86 Thunderchicken
Hello everyone. I am a proud owner of a 1986 Thunderbird. I have owned few Mustangs a 81, 89, and two 99's. My step daughter wanted to get into bracket racing and since I was going to let her drive my 99 GT I went out looking for a car for me to play with so we could race together. I wanted another fox body but there are so many fox bodies at the race track I changed my course a little to be a different. That's when I decided to get a Thunderbird with the 5.0. They are essentially a fox body Mustang in disguise. I probably love this car more than any of the Mustangs that I have owned. With all the digital gauges and power options this thing has it is nicer and has tech stuff that my 2005 Corolla doesn't have. I will be keeping this car for a long time. It started out running roughly 11.5s in the 1/8. I dropped a few races my first season because the 7.5 rear end has an open diff and it would randomly spin that one tire causing me to lose 0.1 seconds and essentially losing the race. I ended up putting a mini spool in it and boom no more 1 wheel spins of the line. I have since go a set of weld wheels and ET street tires to run while at the drag strip, it was running 11.2s. This past offseason I decided to cheaply add 80-100 hp. I know a few local guys that have a ton of Mustang parts so I grabbed a 93 cam, E7 heads (ground down the EGR bumps), stock Mustang headers, upper H.O. intake manifold, injectors, 86 or 87 Mustang ECU(I believe), and a stock Mustang fuel pump. I was able to grab all these parts for roughly $500. It picked up some time but I was hoping for a little more. This past weekend it went 10.43 in the 1/8. My next upgrade is the Turbo Coupe rear end I picked up for $200. The 7.5 to 8.8, drum to disc, and 2.76 to 3.73 gears should be a nice addition. I guess I need to try and find a turbo coupe brake proportion valve, e brake lines, and brackets to do the install. My end goal for this car is to still be a street car but able to run somewhere between 7.5 and 7.9 in the 1/8 while keeping the 302, factory interior, and all the luxuries it has like AC. Still have a long way to go. Everyone at the race track kept calling it a Thunderchicken so I said whatever and owned it. Bought me a chicken cover for my helmet and even a music box with a PA that I played a rooster sound when I am pulling into the water box.
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Originally Posted by 87gtVIC
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