Quote:
Originally Posted by triple john  ok..I have the v6 and considered a v8 swap...Unless you can get a complete car with drive line it will be a pain in the ass and $$$$ ... V8 motor mounts and shrouds are costly and hard to find. I am rebuilding my v6 with headers, 4bbl offenhauser intake, Holly 390cfm carb, and a complete rebuild kit with hotter cam and 10-1 comp pistons from Flatlander racing and should get me in the 190hp range. The HP parts are available...ya just gotta look a little harder than you would for a v8... |
Exactly.
Holley makes two good 4-bbl. carburetors for 2.8L applications, one 390cfm (street) and the other 450cfm (I'd limit this to a part-time street car as this one's chokeless).
Offenhauser makes a 4-bbl. intake, as mentioned; Hooker and Pacesetter made headers for years, and they still pop up on Ebay; aftermarket heads are still available in Europe (where the 2.8L family continued longer, and always had more performance than here), camshafts are still being ground by several manufacturers, not the least of which is Isky
ISKY Racing Cams - Do It Right. Race with the Legend. Camshafts, Connecting Rods, Valve Springs, Lifters
The parts are there, you just have to look. My dad and I are building a slightly warmed up 2.8 for his '77 Capri, and I've built 2.3s from bone-stock to not even streetable anymore for the heck of it, and I've built 5.0s and 460s, and even Chevy engines... V8s are easy, inline-4s and V6s are a challenge... but it's fun to light up a 305TPI Camaro with 2.3L of "buzz-buzz" or pass a Corvette like he's sitting still with the throaty grumble of a German V6 (the 2.8L Ford engine is German in origin)...
To get it done though, you've got to dig for the parts:
1. Hit the Junkyards; people wreck cars all the time, sometimes with performance parts on them, I bought Flowmaster 40 series mufflers for $7 a piece in the junkyard... 10% of their new price at my local Advance Auto Parts, and an Edelbrock Performer RPM intake for $16, Garrett turbos for $40 each (going on a twin-turbo 302 I'm building) really nice spoilers and wings for $10 I've found good factory 2-bbls (some of the older Ford V8 2-bbl. carbs are fantastic for performance use and will even bolt on to a stock 2.8 manifold!) Sometimes you gotta get dirty!
2. Check Classifieds; Craigslist, your local ads, national classified websites... you can get lucky, I bought a running 460 engine for $250 back when gas was cheap and people still wanted such a thing, 460s were going for a lot more in junkyards back then!
3. Ebay; love it or hate it, Ebay seems to bring more of this old stuff to light than anywhere else, it's actually where I get most of my more off-the-wall stuff, like that awesome chrome valve cover on my 2.3, or the Brembo brake rotors for my dad's Capri, stuff you just might not find anywhere else.
4. Make it yourself; there are some things you can make for yourself, I make my own brackets and adapters all the time; right now my Chevy pickup is sporting a nice 3-core radiator from a newer Chevy with a 454... guess what? It sure didn't fit when I got it! But about 2 hours, 4 bolts, 2 nuts, 4 washers, and two 9" sections of 1/8" x 1" cold-rolled steel later? I had new custom-fit brackets... and more cooling for my hot little 400 small block. That's just the most recent part I've fabricated.
5. Make something else fit; sometimes you will hit a wall looking for something specific, sometimes that's not the end of the road though. When I didn't want to wait for my Offy 4-bbl. intake to arrive in the mail for a 2.3 I was building, I put a Mr. Gasket carburetor adapter on a ported 2.3 intake, ran great! If you've got the hood clearance, you could do the same to your 2.8, but I'm not sure if you'll have enough space.
1976 Mustang II Cobra, looking fpr performance parts! 
I'm confused
