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

[Rhett]

man if i had the money, id find a 5.0 explorer at auction, cut it up, and swap it in. But i think the rebuilding the 4.0 is better suited for my situation.

FYI 2 of my friends just bought 98's (one a Limited, and one a Mountaineer, both with 5.0's) for less than $5000 each. And those were not wrecks, in fact they are pretty nice, about 100,000 miles on each of them. So at an auction, I would think you could get a lightly rolled 5.0 Explorer for $2000-$2500 at most. At least I would think. And that would be ideal for a swap, the body is shot, but the engine/trans/wiring etc. is 100% there.

 

[410Fortune]

or $1200-1500 depending on how bad the body is and what state the auction is in (lots of 5.0L Explorer's in CO)

 

[Creager]

Ive looked around today at local junkyards for, bascially a 5.0 explorer; Rolled, whatever, aslong as it runs.

So far, one guy wants $750 just for the motor... nahh, the rest dont have anything... period, north and south carolina. In other words, i'd have to find something at auction.

If i went v8, id easily double the cost it would to rebuild the v6 with power adders.

Lets say i could get a whole v8 explorer... thats

$1500 for the trucK
$1000 for Conversion headers + Conversion mounts
$800 for AA 1354 adapeter

thats topping $4k right there. But it would sure be worth it, in the long run.

The main reason why i dont want a v8 at the current momment, is the body lift. I have plans to remove it. IF, and only IF, i could find a whole v8 drivetrain, with everything from the cowl forward for less then $1000, i'd buy the Skyjacker Class II JoshC is trying to sell at the momment, and throw that sucker on too, haha. That way i can figure out all the clearences without the body lift, and not have to do the conversion again when i go to remove the body lift.

 

[410Fortune]

My entire 5.0L conversion cost just under $6500 with th etrans being basically rebuilt and the $550 for the AA adapter.
You can use a different adapter and run a Dana 20 T case, it does not require the trans to be dis assembled for the AA adapter.

You can also run the 6 bolt t case like guys on this thread are converting to, this will save alot of $$ on the trans.

You cannot forget you get a far superior transmission, not just a built up engine.
Auction is the only way to go , you see this is where the junk yards are buying them from. So if the yards get the truck for $1500-2500 they are looking to make at least that back on the drivetrain alone.

Like I said before the power from the 4.0L was more then adequate for my uses but the chance to have the 4r70w is what I jumped at. Large tires, towing, and 4x4ing = the 4r70w is an excellent choice.

I do not have a body lift on my truck, everything fits fine.

 

[Creager]

I do not have a body lift on my truck, everything fits fine.

I thought you had to 'clearence' the tranny tunnel?

my concern with doing a 302 conversion now is, am i going to have to remove it all later, to make sure the body doesnt crush it all when i remove the body lift?

Otherwise, i would much rather go the superior route. Although it doesnt look like its going to fit my budget/time spand.

But lets do the math anyway so i can sleep tonight =)

I would use the 1354 because i think it works great, and i like my push-button 4x4

$550 for AA adapter, cant I just bolt this on myself, or does the tranny really need to be dug into?

I have a friend, who has a friend, who owns a car dealership (would you imagin, both these 'friends' are extremely attractive women less then 25), who claims she can get me a deal at auction, if something comes up. So i got a seed planted there. If not, i can always check out one of those public auctions. Judging on what others say about a 5.0 explorer at Auction...

$1750~ for auctioned explorer.

I wouldnt rebuild the engine or the tranny, since to that would defeat the whole purpose of going 5.0

Torque moster headers, L&L conversion mounts ~$1000

From there, could i use a stock 5.0 explorer radiator and whatnot. But incase other issues... add another $1000

Approxomatly $4300

But technically, i can use everything out of the 5.0 explorer, correct? Cooling system, A/C... and not that it would be logical, but i could even use the AWD case? If thats the case, then i could get away with a 5.0 swap for the price of the auctioned explorer.

---
Now lets look at the otherside of the equation, rebuilding what i have...

Main plus: M5OD is less then 6 months old, reman'd. I also have a new clutch set, Delta Cam rocker arm set, full gasket set, and new cooling system (rad, pump, hoeses...ect...) sitting in the garage waiting to be installed.

