Question for the PT crowd?

[zombiekiller]

Gordon, what a great find. I am a died in the wool GM guy but I have always loved the 64-66 birds (my stepdad had one). I think a nice mild spring drop to the suspension, some creative swaybars, and good set of shocks (if anything is available for a 65 T-bird). I would loose the 390 FE (heavy and not really powerful) for a new 5.0 Ford crate engine (very sweet engine) with an AODE on the back (the 65 will probably have 3.00 gear) would make an awesome fun Thunderbird.....or a Funderbird. If you did keep the FE, go with a 428 or with creative parts interchanging a 454 FE, make that heavy bird fly. I don't know about doing CF body parts, that would get very expensive for such unique body style. Even with alot of light weight parts it will still be a 3800-4000 lbs heavy car. I would not pay alot for the car though.

Addco makes sway kits for t-birds, or rather sway kits that fit tbirds. RCD makes some nice tuned, adjustable shocks for them too. I'm not sure about off the shelf springs, I'd have to check my books and look at the rates and ID/OD of the springs. Coil Spring Specialties will be happy to make whatever ride height/rate springs you want for about 400 bucks for all four corners.



gordon- if you do move forward with the bird, let me know and i'll share some of my parts research on fitment. I have the same issue that you'll have, an oddball car with not much aftermarket performance support. The upside it, figuring out how to accomplish what you want exercises your brain and breeds some ingenuity! a few of the parts that I'm using also happen to fit t-birds.

There are a few guys that squeeze some BIG horsepower out the FEs, but it'd won't ever be the thin skinny girl at the school dance if you stick with the FE. It'll sound real cool though and pull a stump out of the ground if you chose to.