll need to keep

One of the best things I've done is pay $20 to someone on EBay and purchased the Ford Service Manual. It provides ALL the details, i.e. torque specs, how to remove the engine, how to rebuild the engine, etc. Simply awesome.

I'm open to comments, suggestions or things to avoid, so let me know what you think.

-brad w.