$350 : Borla Headers & Y-pipe
$250 : 422 Comp Cam
$100 : Delta-Cams Pushrods
$200 : Lifters
$140 : Dual Valve spring Hardware
$75 : Cloyes Timing set
$280 : Ford Piston Rings
$150 : Clevite Pistons
$150 : 95TM heads
$300 : Clevite 77 Bearings, rods, mains, cam.
$150 : Transfercase overhaul kit and Chain
$90 : KKN Filter
$150 : New MAF & IAC

$2535

+ $600 worth of machine work, balancing, port/polish

$3125

Geeze this is getting EXPENSIVE haha.

I could skimp the 422 cam, and go with the 410. Therefore i wouldnt go with 10:1 compresion, or the port/polish job. What would the math look like?

$250 : 410 Comp Cam
$100 : Delta-Cams Pushrods
$200 : Lifters
$75 : Cloyes Timing set
$280 : Ford Piston Rings
$150 : Clevite Pistons
$300 : Clevite 77 Bearings, rods, mains, cam.
$150 : Transfercase overhaul kit and Chain
$90 : KKN Filter
$150 : New MAF & IAC

+ $150 for machine work.

$1895

I need to make up my MIND! haha, because of the momment, i dont have a car

 

[410Fortune]

the transmission needs to be dis-assembled in order to install the new output shaft that works with the AA adapter to mount up the 1354 T case. This was the reason for the 4r70w "soft" rebuild.

Yes I clearnaced the trans tunnel, with a hammer. All you do really is fold the lip over and then bang it flat. I would consider doing this no matter what engine/trans is installed. It gives more room for running 02 sensor wires, exhaust, etc.

 

[Rhett]

Well, to give you an idea about what you can buy 5.0-wise, a friend of mine bought a good condition 98 Limited (heated seats, overhead console, leather, the works...) with 110,000 miles on a 5.0 V8 for $4500. And that was not at an auction, that was off a dealer lot. (!) That thing is nice. The Ford leather isn't even cracked!

I tried to convince him to buy a wrecked 5.0 Exp and switch over that drivetrain to the 93 XLT, but I did not succeed

 

[Creager]

...theres a lot more that i can use out of a second gen truck, other then the 5.0 driveline. rear disks, leather, overhead console would be pretty nifty, and i always dreamed of a second gen dash/door skin conversion.

if i can find a good enough deal on a 5.0 mounty/explor, dont be surprized if the title of this thread changes to 'dreaming of one mean 5.0'

But, with all the visions aside, at this point i still plan on rebuilding the 4.0.

 

[mysticclam]

Why did it become legal to run a carbed engine on Jan 1st? Some local law?

 

[Creager]

yep, local law states cars older then 95 no longer need to pass a sniffer test. only saftey and visual tests. So i would have to run cats, but a carbed engine would be legal =)

 

[mysticclam]

If that was the case here, Id be starting to get the parts for my swap.
I beleive you can get carb intakes for the later 302 engines. Maybe get an early 90s 4x4 truck and pull the powertrain. Put a carb on it and go. Or a CFI fuel injection from holly maybe? Im not sure that it is technically legal as I think there are federal epa guidlines but it does mean noone will ever check.
I put a 307 olds into a formerly diesel chevy truck and it was technically not leagal as the 307 never was available on that truck. I just told the guys it was a 5.0 GM engine and let them think it was a 305 which was offered. However as soon as they figure its got 8 cyls. they would no my explorer wasnt legit. Gotta be over 25 years here before they quit testing them. We dont have a safty inspection though so that is cool.

 

[Creager]

I cant seem to find my way into an auction. haha, its crucial. I think its best I just clean up what i have.

Deep down, v8 power is what i want; but a v6 is what i have.

I have plans to clean up the engine compartment a little bit, paint over the factory green and get it all black to match the body. heheh. i thought about re-wrapping parts of the wiring harness with red loom.

Once i get this motor out im going to get it torn down and in the machine shop. Not sure what im going to do about porting the heads though. I actually cant find anything locally, nobody wants to do porting work. I can get the rest of the machine work done cheap, but the porting/polishing just doesnt seem to be done locally. ...and charlotte says its the home of nascar! com'on!

Does anyone know of a place that sells 'stage 3' ported heads? heh, i heard the aftermarket castings are MUCHO stronger then the factory castings. WHALE (sp?) was one brand i found was said to be good, AlabamaCylinderHead was said to sell them. But i dont think they port out their own heads...

BIRD on rangerpowersports doesnt plan on comming back into the buisness for a while. Damn, that kinda shoots at my idea of the 422 cam a little bit. hehehe, does anyone reject the notion to run the overlap cam with bascially stock head castings (other than dual valve springs)?

