Dreaming of one mean 4.0: The Build up - Creager's 1992 Sport | Page 16 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Dreaming of one mean 4.0: The Build up - Creager's 1992 Sport

Hows about some more sounds? Maybe idle and a little reving.
 



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Good idea, 3 months from now ill probably get around to that, then another month after that ill get the dyno! ahah kidding... school is eating up a lot of my time right now. I feel bad because i havent even posted a picture in the past 2 months! Ahaha oh well.

I am 90% certain i figured out the rattling: The exhaust, and different points of it all colaborating to annoy me. The spring-bolts that bolt the muffler to the cats is one i can re-create. Also, i used these weird fastners that borla sells with their header-bolts, which is suppsoed to keep the bolts from loosing up. I noticed today i can make these rattle like crazy. This is what i figured the issue to be all along. Although...

At the moment, i wont be able to find out if i fixed the rattling! I've got everything torn-down to the lower intake removed. I am about one step from removing the heads.

Why?!!? you might be wondering?!

Well, ive been inconsistantly going through quite a bit of oil, and i have no explaination for it! A quart every 200-700 miles! not good!! I can go through two full tanks of gas without loosing a drop of oil, then boom 100 miles later im a quart low.

- Runs as good as ever

- All 6 plugs are in good shape, good tan color. They are a little glazed over, most likely from me running it hard. But no oil or anything else that would signal a problem.

- No oil in the coolent

- No oil on the ground

- No blue smoke on start up, or under heavy load. I even have my mirror pointed at the tail pipe so i can glance at it durning these times.

Then add in the recent pinging @ high RPM, but this can also be explained by the fact ive been running it high (plugs wearing out quick). The symptoms sounded much like problems others have had with the lower intake. I convinced myself enough to go head and dig that far into the motor.

The only thing i havent done is check the compression.

If it were the valve seals/guides or the rings that were causing a leak, would it not be obvious on the plugs? Also, if it were the valve seals i'd have excessive blue smoke on start up. If it were the rings, i would have excessive blue smoke under heavy accelleration.

That can be because my Cats are filtering out the blue smoke (?), which is what i read somewhere, my cats will wear out real soon if this is the case.

I just read that high-compression motors (even brand new) can produce a lot of blow-by, add in the fact the motor is in a heavy truck and that im revving the hell out of it equals even more blow-by. Maybe that pvc valve i put on there is a peice of trash... i didnt even realize to check this.

I went ahead and took the lower intake off. What i found is that my lower intake didnt appear to be leaking. All the bolts/nuts were still snug when i removed them, and there was no oil that appeared to have crossed the gasket. What i did notice, is that starting from the upper intake, all the way down into the heads is a film of brownish deposits. BLOW-BY?

I guess i could test this by removing the pvc valve all togeather... and see how much oil comes out. Otherwise im going to check the compression before digging further. I just had to convince myself it was not the lower intake.

Anyone got any thoughts on this situation? My rings toast?

Would a v8 swap been easier? Shee-ya.... but whats the fun in that!

EDIT(again): Compression 200-220lbs on all six cylinders. No problem there IMO. Heads not comming off, i just cleaned up the intake runners real good, got that flim off and looked real hard at the PVC valve. I went to the store and compared a few, found mine wasnt closing all the way. Interestingly enough, a found a couple brand new ones at the store also doing this. I almost got it all back togeather, im trying to find the source of the rattling now, We'll see!

haha that pvc thing got me, hehe opps, atleast i got to clean the intake/runners all out. Havent lost a drop of oil since I replaced it. That stupid rattling is still there, haha. I need some new tires and a good alignhment right now though. Removing the fastners did help a little, im convinced its exhaust related, its a few things rattling: in harmonics. So ill keep tinkering around and see what i find.
 












Creager,
Excellent read! I have been tossing the idea of rebuilding the 4.0 or swapping in a 5.0 into my sport for some time and have been looking all over for an article like this one to read up on.

I loved the sound of that engine with the open headers!

