supercharged 5.0 true fire 98 explorer sport

i will take a picture of the seat cushion if you know what i mean john.
i also called james this morning, and yes, he said to be on the safe side i should go to 60lb injectors to be safe, but can break the motor in using the 42lbs.....yay more parts to buy....
speaking of buying parts



my problem is obvious. if you dont count letting the motor run for 15 mins to get the oil moving around in it, those lasted all of 5 to 10 mins. but if you look at the inprint, you can also see the header wasnt sitting flush. i am going to notch the head so they will sit on there. i would take some off the header, but then the gasket would be way to thin, and i know that would blow out on a daily bases. the only ones i can find today or even in the next few days are felpo gaskets and not remflex, so i hope they will do.

Gasket

You got that gasket off already? Holy crap!

I would like to see the surface of the cylinder head for my own curiosity. Can you get a picture of where it has clearance issues?
Is remflex kind of like plastic, is it hard/brittle? Just wondering because the gaskets that came with my JBS's seemed to be made of some hard material.
Summit had some gaskets that were supposed to be from JBA but when I received them they were not the same material. I was not impressed by the replacement summit gaskets but the originals seemed like they would last a long time. I did not want to reuse them though, knowing how header gaskets blow out so easy. The summit ones are holding up, I am surprised.

I would love to see a datalog from your X3 so I can see how changing to the 347 and with more boost affected the A/F etc. If you don't mind sharing one.

4pointslow said:

You got that gasket off already? Holy crap!

Click to expand...

well, let me tell you a story on how things went today.
it took me about a hour to take the header off, and move it around so i can notch the head. then things once again took a hard right, into the wall
i found a speed shop in winnipeg that stocked remflex gaskets (to my surprise). don offered to pick them up for me because the place wasnt far from his work, and he would drop them off afterward. me being impatient (and to save don a trip) went got them. i went to put one in and managed to bugger it up before even getting it bolted down. so much for a spare. then the battle began. it took me no word of a lie about 4 hours to get it bolted in. the bolts would go so far in, then get very tight. knowing if i stripped the head, it would be game over. next came the steering shaft which i managed to put on wrong so i had to fix that. THEN because i pulled the front drive shaft off, i needed to bolt it back on. i had one bolt left out of all of them, and that was the one for the yoke on the diff. tightening it, it snapped off, and there was not much thread showing to grab. that took another hour and a haft. went home to see if i had one, nope. now i haft to drive to my parts truck which is 15 mins away and crawl around in a snowbank in -28C weather (about -18F) to get one lousy bolt. then the head scratcher. i guess you can say i borrowed a cam sycro from my parts store because its sold with the tool. well, according to it, the 302 and 347 are both running 180 out :scratch:. how is that possible???
i had enough for one day, screw it. i will go back tomorrow...

oh, and john, they look like they are made with a soft metal. they are two layered with a mesh in between them. when the parts store laid down the felpro ones they got me, both felpro gaskets are the same thicknesss as one remflex gasket. they are soft to a point. you dont want to bend them however.
and sure, if you would like a data log i will send you one one (if) i get this thing out of my friends shop

Bolt

Oh damn, I just remembered that I broke a torx socket the last time I removed those driveshaft bolts from the yoke. I was having a hard time getting the piece out of the bolt too so I grabbed one of my spares. That sucks that you had to go get one off your spare parts truck in the cold. I can't even look at my garage right now because it's so cold. It was like 1 degree the other day and we have hit about 17 below with wind chill. I guess winter really decided to give us a beating before going away this year.

With the 180 degree out thing, remember that the crank spins 2 times to one cam revolution. In other words Number one piston could be at top dead center on the compression stroke or the exhaust stroke. If the cam sensor looks to be 180 out, spin the engine one full turn and you would see the tool lined up correctly. But is it TDC compression or exhaust? If it was a distributer we would know right away because the engine would not start. Being that it is a cam sensor on a vehicle that has coil packs, that is not the case. The Cam sensor is only used for the injector timing(SFI). If the cam sensor is 180 out then an injector at one end of the engine would be spraying against a closed intake valve, while another cylinder at the other end would have it's intake valve opening. A/F could still be getting there allowing the engine to run but it would not be easy and fuel puddling etc could happen. The workshop manuals even state that engine damage could occur.

To find TDC compression:
With the valve cover off you could watch the cyl#1 intake valve open and then close and then the piston would be coming up to TDC compression stroke.

Without being able to see the valves moving there is another way to find TDC compression stroke. You can take a compression tester hose and put in into the spark plug hole (carefully, aluminum heads). Then with a remote starter button (or a friend working the ignition switch) bump the starter around with your finger over the compression tester hose until you just start to feel compression pushing your finger off, then continue bringing the piston to TDC, that should be TDC compression.

If anyone has any input to make it easier to find TDC compression, please chime in, there is often more than one way to get err done.

