Well my mav has been parked for the last 2 months just been busy and lack of time but its getting the point where this is My only car( been borrowing a car from my parents at the moment ) but instead of going out and spending 8 grand on a newer low milage car thinking of rebuilding all the drivetrain ( engine,trans,and rear end) new brakes well better brakes and fixing steering and rear suspension. Along with getting all new electric system. Figured if I went stock along with what I have along doing things myself or help from local. Would be around the same as a new car. More on the less than side of it. But my question is if I could come across a wrecked or parting out 89-93 fox body mustang and transplanting the motor( after rebuilding) with the efi and the t-5 in my mav what would be the round about cost id be looking at??? Or other modications id have to do to my maverick also what benefits would I be seeing I know people have done it trying to wrap my mind around it looking to make this a full time daily driver not driving for. 2 weeks And then parking for a week of repair. Along with good mpgs and performance thanks
that is very doable. if you find a used fox body, chances are it will have high milage on the motor and trans and will require rebuilds to give you dependibilty. i just installed this http://www.summitracing.com/parts/FST-30227-KIT/ in a 30 ford with a 302. it was very easy to install, and drove extreemly well.
We just recently did a swap into an early Fox with I6/200-C4, from an 88 Lincoln Mark 5.0/HO-AOD... Yes, it was a Fox to Fox swap, but the I6 car was early and had no EFI friendly parts at all. The only benefit we had over a Maverick was that we didn't need to swap oil pan or exhaust. First, we looked for an HO car that wasn't a Mustang. That way we had a better chance at an engine that was still stock, unabused, cheaper, and maybe lower miles. We won on all fronts. We got the Lincoln Mark from the original owners, an eldery couple, and it was bone stock, 70k easy miles, and we got the entire car for 500 bux. We pulled the engine, tranny, and wiring harness, kept the 4 new tires for another vehicle, and sold everything we could, then got scrap money from the rest. The engine and tranny was dirt cheap when it all panned out. The Lincoln's systems and therefore wiring harness were too complex and overengineered to reuse. I tried, but couldn't get it to work out. So we bought an aftermarket EFI swap harness, similar to Painless, but better. It was more than the engine and tranny at 500 bux, but worth it! The wiring harness was plug-n-play and it deleted EVERYTHING not required to run the engine, all emissions... I highly recommend going this route. Buying the whole car and driving it home is so much better than paying the same or more for an engine and then hoping it runs after you go through an installation.
Oh, and learn from our mistakes... If you decide to keep the serpentine belt setup, remove all the components that you don't need (like air pump, a/c, p/s, etc) and then look online for a new belt route to work with what you have left. Just have to find the routing and buy the belt size for that routing. We thought that you had to keep the same belt/route and buy idler pullies for each part you deleted. Not so. The idler pulleys are expensive, and poorly made. Ours looked and sounded like they were going to fall apart from the moment we started the engine. I wish I had seen the sites with the short belt routes before spending all that money on pulleys. They literally have a belt length and at least one alternate belt route for every accessory combo you could think of on an HO 5.0.
I second this especially if the EFI harness makes you nervous, and your not comfortable disecting a harness. Ford fuel injection sells a nice setup for this reason. A perfect candidate for the motor would be a 5.0 HO gt-40 (non P) headed explorer (also has a rear brake disc upgrade for our cars see tech articles). Grab throttle body to oil pan. Add a set of trick flow upgrade valve springs and your choice of cam and motor is good to go. I would also look for a serpentine front acc setup with timing cover and water pump setups. Esp with a 130 amp alternator setup. I'm not sure if the explorer front setup is a good candidate for us, maybe others can chime in. I always use fox front acc. Then pull a t-5 out of a v-8 mustang 85-95, grab the quadrant off the pedal assembly, and the cable and get an aftermarket firewall adjuster. Your also going to want a computer and maf sensor from the mustang as well. Than add a harness from ford fuel injection site, add it all together and you should be good to go for under 2000.00. If your serious about "daily driving" I would also plan on spending 1500 on new steering, suspension, and brakes. These are more important in a daily driver to me than the drivetrain. There you go I just spent 4 grand for you LOL And I will put on my flame suit for this but honestly, get a cheap daily driver and use the maverick as a weekend car. Much better steering, braking, and comfortable. Add the above stuff as you can to turn the car into what you want.
I don't know if it's true for every Exploder v8, but the one, and only one, I ever took parts off of had a distributorless ignition with the front cover and accessories made specifically to accomodate a crank reluctor ring behind the balancer and it's pickup in the front cover. The parts I was looking at in the front would not swap with a 'regular' 5.0. So at least one year Exploder would not be a good candidate for accessory drive, front cover, balancer, and might not even work well as a whole unless converted to distributor. In that case, you have to spend all over again even after obtaining the engine. The ECM or wiring harness would likely not work as it is DIS ignition. (Then again, some may like that idea...)