I will have to ponder this some more and watch for the dyno numbers on this. Keep up the good work and keep the pics coming.
 






excellent work sir :D that thing sounds sick, you got me thinking about doing stuff to my truck now :)

wheres the dyno numbers
 






Wow, it’s been a long time guys!

Guess what?!

Well, I got some good news and some bad news =(

Bad news first

My ported heads are cracked, well one of them that is. The guides are also shot. Ill try and remember get a picture of the crack later. The good thing is the crack is a good candidate for repair. This is what I like to hear. The guides were stockers, we took em apart and they were mutilated by heat dissipation as the valves were worn .003-.004" as well. So I figured out were all that oil was going!

Here is the cool thing about this, I found this machinist on the other side of town who knows his sh**. The only reason he even found the crack is by searching through pages and pages of service bulletins on 4.0 heads. The crack is on the top surface of the head, presumably on the opposite side of the exhaust bowls.

What is cool about this machinist are the parts he hooked me up with.

To get my truck back on the road, I brought my stock heads down to him for a quick fix, (school starts again tomorrow! AHH!). He knew immediately I needed something that was going to hold up to a street/strip cam, and started telling me about viton valve seals and phosphorous-bronze (sp?) valve guides. He convinced me that’s what I needed, to hold up to the amount of extra force and head generated from the dual valve springs and 422 cam. And on top of that he could get it to me for stock prices. Wouldn’t you know? My stock, non-ported heads are now equipped with phosphorous bronze guides off of a similar engine, which were designed with the similar inner-diameter and outer-diameter. The only thing is they were maybe an inch too long for the 4.0 heads, so he milled them down to fit! The viton seals are designed for the Ford Triton V8. Plus a fresh valve job and milling (on top of cleaning/mangafluxing ported heads) for cheaper then everywhere else!

So now with the stockers on there, and the ported lower intake, it doesn’t have quite as much high-end pull as it did before. But that doesn’t mean it’s not dyno worthy! heheh!
 






Well its goot to hear that you were able to get it back up and running that quickly.

Dude, where is the dyno???? :D
 






wow this was an amazing read. im in the procces of rebuilding my 4.0. now theres just tons of q's up in the air i need answerd.lol
 






This has just made my day.
I blew a head gasket yesterday and was considering junking the old thing, But not now.
Thanks
Good thread.
 






First off, WOW!!

I have to say i just spent a couple hours going over this in thorough detail, amazing read, but at the same time what a mind job! I just bought a 93 explorer with a engine that smokes and leaking coolant for 300 bucks(already has 5.5" superlift and 33" BFG ATs) and i'm definately looking to rebuild or a new crate motor.

knowing what you know now, would you do the 5.0 instead? or possibly a crate motor?

i have the mechanical skills to rebuild an engine but do i really have the time.

anyways, congrats and it sounds awsome!

Aaron
 






if you acually did read the whole thing, you would of seen numerous times where he said he would do the 5.0 before doing this again.
 






It never fails to amaze me the number of snide comments that come on forums, forgive me for not reading the thing twice just to make sure before asking my question. while i was reading it i was more focussed on what he was doing to the motor than the practicallity of it.
 






you said you read it all, ovbiously you did a poor job of it. Sorry for pointing out the ovbious.
 












Yes, SOHC pistons can be used in your 96. However, keep in mind that the SOHC pistons are flat on the top, while your 96 pistons have a good sized dish in them. What I am getting at is that the SOHC pistons are going to increase your compression to 11:1 or 12:1 unless you install a 91-94 set of cylinder heads to bring it back down. High compression would not be a bad thing if you get the 422 cam and use nitrous :). You might have some pinging issues with that high of compression though. That kind of compression would be a bad thing if you wanted to add a supercharger though...you'd have to run race gas.
 






