So, How many miles is to many miles?????

[68fightenfordfan]

As I have been doing my research for what type of donor I would choose I have noticed that many out there have a boat load of miles. Most '80's/'90's 5.0's are well north of 100K. My current 5.0 is 124K(possible donor). And Ive been looking at wrecked 2003-2004 cobra's and Mach 1's and have found that many of them are over 80k miles.

So my question is how reliable are the parts that ill be taking off these rides as donors if they have more than 80k miles and have sustained some type of accident.

To add to that question I really like the idea of putting a terminator in a roadster but how reliable are the terminator blocks that have had power adders put on and are above 50K miles, how long can these blocks/tranny's sustain that beating.

TIA for the help and ideas.

[PhyrraM]

I would consider abuse and maintenance before mileage. I've seen well cared for motors that still had excellent compression and visable crosshatching at over 200K. Modern machining techniques used by the OEMs are very good.

[Mike N]

I agree, pull the dipstick and oil fill cap and see if there is any evidence of sludge, water, or excessive varnish etc. Anything you can do to determine if the motor has been well maintained. I used my owned from new 150K mile 5.0LX for a donor and it was driven HARD and drag raced with slicks, when I tore the motor down there was still crosshatching on the cylinder walls and the stock clutch was in reasonable shape. It needed piston rings, a valve job and synchros and a second gear in the T5 but other than that it was in great shape.

[Jack FFR1846]

10 years ago, I build my car and went through stages. First stage was to build it enough to get it on the road. No paint, interior, just a speedo and voltmeter, wrong engine (I used a Mercury Marquis engine because the number matched the title), wiring harness..... Following year, I found a 5k mile explorer 302 and converted that to work (and did paint, interior, wiring). Then my original 150k mile T5 crapped out and I went to a rebuilt 2.95 T-5. Over the years, I've taken advantage of the FFR open house scratch n' dent sales and used parts sales and gone to FFR lower tubular control arms in the front and rear and bought some ford motorsport rear uppers (standard mustang 4 link in my car). Gauges have all been upgraded along the way. Just this past winter, I upgraded the wheels/tires to some used 4 lug Hallibrand replicas and rebuild the rear (to the tune of $900) with all new parts, 1 replaced axle and redid the gearing from 3.08 to 3.27).

So the point I make is that you don't HAVE to build the perfect car all at once. Part of the fun is getting it a little better year by year. As you upgrade parts, craigslist, local car forums and here are great places to unload the old parts to offset the cost a bit.

[OttawaFFRer]

My donor was an 87 gt. It had 100k miles on it. purrs like a kitten.

What I will use from the donor: engine(will rebuild, new upper end), trans, spindles look good, rear end
(new gears)

maybe: pedal box, gas tank

Not good enough: rad is fugly(rather have aluminum one), wiring...everything else

I paid 1k for the car and got $400 for the rims/tires. I still see value in donors.

Well cared for Canuck GT's are only driven 3 months a year on sunny days, so there are lots of good ones up here.

There are diamonds out there with built motors, they just have to be uncovered!