With the end of my brief college career in sight and my dream job happening to be in a state called California, my rotary exploits came to a conclusion with the final testing of my last project. I realized that I need something that can pass the smog visual in kalifornia without disassembling most of the engine and reinstalling the stock stuff.

Long story short: I heard through the local redneck grapevine that there was a $150 Ford 5.0 for sale, so I went and got it. Turns out it came from an 89 crown vic and has a roller cam. So here we go, another of my long drawn out threads with lots of pics, this time the subject is shoehorning this tall, thin V8 into my FC without doing it the Granny's way, rather getting the motor low and far back without disturbing the steering geometry too much.











Plans for the motor are a reground cam, GT40 aluminum heads, Trick Flow intake manifold, Keith Black pistons, roller rockers, and a .03 over bore with new bearings throughout - basically a full rebuild. It will be controlled with my megasquirt running fuel and some aftermarket ignition unit running the stock distributor, all through the stock harness so it looks smoggable.

Anyhow, more to come. As soon as I get a T5 transmission I can weld in the subframe crossbar and the engine mounts. I mounted it all up with the stock crown vic auto tranny, which seems to be larger than a T5, and got it all to fit.

 

How are you mounting the Windsor block so low? Most Ford swaps I've seen sat high in the front.

I've never taken a look up close at a completed Ford swap to see why they sit so much higher. Have you modified your K member in any way or is it just a different method of mounting?

 

Looks good. I hope this endeavor ends like your last one.

A success.

PS That bumper is still romantic to me .

 

I'll take a pic of the mount / crossmember fab job in a few days. Basically, I massaged back the firewall, cut out most of the bridge across the crossmember, temporarily unbolted the steering rack, and stuffed the engine in behind the rack's mounting location. With some oil pan massaging and possibly a little more firewall shaping, the rack will end up no more than 1/2 inch forward from where it was. I still need to calculate the toe-in increase in hard turns that will result from this, but I don't think it will be that much, and I don't need a great alignment when maneuvering in parking lots as this car is meant to be a weekend backroad beast. Twisty roads don't reqire more than half a turn of the steering wheel right or left, so if I can keep my toe alignment to within a degree of theoretically perfect Ackerman alignment under that range, I'll call it good enough. I'm not a math or physics major, I'm an engineering student; we get to make approximations for the real world when solving our problems.

 

Hey, you ARE using trig! Good for you.

Whats the oilpan/ground clearance like? looked at headers yet?

 

The oilpan is looking like it will be a challenge. It is about an inch lower than the frame rails right now, although the T5 transmission will allow me to raise up the engine in back where it has a ton of hood clearance, to get back some ground clearance. But right now oil pan clearance is about 6-8", about an inch or two lower than the rotary oilpan was, and I'm not comfortable with that. It might be possible to reshape the oilpan to give more ground clearance without reducing oil capacity. I've seen one of my fellow rednecks fab a nice modded oil sump one day for another 302. It takes a few hours with sheet metal and a welder.

I haven't really looked into headers but it's looking like the engine is so low that it won't be hard to adapt a commercial Mustang longtube setup to the car. The FC engine bay is a dream compared to the Fox body, other than the steering rack. I'll probably start with stock Mustang shorty headers and the stock cats, then do longtubes later.

 

If the engine is even lower, you might have header to ground clearance issues was the reason I brought that up.

Also, is it possible to use a short oilpan and something like... accusump to get a little more clearance?

 

what about ballancer/crank pulley clearance with the r&p?

other then that it looks like the nicest placed 5.0 fc swap i have seen

 

I still have some more room to raise the front of the motor back up, about 2" before it will hit the hood. I'm actually hoping that the rack will be able to nestle behind the crank pulley in a crevice that I will fab into the oil pan, but we'll see, I haven't made up any drawings or anything to verify that it can work like that.

 

An engineer after my own thinking - Start cutting, we can always weld it back if we need it! You look like a young guy - you will probably have grey hair like me about the second time you have to get at the tranny/bell housing bolts. I left myself plenty of room on my swap. Maybe there is more room in a 1st gen.

