1999 Mounty 5.0 aka My Great Bad Idea

[97Sandbox]

Struck gold with a 98 Mounty today, looks almost exactly like mine

I grabbed some interior bits and almost walked away because it had no V8 emblems. Decided to make sure it was a SOHC, turns out it was a 5.0. Got the hardware I needed!

Also picked up porting supplies and one of the roloc wheels. Time to get to work!

 

[allmyEXes]

@Josh P I need a lot of 5.0s (302s). They are in short supply around here...

 

[Josh P]

@Josh P I need a lot of 5.0s (302s). They are in short supply around here...

I can get one from a u pull it and put it on the catwalk on the truck. Millions of them here in Phoenix.

 

[Mbrooks420]

I can get one from a u pull it and put it on the catwalk on the truck. Millions of them here in Phoenix.

They’re coming out of the woodwork around here. I’ve been seeing 5+ V8s for sale a month. Many in the 120-180k range and 1,200-2600.

 

[Josh P]

They’re coming out of the woodwork around here. I’ve been seeing 5+ V8s for sale a month. Many in the 120-180k range and 1,200-2600.

At $1,200 I'd bite as long as it's complete

 

[97Sandbox]

Yeah, I was going to say, complete, running 302 Explorers here are going more like $3-5k. It took me a while to find this Mounty under a grand.

Back on subject...I'm not going to make any claims of perfection, but I'm happy with how my porting turned out:

I used a carbide burr to remove most material, carbide rasp to shape, then cartridge rolls to smooth. It's a messy, noisy, tedious job -- wear all your PPE and have something interesting to think about.

 

[donalds]

Excellent

 

[410Fortune]

Listen to music while porting, reggae is good, hard to be in a bad mood with reggae on! I’ve been listening to “stick figure” lately a so ca reggae band… awesome sounds

Nice work! Did you gasket match the upper to lower?

 

[97Sandbox]

I've been a big Stick Figure fan since I first heard their album Set in Stone hanging out with friends in college. Saw them live once and it was the most positive, friendly, energetic concert I've ever been to.

I haven't touched the upper, it looked pretty close to the gasket already. I've also heard it's near impossible to get all the debris out of those, so I'd rather not grind on it if I don't have to. I'll take another look at it.

 

[donalds]

Listen to music while porting, reggae is good, hard to be in a bad mood with reggae on! I’ve been listening to “stick figure” lately a so ca reggae band… awesome sounds

Nice work! Did you gasket match the upper to lower?

I've been a big Stick Figure fan since I first heard their album Set in Stone hanging out with friends in college. Saw them live once and it was the most positive, friendly, energetic concert I've ever been to.

I haven't touched the upper, it looked pretty close to the gasket already. I've also heard it's near impossible to get all the debris out of those, so I'd rather not grind on it if I don't have to. I'll take another look at it.

One of my most favorite reggae bands
Enjoy

 

[97Sandbox]

Got the lower intake cleaned up this afternoon. Came close to installing it, but decided I want to re-plate some of the hardware first.

So instead I spent extra time really cleaning off the gasket surfaces (shout-out to @410Fortune , the 3M Roloc wheel works great) and chasing threads. The front two bolt holes took some effort, but all the inner bolt holes went smoothly. At least until the tap made a random ping and totally blew up on me! It was odd, it wasn't hard to turn and it happened as I was backing out of a hole I had chased. I swear this right head is just cursed:

Not much to weld to there...
But wait! Taps have four grooves to stick stuff into. Snap ring pliers did the trick:

Crisis averted. I'll need a new 5/16-18 tap sometime, but I just ran a bolt through the rest of these holes and they all felt good enough to me. I'll be ready for the lower intake to go back on tomorrow

 

[410Fortune]

You chasing the threads with a drill? I do them by hand! Battle on!

 

[97Sandbox]

You chasing the threads with a drill?

No way haha! I was doing it all by hand. The front holes I had to back all the way out a couple times to clear chips and re-oil. That's why I was so surprised to break a tap on one of the "easy" holes. Maybe it was just a bad tap.

The usual zinc line is down for maintenance today so I'm running the intake bolts on a heavier zinc process for trailer hitch balls. The more corrosion resistance the better for these bolts though! They'll even be yellow chromate like the factory ones -- I can't wait to see how they come out.

 

[Josh P]

You chasing the threads with a drill? I do them by hand! Battle on!

 

[Turdle]

Get some easy off oven cleaner for the upper intake , spray it all down good inside and outand wait.take it to a car wash to use their high temp soap wash and rinse. Be prepared to get wet.

It'll strip off the factory paint or whatever, and make the inside very clean.

 

[Turdle]

Or. Send it to me for powdercoating, I'll do all that

 

[97Sandbox]

Get some easy off oven cleaner for the upper intake , spray it all down good inside and outand wait.take it to a car wash to use their high temp soap wash and rinse. Be prepared to get wet.

That's pretty much how I cleaned it, except the carwash part. After the easy off and a bit of scrubbing, I used simple green and my hose to remove the residual -- it did a good job getting rid of the dirty/oily gunk.

I smoothed the casting lines inside the intake elbow last night and after looking closer at the upper intake, I want to do some smoothing out in the runners too. No porting will be needed though, it already lines up well with the gasket.

Or. Send it to me for powdercoating, I'll do all that

Maybe when the Mounty rusts away and I put this 5.0 in my Sport, you could powder it a satin black and I can get the cover plate anodized. That'd look pretty slick...

 

[410Fortune]

Dont forget an intake spacer, money well spent

 

[97Sandbox]

Dont forget an intake spacer, money well spent

Are they really? I read a bit about them and it sounded like they're mainly just helpful for clearing taller valve covers. I wasn't planning on installing one.

 

[410Fortune]

They keep the upper plenum cool to the touch which keeps your incoming air charge cooler which in theory makes more power. Also adding an inch to each intake runner should increase torque
I run them on all of my 5.0s