I realize my money is best well spent on headwork, but maybe ill get like 180hp with the stock head castings? hah, maybe im dreamin.

This way i can get the truck on the road sooner, and maybe ill learn to port my own heads, do a good job and swap heads on a weekend or something.

...otherwise i can always use the 410 cam.

i just feel like i would be shorting myself if i used the 410 cam... hah

 

[Ronin8002]

I don't think there is anything wrong with using the 422 cam and stock heads. That way when you do get those heads ported you'll already have everything else taken care of in terms of intake/exhaust flow. I do think it's a bad idea to port them yourself unless you have a flow bench. You are very likely to end up with two interesting looking door stops/paperweights and then you're out even more money than if you waited to have a good porting guy do it.

If you want to go aftermarket, Alabama Cylinder Head does sell the MAHLE castings....those are supposed to be much stronger than stock in terms of resisting cracking. It would be worthwhile to get the heads from them.

By the way, if you check the For Sale section at RPS I believe there are some ported heads on there for sale right now...not sure if they're set up with dual valve springs but that wouldn't be hard to do...at least the porting part is done already.

If nothing else you could always use the 422 and set up your factory heads for it....then get the MAHLE heads and when you find a good porting guy get them all done up and swap em on. That's what I would do if I was in your situation.

 

[Creager]

MAXIMUM! you shouldnt of told me that!!! now im shakin like a dog! i hope that guy still has those parts!

that guy wants $400 for ported heads, with intake, 422 cam, and bbk HEADERS! Hes got everything I NEED! if he still has that stuff, consider it mine!

 

[Creager]

Hey, looks like i got some ported heads on the way.

Ported heads w/ dual valve springs, and ported lower: $400 *used on racing bronco II, hehehe

Hes also going to sell me the 422 cam WITH pushrods $260 *new outta box

Hes also got some BBK headers that are new out of the box, he wants full price for them. I'm going to wait on headers to see if i get any $150 deals.

im saving like $750-1000 from that tip you gave me Maximum!

Well, its not official yet. Its very close though, ive been in contact with him all afternoon, and hes ready to ship. Pictures of everything look good.

Hes got a wicked upper intake where he relocated the throttle to be in the middle of the manifold, instead of infront of it. Its also got plumming for a turbo, hehe. Although im pretty sure i cant use it, it'd be more work then its worth to get working. Only thing im worried about is using my stock upper intake on the ported lower intake. From what ive read, the upper-intake really doesnt need any porting work... Think it will matter a whole lot?

 

[Ronin8002]

Awesome dude, glad you were able to get ahold of that stuff.

I would spring for the headers too, being since they're brand new and all, but like you said maybe you could find them cheaper somewhere else?

that upper intake is a good find too....it relocates the TB to the side like mine except he cut and welded the stock one. Should come in handy if you decide to put a vortech or turbo on there someday.

I wouldn't worry too much about using a ported vs non-ported intake anyway. From what I know now the 4.0 isn't really hurting on the intake side of things, more from the cam and the exhaust ports on the heads....which now, for you, won't be an issue I ported my lower intake (and kept the stock upper for a while) but I didn't do a before/after dyno with that mod only so I can't say it makes a huge difference if at all. maybe you could test and see.

Anyway, glad you were able to save that money and looking forward to seeing developments with your project.

 

[410Fortune]

the upper 4.0L intake can use some deburring inside, and you can gasket match it to the lower. This will help a little on a setup like this.

 

[Rhett]

the upper 4.0L intake can use some deburring inside, and you can gasket match it to the lower. This will help a little on a setup like this.

Speaking of deburring the upper intake...I have a ?/need advice:

I know generally that things like home-grown manifold port-matching usually are not done right, and often the result is worse flow than before. But what about "cleaning"? Just for the UPPER intake manifold, can a person use a Dremel tool to clean it up?

I've got 12 years of carbon/varnish built up in the upper, and I was thinking of trying to dremel that varnish off the upper. But I won't do it if that could hurt. Or, it might be easier just to have it sandblasted off. (??)

 

[Creager]

Rhett, im wondering the same thing. I want to polish/debur up my upper, before i put these heads on.

I can buy the gastet matched intake from the same guy, but the throttlebody is on the side, hehe.

 

[Rhett]

Yeah Creag I didn't mean to threadjack your thread but I thought I would ask since we were talking about it.

My trucks upper intake is really varnished up.