Be sure to read what Brad Bergholdt has to say about the 5.0 swap and the emissions in California, on Grannys web site. He did a 1st gen, but his info about the wiring may still be helpful.

www.cardomain.com/ride/646433

 

Thanks!

I borrowed a friend's T5 today and found that the engine can be raised in back to tip the manifold forward, which widened the gap between it and the firewall. Because of that, I was able to move the whole engine back another inch. Now my steering rack most likely won't need to be moved at all, it can mount right where it was in the stock brackets.

It will be necessary to cut and refab a little box into the firewall to clear the valve covers and manifold base, and I'll make provisions for the bellhousing bolts when I do that. There is no way I'd build a car that is as much as a nightmare to work on as a late model Camaro or worse, F150. Talk about having half the motor under the windshield! Not here, just the very tips of the valve covers. Pics in a day or two.

 

Looking good, keep us updated.

It's not as bad as you think - the subframes drop out nicely and allow you access to the entire motor Corvette style. But I agree it's nice to see the top of the motor from the top of the car. All my F-body friends are jealous of my engine bay

 

"There is no way I'd build a car that is as much as a nightmare to work on as a late model Camaro or worse, F150. Talk about having half the motor under the windshield!"

This reminds me of my all time favorite sports car, designed by my favorite designer, Bizzarini. There was a little panel right on top of the dash, which was removed for setting the timing! This car had 50-50 weight distribution, and was arguably the ultimate development of the front engined sports car. Bizzarini said this was the car the Ferrari 250GTO should have been, and he can say that because he designed them both.

http://www.tybrainstorm.de/drogo/iso.html

http://www.sportscarmarket.com/profi...ay/Etceterini/

 

Update: the mount crossmember is now installed.




I'll be redoing the crossmember to subframe welds probably. It's been a long time since I've done uphill wire feed welding in a confined space and I'll do a couple quick downhill pull passes over what is already there.

But yeah, the steering rack won't have to be moved, and that's a good thing. I will need to do some creative reconstruction on the firewall though, and my oil pan is going to get a big facelift. More to come....

 

i love that crossmember!!! are you using a mig welder?

 

Yes, some midsized Miller that was lying around for me to take advantage of. We have a few of them here at the farm fab shop. Metal cutting bandsaw, torch, two drill presses, grinders, a giant lathe, and a resident ford 302 expert who is helping me build the little monster.

 

fuggin awesome hurry up then! ahahahha

 

Need more updates >: D

 

the 302 is a pretty small motor isnt it?

 

OK here is last weekend's update:

I finished hammering back the firewall and determined that the engine will be removable with the tranny attached, despite my welded in crossmember, thanks to the room I made back there. Bellhousing bolts are accessable from above, and there is more than enough clearance for tall valve covers. Engine torque reaction will have plenty of room to rotate, too.

Next weekend I'll start working on the transmission crossmember and hopefully get it finished. It looks like I'll need to work on my lower firewall though, because headers are going to need more room than the FC engine bay came with down there.

 

What about headers like the following pic?



Then you could go down and back from there?

Just a thought.

edit: Nevermind... I see where the engine mount is and realized it would probably interfere hardcore.

 

sudseh -- those "block huggers" would work great on a Chevy if you put the crossmember in the right place. I don't think you can buy anything quite like that for a Ford. I bought a very cheap set of Hedmann headers, under $100, and my exhaust guy turned them down early to clear the body, fairly easy mod. With the engine pushed further back, the steering box may be a problem.

 

Yeah I'll have to tackle that problem when I get a few others out of the way, it's just another challenge.

 

Ahh, word.

 

if ur looking for a set of headers that are really close to the block id suggest maybe some mac tri-y's.....i used them on my first gen and it looks like i have much more clearence from the steering colum than any other first gens ive seen i did have to cut them right after the collector because they hit the sides of my aod and blocked the shift and kick down arms so ill prolly have to have new tubes weleded on but over all they may work for your swap just thought id throw that out there....