I think the older style pistons in the pre '95 engines are what I can use to get just a bit of compression increase. I remember reading that Second Gens are the lowest/ most dished, SOHC's are the highest/least dished (not at all?), and the early 4.0's are in the middle. I started tearing it down, here's the thread:

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1681126
 






Creager I sent you a PM regarding your steering shaft!:D
 






Wow.... gotta admit, I'm really impressed. I'd like to see a video of her with the exhaust and going through the gears. I've debated this vs 5.0 swap for a long time. Two things have convinced me 5.0 swap

1. trans options
2. Cost

I gotta admit, you've almost convinced me keeping the 4.0 is viable. I have a C5 bellhousing and a C4. I'm looking though, and it seems this ended up being more than a 5.0 swap... or am I wrong? Either way... hell of a job man.
 






Did a dyno ever come out of this?

I am half way through a nice port job on some 93TM heads for my 1992 motor. I plan on putting these ported heads on with the 422 and headers. I want to keep the stock computer. Should I keep all of the EFI stock? Will I need more injector? If so can the ECU understand the upgrade and adjust, if not are there adjusted MAF's that are meant for specific injectors?

I have a feeling that high RPM ping might have been due to lack of gasoline, but who knows. Thanks guys!

PS. Porting cast iron with an 1/8" rotary tool is hard ass work, but man oh man have I removed some metal. The exhaust ports were HORRIBLE. The intake seems pretty good. I am doing very little intake side. Just hitting it all with a 60 grit drum basically and removing some metal next to the guide and easing out the radius.
 



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Man, do I ever like your post. I am in the process of collecting parts for my "project" 4.0. I don't know if you have seen the stroker crank kit offered by Tom Morana. It's a little pricey, but I have an inside source trying to find me all the components individually for less money. It increases the dispacement from 4.0 to 4.5 liters. I remember my highschool automech teacher telling me that there is no replacment for displacement. I'm not sure which cam grind I'm going with, but Delta Cams is gonna grind it for me and supply me with the rocker shafts and pushrods (rebuilt shafts and hardened pushrods) for about $260. I'm looking at some aftermarket heads from Ideal Cylinder Head for $225 each assembled. I contacted them to find out who is supplying their components for the assemblies (valves, springs, seals, etc.) to make sure they are up to par. I'll take the castings and do some minor blending (port match all passages, intake and exhaust) myself. I'm gonna do a 4.0 SOHC oilpan swap also (main stud girdle and better windage tray setup) as long as it will clear the longer stroke. I haven't had much luck finding good information on a better MAF and thottle body to take advantage of the increases in airflow. I found some headers from Pace Setter for $220 that look just as good as anybody elses. They are not chromed or coated, but I don't care much about that. I'll hit them with so high temp and call it good. I am also gonna do a custom exhaust from the header pipe back (no cat....don't need it where I'm at) with dual 2" to a Magnaflow Muffler (Pt #14220) and then run a single 2 1/4 out to the factory position. I also found Jet makes a "chip" that is advertised to help performance for about $260 that I hope will help hold the shifts better on my "custom" A4LD (I did the 4r/5r hard part swap when I built it about 2 months ago...before I read the posts here. I did not find the shift kit for the valvebody until I read here so.....I'm going back in.) I think I'll build my own cold air intake kit using an aircleaner from a Crown Vic/Grand Marq/Towncar (bigger filter element and MAF housing) and pull air from infront of the radiator but behind the passenger headlamp...I'll post as it goes. I found some good deals on timing sets and oilpump kits as well...but the killer right now is the crank kit. I'm holding out sending the block out for work (.010 overbore...remember there is no replacement for displacement) until I know where I'm getting my lower end from. Might have to have them do some balancing if I get my parts individually (Tom Morana's kit is already balanced). Help me out here...I want the 95-97 castings smaller, heart shaped combustion chambers with the stock style '94 pistons to get the compression up to appx 10:1, right? I like the look of the "fast burn" heads compared to the earlier style heads. I'm also at over 6500 ft. of elevation, so running higher compression is a must for power. They don't even sell 93 octane fuel up here...just 89 and 91. Any suggestions would be appreciated, and I'll start a new thread as soon as I finalize the lower end and ship out the block.
 






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