B3000 SHO swap

[pat8703]

Hello. This is my first post on TRS. I understand sho swaps are taboo and there's hundreds of threads across the internet about the swap but nobody other than the guy with the trophy truck and the 80s ford performance group has completed the swap. I'm putting this thread out there for anyone who ever may want to consider the swap to reference.

So here we go. I'll probably be farther along than the photos "sho" consistently as I'm nabbing pictures pretty randomly. I'll try and add more detail shots as I go along. Motor is a 94 ATX 3.2L mated up to a m50d-r1 with a spec clutch kit, sho mtx pressure plate and flywheel, lumina z34 clutch disk, ranger pilot bearing and slave cylinder. I'll be powering it with megasquirt. The truck already has a DJM 4/5 drop kit on it.

The truck from when I bought it and moved it to my farm

Motor and tranny when I picked them up from the junkyards

Closing up unnecessary coolant passages and adding a threaded port for the GM CLT sensor.

Starting to get the motor in the truck. It's a pain in the ass as the motor is so big I can't put the motor and tranny in as one unit. I'm using factor tranny, xmember, and driveshaft, so the motor sits pretty far back against the firewall. I had to notch and box the front cross member to fit the taurus oil pan. The pan is relieved for the factory sho exhaust, but the pickup tube is at the damper side of the oil pan, so I can't just notch the pan. The motor sits low in the bay to get the transmission output operating angle that I want, and the exhaust is going to be tight against the steering shaft. The factory headers don't fit even with the motor higher up, so custom headers it is. The motor sit's almost entirely behind the axle centerline as well. My hand in the last picture shows axle centerline. Both low and back is great for handling and weight balance.

More pictures tomorrow

 

[RonD]

Welcome to TRS

Sweet


The 3.2l SHO is rated at 220HP with 215ft/lb

Explorer 5.0l is 215hp with 280ft/lb

I don't think it was ever taboo it was more why use an SHO when you can do the Explorer V8 swap

Yes, getting that weight farther back and lower should really help the handling

 

[pat8703]

I get it. I wanted to do another project with the motor for a long time. I haven't played with one for almost 15 years. I stumbled across the b3000 and for the price and the fact that it always was dropped I couldn't turn it down. I was originally planning on a RX-7 or 944 chassis. But in my research about getting the swap done there are so so many threads discussing it and nobody doing anything. And for 15+ years of threads about "has anyone done this" it seems a lot of people have been fed up with the question lol.

oh I'll be making up that torque difference with a holset and the truck came with a dry shot kit already on it

 

[PetroleumJunkie412]

Subscribed

 

[Josh B]

Man, how did you get that clean a motor and transmission at a junkyard?!

 

[fastpakr]

There are a lot of good reasons why the SHO isn't common, but plenty more for why it's a ridiculously cool idea. Looking forward to seeing this come together.

 

[pat8703]

Down by me most of the junk yards are actually dismantalers, where they pull the motor, transmission, and rear ends to sit on a shelf and the body goes in to the yard to be picked clean. Don't worry though, the motor has it's share of oil leaks and bad gaskets, and the tranny has a leak from the shifter plate that doesn't look like it's from the six round plugs. Everything on the motor is covered in a thick layer of corrosion.

This little guy helps to get things nice and clean though.

Some pictures since it's light out again and I'm still getting breakfast.

The vulcan transmission plate modified to fit the sho oil pump cover.

machined section of bellhousing to clear the same spot on the pump cover

heavy corrosion on the intake manifold. It's on everything but sandblasts off nice and clean

another shot of the core support notch

 

[pat8703]

This is a serious question:

Are DJM springs known to sag? When I got the truck it sat nice and level, but once I got it on stands I saw this monstrosity. The only thing I can think of is either the previous owner cut a coil and wasn't supposed to or the springs are sagged. I have to tear it all apart to change ball joints eventually, so replacing the springs isn't a big deal, but it would be nice to know.

