The mid-to-late 1980’s and early 1990’s were something of a renaissance for Ford performance vehicles. The Mustang 5.0 was among the most popular pony cars ever conceived (and remains so even today) and Ford had a stable full of 5.0-powered counterparts, including the Cougar and Thunderbird. The unconventional new kid on the block though was the Taurus SHO, with its transverse-mounted high output V6. It’s a shame Ford never decided to mate the Mustang with the SHO.
Some intrepid racers did just that however. The Truth About Cars recently covered some of the cooler vehicles racing in the 24 Hours of Lemons, a low-bucks race for rust buckets. There, they came across the SHO-Stang, built by the Blue Oval Cult.
In an interview with the Blue Oval Cult, TTAC writer Sajeev Mehta asks them how they put together such a glorious monstrosity. From the sounds of it, it wasn’t all that much work. The Cult had the Mustang, sans engine or transmission, sitting around in one member’s back yard. They managed to mount the SHO engine in a front-back configuration using a Ford Ranger transmission.
To get the engine to fit they didn’t have to modify the unibody at all. They did, however, have to hack up the firewall to place the engine in a superior position. They even managed to use the original fuel system on the SHO engine. So what are the advantages of this swap? Well, the SHO V6 engine weighs over 200 pounds less than the cast iron 5.0 V8, but it has just 15 to 20 horsepower less. That means this Mustang should handle much better than stock. Plus, theres a freakin’ SHO engine under the hood! You just don’t see that every day. Maybe Ford will get the hint and give us that EcoBoost Mustang after all.
If you could stick any Ford engine into a Fox-body Mustang, what would it be? Bonus points for creativity.