That's what I was talking about before lol, but it may just be the wrong tool ,the last one I bought had a yellow plastic tool that was way off compared to my OTC tool so I called and turns out to be for a 3.8

This is for my own education, if nothing else.

Couldn't you have someone put their finger over the sparkplug hole, and once they feel the air pushing their finger away from the hole, move to the harmonic balancer and continue till the timing mark is at '0' ?
Wouldn't that be tdc (or very close) on compression stroke?

Again, that's assuming you have someone to work with.

don has described what we did....sorta
turning the motor lowly, we covered the #1 cylinder with your finger until it wanted to blow it off. then using a coat hanger in the spark plug hole, brought it up to TDC. the problem with my balancer compared to all other explorers is there are timing marks, but in the wrong place. a mustang balancer (which it what i have) have the marks and pointer in a different spot compared to explorer balancers. we did mark the balancer once we found what we think is TDC however.

Tim, have you been able to take evil for a burn since moving the cam position sensor 180 degree's?

I'm really wondering how she runs.

that was the way it was in there when i took those videos

vroomzoomboom said:

don has described what we did....sorta
turning the motor lowly, we covered the #1 cylinder with your finger until it wanted to blow it off. then using a coat hanger in the spark plug hole, brought it up to TDC. the problem with my balancer compared to all other explorers is there are timing marks, but in the wrong place. a mustang balancer (which it what i have) have the marks and pointer in a different spot compared to explorer balancers. we did mark the balancer once we found what we think is TDC however.

Click to expand...

I forgot that those 28oz OEM balancers didn't match the Explorer timing marker etc. Are the marks close in any way, that at least finding the TDC wasn't too hard to do?

I've wanted to see if another brand of balancer could be found now, and SFI approved, to make one better than the two I had done years ago. I should work on that soon, I want to get closer to putting my 347 in next.

I'm glad to see that you got the new combination in and running. Now you can work on any smaller issues and have more fun with it. Do they still make solid copper and aluminum header gaskets, those used to be highly recommended?

I went with the damperdudes balancer (Its a new Explorer balancer, rebalanced to 28oz)
http://www.damperdudes.net//product_info.php?products_id=224&osCsid=5a3f0698c8777a3434e44de20f59a0f1
Ford Strokers has absolutely no issue with re-balancing a spare flex plate they already have as part of the rotating assembly balancing procedure.

I have no intention of spinning past 6000rpm, so I'm not worried about it coming apart.
In the next few months I'll be able to comment on the timing marks. This does raise a point that I better make a permanent scribe at TDC while the motors out of the truck if it isn't already there.

delexploder said:

That's what I was talking about before lol, but it may just be the wrong tool ,the last one I bought had a yellow plastic tool that was way off compared to my OTC tool so I called and turns out to be for a 3.8

Click to expand...

on the back of my packaging for the cam tool says that its good for a 3.8 v6, 4.2 v6, or 5.0 v8 (i bought the otc tool, pn 6469)

As long as everyone understands the timing marks on the balancer line up for each 180 degrees of the camshaft position--TDC happens 2 times. If the cam sensor is 180 out, it must have been installed with the cam at tdc of the exhaust stroke.

Or, the sensor was checked in this position. ( I think the later is true if both engines have the same sensor alignment)

Take all the plugs out so the engine spins freely. Have someone hand turn the engine until you feel air pressure pushing on your thumb which is on the #1 spark plug hole, then slowly go to 0 degrees, then backward (counterclockwise) to 10 degrees BTDC. This removes any slack from the timing chain. Now, Put the tool on the sensor and drop it in place.

Entrixable said:

on the back of my packaging for the cam tool says that its good for a 3.8 v6, 4.2 v6, or 5.0 v8 (i bought the otc tool, pn 6469)

Click to expand...

Just went out to the garage and looked , it was for a 95/98 3.0

delexploder said:

Just went out to the garage and looked , it was for a 95/98 3.0

Click to expand...

the yellow is for a 3L? thats the one i have at the moment

Yes and its 180° out give or take

I wonder if its the same for the v8?

Also, I just watched a u-tube video that the guy is saying that it doesn't matter what stroke you install the cam position sensor at, as long as #1 is at tdc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf1IVbxDchw

Does this make sense to you guys?

the cam sync tool appears to be different between v8 explorer years.
Here's the 99-01 tool
http://www.shopyourway.com/otc-tools-ford-cam-sensor-sync-tool/394284802 OTC 6470

Here's the 96-08 tool
http://www.etoolpros.com/automotive-tools/OTC-6469.html

Looks like the yellow sync tool for the 3 liter won't work I was hopeful.

yea, cause i was like WTF?
i called the local dealer, and they lent me the tool they have





and the one that came with the syncro i borrowed from the parts store





the yellow one fits both the 302 and 347, but will be 180 out, the black one, well it wont fit either....my brain hurts...