The 1983 Mustang Project "Budget Build-Up for Bracket Racing" started in 2000, and as anybody knows... a car project is never completely finished.
A picture of what we started with... after we swapped wheels with the original black car.
Our goal here was to get my buddy Rob bracket racing at Brainerd International Raceway with a half-way fast car for as cheap as possible.
I got Rob hooked on bracket racing with an old 1980 Mustang with a 200 inline 6 cylinder that I had sold to him for $500. We got that running good and he ran that for a few bracket races during the summer of 2000. The best ET we could pull with that car was an 18.992 at 70.84 mph. That car had long since seen its better days and was getting rather tired. We knew that when winter came around that we had to spend our time wisely and build a better car for the following season.
Originally we were planning to use that ‘80
Stang as a base for this project, but after extensive research we found this
was the worst starting point for a V8 swap project car since the whole front
cross member had to be replaced. After pricing out some cross members, we
found out it would run us around $250 or so to get the cross member we needed
to allow us to install a V8 in the car. The frame on the '80 Stang was
also very rusty on the bottom and we decided we better try and find a more
solid car for the base of the project. A friend of ours happened to have
a ’83 Mustang sitting in his yard that according to him did not and would not
ever run again. We showed up to his house one afternoon, jump started it and
manually forced the car into gear from underneath (got to love automatics) and drove
it home. The total cost for this '83 Stang in fairly rough shape with a 3.8
liter V6 was $200. The four cylinder and six cylinder cars have the
correct cross member for a V8 swap. The inline or straight 6 cylinder
cars do not. For the small block V8, we found a two owner, rusted-out (
As I said, we started late in the year 2000 on this project. We spent the good majority of that winter and following spring to get the Stang all together and running good. The 302 from the truck had a front sump oil pan on it. In order to fit that motor into the Mustang, we had to get a dual or rear sump oil pan for it. So we installed a dual sump pan, new oil pump and shaft, new timing chain, sprockets, and timing chain cover (water pump bolts broke inside the old one during disassembly), new water pump, fuel pump, and misc new gaskets and seals to keep the old 302 from leaking all over the place. Then we got some new motor mounts and put that engine into the car.
As far as the transmission, we simply put a new filter and pan gasket on it, modified the transmission mounts on the Stang so it would fit, had a new driveshaft put together from the old Mustang and Thunderbird shafts and put it in the car.
We utilized the 1980 Mustang's rims and tires and threw them on the car, just to get those stock '83 6 cyl Stang hub cap wheels off of the car.
As far as the carb goes, we were going to stick with a 350 cfm 2 bbl that we had, but after having serious carb problems, we dumped that one and picked up a brand new Holley 500 cfm 2 bbl for cheap.
We also relocated the battery to the passenger side rear of the car to help with weight transfer.
That next summer that car competed in almost every bracket race at BIR and ran pretty consistent mid 15's in the 1/4. Not bad for an old stock 302 with a 2 bbl carb on it and 2.73 gears in the rear end.
Now Rob was fairly happy with mid 15's for the amount of money he had in the car, but we knew we could do better for not much more money. We were also getting tired of the "brown" color of the car. Sleeper or not, brown is not a fun color. So the following winter, we went back to work both on the motor and the body (which was way overdue for some repairs).
The 500 cfm 2 bbl carb was sold via EBay in favor of a new Holley 650 cfm 4 bbl along with a used Edelbrock Performer 289 Intake Manifold. The heads were also removed and brought into a machine shop and were completely redone along with some minor porting. A new pretty mild cam was installed (specs on cam coming soon), along with some new piston rings.
A before and almost finished picture of the 302.
After getting the motor all back together and having some more time left
before all of the snow melted, we went to work sanding and throwing some body
filler on the old Stang which had seen its fair share of
Another friend of mine then threw a coat of black paint over the whole car so that it would no longer be the brown beast.
When the snow finally melted and we were able to take the new black beast back to BIR, we ran a full second faster consistently in the 1/4. Once again, not bad for a car with a pretty mild 302 and stock 2.73 gears in the rear end.
Rob and I both have purchased houses in the last year. I also got married in September 2006. With those expenses finally out of the way, hopefully we can both get going on working on our Stangs again. They have both been on the back burners for the last couple of years.
Future plans for Rob’s car are kind of up in the air... we are split between finishing off that car the right way by doing some more body/interior work along with a better rear end with some 3.73 gears, and possibly a twin turbo setup or just pulling the motor and transmission from the car and finding a good old Fairlane or SN-95 Mustang body as the next project. Whichever the case, it is guaranteed that the Red Line Racing team will return to the BIR Bracket scene within the next few years (especially now that the track has new ownership) in full force with the desire and resources available to once again send The K & K Racing Team packing for home.
We wanted to put this project online to show that if you really want to get into bracket racing or even put together a pretty quick sleeper Stang, that it can be done and that it doesn't necessarily have to cost much money. More details, pictures and exact 1/4 mile ET’s along with the final cost of the project will be posted in the near future as we put together the information...
If you have any specific questions on this project or something we might be able to answer about your project, feel free to email me; Chris Polley, or my friend Rob Nelson and owner of this project.