Rebuilding an SC

I Have a Tbird SC 1990, it runs but i like to rebuild it good.
Staring by the motor tranny and drive... how much money am i looking at?
If i have it done by someone els, buy already rebuild parts or whats best?
anyone know how much it will take to have an sc motor/transmition done to new?

Pablo,

This is too much an open ended question. I am by no means an expert, but you could spend more than 10k if you had some shop do everything to it. How much power do you want to get? Narrow your question down a bit, and I'll bet the experts would be more apt to answer your question.

I think that if you concentrate on the "mission critical" parts that have or are about to wear down (given the age and mileage of these cars), like the following-

all belts
all wheel bearings/hubs
brake rotors/calipers (maybe)
brake accumulator/pressure switch
all upper control arms
motor mounts
fuel pump/fuel filter (really critical)
spark plugs/wires
o2 sensors
harmonic balancer/crank sensor (really critical)
radiator and fan motor (important)
all coolant hoses
starter/starter solenoid/relay
DIS module
cam sensor
steering rack and tie rods
new or rebuilt heads (valve job)
rubber coated multi layered headgaskets (MLS type?)
transmission repairs or replace (maybe)
rear cv joints (maybe)
driveshaft U joints/re-balance or replace driveshaft

I may have missed some parts (assuming the bottom end of the engine is ok), but basically that's what need to be done to have a new, reliable SC.

All this if done in the shop will run close to $7k, but if you do most of the small stuff yourself, i found you can cut it down to less than $4.5k or so. You can probably get away with much less than $4.5k because some of that stuff above may not need to be done right away.

IMO, not bad for a "better than new" speedy car, $7k won't even buy you a decent like new economy car these days.

My 2 cents-

Motor rebuild or more?

Yeah I have to say that is a loaded question. The question really is how much money do you have to spend. I have 3 SCs, two running, one with a blown motor. I am asking myself the same question. I love the broke one, a 93 5-speed that I bought almost new and drove for 150,000 miles. It realy does NEED almost everthing including:

motor rebuild, new heads ($1,300)
harmonic balancer, crank sensor & camsensor ($300)
transmission rebuild / clutch ($800)
suspension, all bushings - shocks ( guessing at $1300)
replace or remove cats (remove $200 in rural AZ , no emmision testing)
radiator (plan on upgrading to aluminum griffin $550)
cooling fan ($160)
plugs $ wires ($50)
hoses, belts assorted need tohave goodies ($125)
* At least the tires are good

That's a total of $4,735 and that's providing I do the majority of the labor! (I can't write this with my wife standing over my shoulder, she'd kill me!)
I just spent more than that on the last SC I bought, an ANI with 50K on it. Even that car needs a little work, maybe $1,000 to get it back to 100%. Considering you can buy an SC in various condition for $2000 up, you will eventually own a car that is "worth" $6735. (To you at least)

And that doesn't include the WANTS

Freeflow dual 2" exhaust
magnum powers intake plenum
38lb injectors
higher flowing fuel pump
Underdrive pulleys

These goodies will probably cost me another $1600 so now I am up to an $8,335 dollar investment.

Then you could add in the interior work like recovering the leather seats and at least new carpeting. Throw in a couple broken interior panels and your looking at another $1500 to redo the inside. You are now up to right around $10,000. The question you now have to ask yourself is:

Would I pay $10,000 for the car I just described? My answer... you bet.
I payed $15,500 for my 93 5-speed back in 95' and thought THAT was a deal. Ten grand today must be a bargain? (Trying to convince myself as well)

Cost to have around 250+ hp and 320lbft torque in that cool of a package...
PRICELESS...