Need rebuild advice

[whynotthinkwhynot]

To introduce, I have gained my uncle's 97 4.0 Aerostar. It's a great van, but it has 130k miles on it, and one of the pushrods is worn enough to tick. It's not an easy task to remove an engine from an Aerostar, but I plan on doing it as soon as I can find another motor with fast burn heads to rebuild.

My question is- where can I find better quality parts? Does anyone make aftermarket camshafts? Are there any computer tuning programmers or chips for this year?

My biggest issue is the valvetrain. This engine is notorious for wearing pushrods and rockers. I haven't cracked mine open yet- but I'm wondering if anyone has tried to overcome this problem with roller cams if any are available? Do 2.9 adjustable rockers fit? If so, are these any better about wear?

That's about it- thank in advance for all your help [thumb]

 

[MAKG]

Umm, you already have a roller cam.

No, 2.9L rockers are different beasts.

Rebuilding an engine because of a worn rocker seems a bit excessive. You can remove the rocker shafts with the engine installed.

 

[woodyedmiston]

Got to agree with MAKG on this one! Don't fix what is not broken - a 4.0 will go 250,000 if you take care of it.

Contact Deltacam@aol.com they have rocker arms with steel inserts in the pushrod socket and have flame hardened the ends of Ranger Rocker arms. I have not yet used them - but plan on it with the rebuild I'm working on . . . unless someone with some actual experience tells me they are not worth it. I don't remember the prices but they weren't outrageous.

 

[whynotthinkwhynot]

I wrote that wrong. I was asking about roller rockers, but for some reason my brain wrote roller cams [screwy]

Thanks for the advice on the rockers. I'm surprised that nobody makes an aftermarket cam for these motors. I could've sworn that the last time I had a PAW catalog there were 4.0 cams in there- but that's been a long time and my memory is not awesome any more.

I'll have one to take apart at some point. I'm going to try to find a book on these motors. I read about one in the 2.9 mod section.

For now I probably will just fix the worn pushrod, rocker, or lifter. I'm just gathering information for when the inevitable rebuild does start to happen. Plus, I love this van, and I'd like to keep it for as long as I can find parts.

 

[Drg racr]

Crane makes a cam for the 4.0L, but unless you perform a lot of other modifications, the cam itself is worthless. That's what a few guys told me that actually installed the cam in their trucks. I was going to buy one for my 94, but decided to keep the stock cam in it.
As far as the rockers, I have 133000 miles on mine, and they look fine. I never heard a sound coming out of the top end, just the bottom.
I should be able to fire mine up next week, I hope.