Apologies in advance for long winded post...
We have an '88 5.7 TPI with 69k miles that's essentially all original. We've put some money into getting the car running right including:
rebuilding 700r4 w/shift kit (clutch pack went out)
Speed density conversion (because we could not find a decent working MAF)
EBL Flash II ECU (as part of SD conversion)
and Bosch II injectors.
Now it starts and drives very well.

The paint is "driver quality" but still quite nice for a 30 year old car. but could definitely use some attention (a few scratches here and there). There is no rust anywhere, and the car has never been wrecked. Interior is also quite nice w/no cracks or tears anywhere other than the typical delaminated arm rests (but that's an easy fix). even the steering wheel looks great for it's age.

We originally bought the car for my son as his 1st car and he loves it, but we bought him a '17 mustang ecoboost for Christmas and he's now like, "what IROC"?

So now that the car is no longer anyone's daily driver, here's the dilemma/question...

Would you:
Get it painted and leave it alone?
Put a cam and headers on it?
Do a full on LS swap?

I'd LOVE to do a clean LS swap. but I've read thru many threads that I may actually hurt the value of the car due to how nice it is currently. I don't plan on selling it, but that's certainly a consideration.
Additionally, I do not plan to race the car. so if I did a mild cam and headers, I'd be pretty satisfied w/the performance and would really just like the car to sound "not stock". I also know that w/o really tweaking the 5.7 (heads, intake, etc), there are V6's out there that would eat my lunch. again, at which point it'd be more efficient to just drop an LS in it (i know there's more to it than that of course). Not to mention if I went the LS route, all the money we've spent on the car (SD conversion/EBL, Injectors, etc) would all be thrown away.

anyway.... what would you do?

 

Cylinder heads, cam, headers, full exhaust, injectors. You already have the EBL so easy to tune.

LS swap may hurt it's "original" value. Keeping the old parts after doing the cam, heads, etc should alleviate any concerns about originality.

Heads aren't that expensive and may as well come off if you are doing headers and a camshaft anyway.

GD

 

 

 

I agree.