4.3l sohc v6?

It's been several years since there's been any posts on this subject so I decided to start a new thread to discuss it. There are several ways to significantly increase the power and torque of the SOHC V6: supercharging, turbocharging and stroking. All three are fairly expensive modifications and many members would probably comment why bother when it's possible to upgrade from a V6 Explorer to a V8 Explorer for less money. Well one reason is the V8 was not available in the 2 door Explorer and another reason is I have become comfortable with the SOHC V6 in spite of its potential timing chain death rattle. I am approaching the end of what I hope to be a successful supercharger installation and for various reasons I am not interested in a turbocharger installation so I would like to limit this thread to discussing stroking (and possibly boring) the SOHC V6.

Tom Morana Racing offers a 4.3L stroker kit for $2,600 and a 4.3L short block for $4,550 with the short block requiring a $300 core charge. They claim an increase of 30+ hp and 30+ tq with no other modifications. Additional costs would be gaskets, TTY bolts, and probably a custom tune increasing the total cost of the stroker kit to around $3,000. That's about $100/hp which is comparble to other performance enhancements. In spite of the V6 use in the Mustangs I'm not aware of any other commercially available stroker kits.

I wonder if the Morana kit would hold up on a daily driver and if the pistons would provide adequate oil control. It's hard to determine from the photo of the kit components if the oil control ring is far enough above the piston pin for good oil control. I also wonder if the height of the piston is adequate to prevent "rocking" in the cylinder bore. There's no mention of clearance issues between the block and the crankshaft counterweights or rod caps. Maybe no modifications to the block are needed.

I have no experience with stroking an engine. I will appreciate your comments.

 

[Sedition]

Yeah okay, I'll call kloster Ford tomorrow and get you a price on a set. I can probably Fed-Ex them to you or something.

 

[jd4242]

Yeah okay, I'll call kloster Ford tomorrow and get you a price on a set. I can probably Fed-Ex them to you or something.

Thanks.i would want two sets.a .010 over and a .020 over...the crank is already been regular ground to .010 just to clean it up and balance it but if for some reason the .010 bearing dont fit I could use the .020 and grind the crank to whatever that measures out to be..my email is jhd421981@gmail.com

 

[Bronco2]

i know your sand dunes ... have been to frazier island..

my second setup would use the SBF165030I16
the stock deck hight are 224,9932 and with the rod and this piston and regrind its theoretical 225,7910 Diff are 0,798 to machine

 

[Sedition]

I purchased an Explorer to strip down and play with today. Her name is 'Isabelle' and I pick it up this week sometime after the owner has changed over his personalised license plates and removed his roof rack.

It has 215,000 kilometers on the clock, is in mint condition with 2 months rego on it.

The owner wanted to get rid of it because he thought it was going to explode. But only the front Jack-shaft to Camshaft timing chain guide has cracked. I managed to get him down to $650 which is an excellent deal in Australia seeing that these things in that good of a condition go for $4000 (without timing chain issues).

It has all the bells and whistles installed including a nifty set of drawers in the back. Here is the E-bay item number if you'd like to see 111472253320 - I don't know if you can view it from the US.

 

[Bronco2]

car looks Ok...

btw i did a fast Cylinder wall check i got 6,6mm ..
from 100,4mm to 102,3620 only 1mm per site .. would go down 5,6.. plenty off wall

 

[Sedition]

Well If there's 6.6mm of wall all around the cylinder which is 0.260 thou Then from what I have read I'd say boring out 0.080 to achieve 0.220 would be fine.

I'll have this new Explorer at my shop on Thursday at this stage. Then I can pull the motor, strip it down and get the block sonic tested to see just how thick these cylinder walls actually are.

 

[2000StreetRod]

sonic test results

I'll be very interested in the sonic test results for that 1999 engine.

 

[jd4242]

Me too..

 

[Bronco2]

Me... Too ... Also

 

[Sedition]

Any last requests?

I finally had a spare 5 minutes to pull the SOHC engine. Does anyone have any last requests before I strip this engine down for sonic testing and reveal it's secrets?

 

[2000StreetRod]

Go for it!

And thanks for getting the sonic testing done.

 

[Bronco2]

... i like to get a picture where the Shift cable come throu firewall... its the right time because there is no engine in way

 

[Sedition]

RHD Shift cable location

Right hand drive shift cable 'through the firewall" location. Also, It's a floor shift, as is every Explorer in this Land :australia.

 

[4pointslow]

Shifter

A Floor shifter?
Can you post pictures of the shifter and console?

 

[2000StreetRod]

shift indicator?

Does that mean there is no shift indicator below the instrument cluster but one on the floor shifter?

 

[Sedition]

RHD Model variations

The shift indicator is blacked out on the dash. However, there is a shift indicator on the floor next to the shifter. The parking brake is also a 'Hand brake' type (as are most in Australia). I don't know what those clips are that you can see on the side of the shift console, some kind of add on by the previous owner. As is the car radio.

 

[4pointslow]

Console shifter

Thanks for posting those pictures.
That is so cool looking! Ford should have made that on left hand drive vehicles too.

 

[Sedition]

FSM for SOHC?

Does anyone have a digital copy of the FSM for the SOHC engine?

After stripping down this engine I noticed there is some wear on the bearings and the 1st compression ring gap is 0.030+ So i'd like to take some measurements.

The oil pickup was plugged up with chain guides and restricting oil flow. The right cylinder head was pretty bad, it almost looked like Streetrod's engine when he first got it.

 

[2000StreetRod]

Engine specifications

Engine specifications

Timing chain guide parts may have moved around and lodged into one of the return oil passages in the right head. A gap of .030" is excessive for a stock engine.

 

[Sedition]

In God We Trust

So, I took the SOHC block in for sonic testing today.

I have some sad and almost unbelievable information.

At its thinnest point, which is on the front cylinders and the lower water jacket quadrants the SOHC cylinder walls are only 0.1777 inches thick. Yes, that's only around 4.5mm in metric. I couldn't believe my eyes as he was testing it. We even double checked with an outside caliper to verify the readings.

This guy is an engine re-conditioner of 25 years and he said "That's already well within Tiger territory there".

In other spots around the block it is thicker 0.217 to 0.234. It's just at that point on the front cylinders it gets real thin.

Please Note: The SOHC engine I tested does need a re-ring kit and as a result there is a noticeable lip from where the rings have worn into the bore and where they haven't. So there may be a little more meat on a fresher SOHC block.