Today we're working on a '69 Mustang sports roof that's a good-looking and complete car. When work began, this car had a broken speedometer cable, so we had no idea how many miles were really on the engine. Using one quart every thousand miles, the oil consumption wasn't too bad, but we knew our OE Windsor wasn't getting any younger. When we last worked on it, we heard the beginnings of a knock in the lower end and decided it was time to replace our original short-block. For like-new performance and top quality, we decided to go with a standard displacement replacement from the experts at Smeding Performance of Rancho Cordova, California. We decided against a stroker for our car since the original engine was a 351 cubed 2V engine, and we wanted to keep our cost down somewhat. At 351 ci, the stock displacement is big enough to produce great performance, and yet small enough to get reasonably good mileage. A 393 or 408 might make more power, but you'll never see twenty mpg. We're going to save all the goodies from our other engine, including a set of AFR aluminum cylinder heads. Let's inspect our fresh short-block from Smeding, and then look at what it will take to get it into our car.
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