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April 2, 2002

Running Mid 10's in the NMRA's Real Street
Paul Wiley's '93 LX

Most of our focus over the last few years has been making the modular engine in the new Mustangs perform even better. But there are still plenty of pushrod engines out there and we find them in our shop just as often. Every now and then we finish a project that turns out so well it surprises even us. This is a summary of one such project, a simple, straightforward combination in a 5.0 Mustang set up for the NMRA’s Real Street class – Paul Wiley’s ’93 LX.

The NMRA’s new Real Street class is an exciting development in Mustang racing because it requires that the engine be very typical of what we see on the street. It is a class that is not yet dominated by $100,000 efforts. It is a class the average guy can build a car for and compete in. In a nutshell, the engine can only have very limited aftermarket parts; the NMRA has done a good job so far of excluding exotic combinations. Only a number of typical cylinder heads are allowed and the work on them is limited to a valve job and other typical machining. No cylinder head or intake porting of any kind is allowed.

One of the most exciting rules (to us anyway) is that the stock camshaft must be used, not a reground version of it either - it has to be the factory stock cam that cam in ’85 thru ’95 GT’s and LX’s, no Cobra cams are allowed. We have been preaching for years that the stock cam is an excellent grind capable of impressive performance. In September of 1996 we wrote an article in the Water Box trying to get this point across. Click Here To Read the Article. And watching this class is all the proof in the world that you don’t need an expensive custom grind to run well.

The class has many other rules, but we’re just going to blurb out the basics for now, visit the NMRA’s site at www.nmraracing.com for more detailed info. In summary, the class requires shorty headers and no more than 2.5” H-pipes. There are some power adder limitations as well - we’ll mention only what pertains to us because it’s what we’ve chosen to work with. Our power-adder of choice (that is within the rules) is the Vortech V-2 and it must be used with its completely stock out of the box pulley system - which is a 7” crank and a 3.3” pulley at the blower. This combination has netted 13 psi at 6300 rpm with a power pipe on the blower inlet.

The short block consists of nothing more then a nicely rebuilt stock block with a girdle and lightweight Diamond replacement pistons. The rods are stock 5.0L parts as is the crank with no fancy work done other than being turned and polished. The cylinder heads are out of the box TFS Track Heats with nothing more than a quality valve job and are decked to achieve the allowed 58cc minimum chamber volume. The intake is an Edlebrock Performer with no additional work done to it and of course we use a stock cam which is installed 4 degrees retarded.

The combination is common and straightforward. It uses the same parts as so many other 5.0 Mustangs you see on the street. But its performance is far from common. So far the car has made an unbelievable 498 horsepower at the rear wheels and has gone 10.46 @ 131 in the quarter mile. With better driving and additional tuning we fully expect 10.30’s by mid summer out of this car.

To answer a few more questions about the car - it weighs 3300 lbs with driver (as per the rules) and it uses 3.73 gears with 26 X 10 slicks. It also has a Pro-Shifted T-5 manual transmission (automatics are not allowed). This class has shown what can be done and what is being done with the production H.O. roller cam and uported inexpensive cylinder heads in a fairly heavy car.

So, to everyone that scoffed at us all these years while we’ve been recommending that people save their money and stay with the stock cam – HA!