That's who we got ours from! We shopped them vs Painless for a while. After much checking and alot of thought, we decided their system was just a bit better than Painless. We got their "universal" harness... Mainly because we didn't know if the 81 model was 'early' enough to be plug-n-play with their "classic Ford" specific harness. The "classic" will probably be the way to go with a Maverick, although the "universal" will surely work fine too. Universal is cheaper, but might have less wiring from what I can tell. Universal does NOT take alternator, or any other underhood wiring into account. I think the classic does. Universal: http://rjminjectiontech.com/?p=4 Classic (Made for 5.0 into 64-73 Stang and small Bronco with just 3 wires to hook up.): http://rjminjectiontech.com/?p=3
I agree, I have a 96 Explorer that I bought just to do this kinda swap, and the other consideration with Explorers, is the transmission. But for 300 bucks, I couldn't go wrong, since I'm not in a rush to do the swap. As for the first question asked, are you trying to do the swap in a couple of days?
I'm liking the look of that fast system that the link is of I did some research on it and haven't seen anyone complaining about it and there's been no drawbacks. Kind of pricey thou....... but I do have a carb that was working for me. The reason I'm asking about making the swap is I've been driving my mav ( stock 302 with edelbrock 4v and c4 ) the c4 is on its dieing legs and the rear axle howls and shakes. The egine is stock numbers matching with 75k miles and burns about 3-4 quarts every 3000 miles. And when I broke the motor mount and everything that broke because of the fan hitting all kinds of stuff stoped me and now I'm thinking I should if I decide to keep it I need to fix all the big things now while I have the chance ( I'm just about 19 so money is tight ) But this is what I've gone thur already. To give you a better idea for what I'm looking at a daily driver. Front suspension all new minus steering box got it used and it feels it ( manual steering wonders and slowly gets more play ) Rear brakes rebuilt and front disc brakes good with new rotors all the brakes need is new brake lines and master cylinder ( have a leak somewhere just never found it Have a all new cooling system just need to install it All new fuel system already in Electrical system is fine but its 40 years old and heard of all the nightmares of bad wiring Just like a stock rebuild on a late model roller A t-5 manual for the modern trans and overdrive And rebuilding the rear axle So I was thinking around 3 grand for it all then id be set really using my carb on there and 5 grand with an efi? Would I be close thinking that?
I think that type of budget should be more than enough if you shop with your budget in mind. Check out the links posted above for harnesses, they really do make it pretty plug and play. Than latter down the line you can get it tuned just like a mustang and the sky is the limit from fuel economy to 1200hp that computer and harness will handle it. I have done atleast 12 fuel injection swaps including 5 sand rails, old trucks, ls1 mullet mobiles and stand alone engine managemet via megasquirt. These are VERY easy harnesses compared to others I have worked with EDIT: Now that I think about it, I think every explorer I have seen in that area has the same problems you guys are describing. BEtter to go towards a fox setup for the front serp setup.
Oh and as Dave was pointing too, do not think this is a weekend swap type of thing. This whole swap would put your car out of commision for a while, all the little odds and ends just take too much time. If working everyday on its another story but I imagine your like most of us and can not commit that kind of time in one shot. LOL
Yea that's why I'm thinking fast of getting the reseach done and doing it now while I can still borrow a car and the money while I get this rebuilt and don't have to worry about anything major for a while. Also I was looking at possible getting a remanufactured motor with a warrenty and all since I've never rebuilt An engine minus the top end. Anyone have their dealings with reman motors? Thanks for the help
I disagree, with the right parts it can be a weekend install. Stuff you need to do 1. Get harness from http://rjminjectiontech.com/ for easy of install 2. Fuel injection fuel line return and inertia cutoff switch 3. T5 crossmember and hydraulic clutch conversion kit, shorten 5.0 driveline (1 inch) 4. Front sump oil pan 5. Radiator hosing The precut wiring harness is almost plug and play. I would run the motor and transmission (at least get a new clutch) till they die. You would be amazed how much abuse the motor can take, even tired. When the engine finally dies rebuilt it then, or have a spare on standby. This combo makes for a great platform for serious HPS down the road.. Just buy a quarter horse chip and you can name your hp combo.
I gotta call BS on that. Even the modding of the fuel tank to accept the EFI pump and return line will take half a day... And that is just a small part of the swap.
Yes, but you still have to scout out mounting positions for all the parts, then mount them and trim wires... I had to extend some too. Just the wiring takes a day, even with a made harness.
