8 into 4

[jayslx]

please can anyone tell me what i have to do to rearend or frontend when i change over from 2.3 to 5.0 89 lx con or can drive it after the change. Anything else i need to no would help me also.thankyou

[dinomite]

I don't know about springs, cause a lot of people talk about gettin 4cyl springs for their V8's to launch better. You will need a new rear end, as the 4cyls came with a 7.5in, you need to get an 8.8 out of a 5.0 car.....actually, you may be able to use the 7.5, but I'd suggest getting the 8.8. You will want bigger tires. The wussy 185s or whatever they put on the 4cyl will just go up in smoke.

i'm assuming you have a donor car on this:
As long as you use the 5.0 donor's radiator, trans and engine it should be usable. I have a 7.5" rear in my car (it came stock) and it's yet to blow under heavy abuse, but you'll eventually want to replace it if you plan on beating on the car. One thing you will want to change is the wussy brakes the 2.3L has. You'll want to change out the spindles, struts, master cylinder, rotors -other actual brake stuff- and if you can, get the V8 control arms. they have low friction ball joints that i've heard last longer. Also get the sway bars out of the 5.0 and the mounting brackets, it'll make it feel like it can handle, especially if you get the 5.0's springs. You can use the GT rear shocks which i believe are actually heavier dampened than the 2.3L shocks, but the 5.0 struts aren't supposed to work. (i had a 2.3L mustang at one time and swapped over to GT suspension and i was able to use the GT struts, but maybe i just got lucky) Another thing to get is the quad shocks out of the 5.0 car if you can. The only other advise i can give is if you haven't yet bought parts for your car....just get a 5.0 convertible, depending on how you get parts (and for how much) this swap may just turn out to be a headache and a pain in the wallet. Good luck