ive had an 85 capri for years and it has slowly gotten faster. my last engine is a 383w dart heads 8.5:1 cr soon to get turbo. the car has gotten to be difficult to drive normally(horrible fuel economy, drivability issues and lack of highway gears). this summer i ran a 12.2 @110 and got a warning from a tech at the track that if i get below 12sec i need a roll bar.( i really dont want to turn this car into a race mostly car) late this summer i bought another capri for $400 and dropped my old 347 in it and was gonna bracket race it.

some thinking later i came across and idea. why dont i put the 383 into the crappy capri an tame down my 347 with an o/d transmission and put it in the nice one and daily drive it.

347 currently
cast crank
kb pistons
ibeam rods
afr 165's
comp xe282hr

i was thinking of putting my old e303 cam back in it with single valvesprings. and either a junkyard 4r70w(99 up 4.2 v6) with baumann controller or a t5z. the car was at one time a 5 speed and i still have most of the stuff needed.

what would you guys suggest?

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A roll bar won't make a race car, maybe a cage would... A nice six point bar with bolt in bars would only restrict your use of the back seat, go to the track and bolt the door bars on. The car with a bar in it feels much more solid too.

Jess

 

My 86 coupe now has a carb'd 302 with edelbrock performer rpm package with and e-cam, and is 10x more fun than my t-trimmed 408 coupe. I will probably sell the 408 car and buy a boat. I understand fully where you are coming from.

 

I've been down this road myself. My "Street" car got to the point that it wasn't really any fun to drive on the street. Sure, it was fast. I just missed being able to just hop in it and drive it anywhere. I ended up selling it and taking a break from cars for a while. Now that I'm putting another car together I decided that there were certain mistakes that wouldn't be made again (fuel cell, no overdrive)

Good luck with whatever direction you go.

 

im leaning toward the t5z but will it handle the torque of a 347 with an e cam?
i used to run a 1.9 60 foot with the ecam and 3.07 gears on a c-4 with a 2500 stall

 

There are cretin things that you know you are going to have to give up when you start moding your car, and gas mileage is one of them. Not trying to be an ass here, but your combo should be plenty fine with some good tuning. The parts that you have listed with your 347 are all street friendly items. Also with your 383, like stated before a 6 point bar will get you legal. There are plenty of guys out there with hard core engines (10,9,8's) that drive on the street with no drive ability trouble at all. A good tune and good parts selection go along way.

FWIW my last combo was a 306 10.5 comp, carb'd with an F cam and 150shot. I was so happy and surprised with the way it drove on the street. Was smooth every time, never over heated, never gave me fits, and even passed an E test. Gas consumption was less then stellar but you live with that in the name of performance. Car was a 5 speed.

 

i know what you are getting at but im trying to go backwards without killing performance off completelyl

basically these are my goals
jump in turn key and go
must cruise smooth with decent idle
minimum 20mpg highway 10-14 in town (306 with e cam got upper 20's highway12 in town)
sub 14 sec 1/4
NO valvetrain noise

with megasquirt i know i can get good highway out of it. a loss of performance doesn't bother me, if i wanna go fast i can just jump in the other car.

 

AW CRAP i tore down the 347 to inspect it and i found #4 piston with a broken second ring landing(wtf why not the top one) other than that and a little rust it looks in real good condition.
i have kb246 pistons in it and i cant seem to find a single piston anywhere. some looking around and i can have a new set for about $275, or i can buy a set of the new fhr series for $320 which comes out about even with the more common 5/64 rings. and they also have an of center wrist pin which would be nice for a dd.

the only weight of the assembly 411/132 grams vs 415/102 grams for pistons and pins. my rotating assembly is balanced, would this throw the balance off enough for a 6000 rpm motor?