 

[pat8703]

So I did not get nearly as far as I thought I would today. I had to take the motor in and out of the truck about a dozen times while fitting up engine mounts and it's a pain in the ass because, like I said, the tranny cannot go in with the motor due to the size of the cylinder heads and the shifter tower interfering with the body of the truck. I had to clearance the firewall for the drivers side cylinder head, but a minute or two with the hammer and it's all taken care of.

The passenger side motor mount was easy. A simple pad and pillow block poly mount. Easy. Done.

The driver side is tougher. First I started modifying the ac compressor/alternator mounting bracket. It's this big stupid heavy cast iron turd. I'm not running AC so I hacked away all the parts I didn't need except the boss to mount the one alternator point on it. Then I used the two lower mounting points for the original bracket, as well as a third point on the block near the oil cooler. The points are almost in a straight line which is bad for torsional loading, and they're right along the oil pan face. Since the mounting pad is pretty high up, this makes for a really weak joint; therefore I had to make a pretty complex mount. This mount is what took up a significant portion of my day. Oh, and it can't be installed when the motor is in position in the truck. Pull the motor to test fit the mount, reinstall. Pull the motor to test the reinforcement, reinstall. pull the motor to position the poly boss, reinstall.

Tomorrow I'll get the mounts finished up. Header flanges for the turbo won't be here until next week so until those show up, I will just be putzing around with the intake manifold.

 

[pat8703]

Last post for a while until stuff shows up next week.

Motor mounts welded to frame. I modified the front passenger bracket. I was planning on using a mr2 EHPS pump, but it looked like I could fit the factory taurus ps pump. So I hacked up the PS pump bracket and was able to overlay it over the new motor mount. If I had thought of going this route, I would have made the mount accordingly. Oh well, not a big deal in the long run.

motor on the mounts and intake on. The rear balancing tube does not fit. I'm debating on making it fit by bashing or cutting or just not using it. Not sure which way I want to go with.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

That's going to look sharp. Now if you could get a bundle of snakes tube exhaust to match the intake.....

 

[turbo91xlt]

Very cool & nice fabrication work!! I had dreams of a turbo SHO swapping my '88 & even went as far as buying a complete '92 3.0 SHO as a donor. Like you I came to find out theres alot of talk but very little info on anyone actually successfully completing the swap. But I came to the conclusion really quick that the limiting factor to the swap would be using the ranger m5od behind it... At the end of the day its still a truck trans and shifts like one and was never intended to be shifted at the 7-8k rpms that engine is capable of. Its also not the strongest transmission by any means but probably would survive under a stock engine power. My solution was to run the canfield Volcan to sbf adapter plate & get a custom aluminium flywheel made that takes sbf clutchs with the SHO crank pattern. This way you can run any sbf manual transmission like a T5 (marginally stronger & shifts 10x better then the m5od) or even a t56.

Someday I'd like to do the swap (my parts car is still sitting in the backyard lol) but for now my GT will be getting my spare 2.3t/t5 drivetrain to get it going again.

 

[pat8703]

Thanks. No bundle of snakes here. It's just going to be a simple, clean manifold system akin to a front facing ls truck header setup.

I probably forgot to mention but I'm not building the truck for street driving. I'm building it to get started in drifting.

Regarding the m5od, I'm not too worried about it. There isn't a lot of shifting going to be happening. When it does give out, I'll get the QuickTime 3.0 bell and throw a tko behind it. There's also an aerostar t5 bell that's a couple hours away, which I might grab just to have.

The only thing I'm not set on right now is turbo placement. I'm not running the HVAC box, so I might be able to fit the turbo back there, but part of me wants to make it Dubai style out the hood. FD rules say the vehicle must have a full exhaust, so I can't just kick it up and over the windshield.

 

[PetroleumJunkie412]

Look up my Volvo power steering mod. Works with some modification with a mazda 3 EPAS as well. Can remote locate it anywhere.

 

[pat8703]

Yeah that's the same principle as the mr2 ehps pump: microcontroller mounted to the pump and you just give it 12v and it pwms the pump based on load.

Ill see how it is with the Taurus belt driven pump first. I have two mr2 pumps already on the shelves.

Mr2 pump I used on a vw what feels like a life time ago