Project ST- yet another V8 swap....

[RangerSVT]

I haven't found for sure if the 97 ecu will work on the 99 system without programming...if i knew the 4.0 would be out already...

SVT

 

[RangerSVT]

Well, after days of researching, looks like I can use the 97 ecu on the 99 harness/engine. I started moving the engine/trans/tcase in the shop. I took the tcase off, but before I did that I changed the trans filter. When i dropped the pan, I found this...

Anyone have a clue what this is, what its for and where it goes here is the motor and trans on rollaround dollies I picked up...

Me removing the tcase. I will be installing a low range case in its place (1356) from an 89 bronco....

I'm going to wait til I install the motor and trans in the ST before installing the tcase. It will make installing the motor/trans easier. Since I've found out that the motor will run on the older computer (it will just run pig rich and get shitty mileage) after I get back from a concert saturday night I'll start pulling the motor out of the ST...

SVT

 

[Kyle M.]

That might be a plug that they put in the tranny for when they fill em up to seal them. Then when you put the fill tube in it pushes into the pan. I have never seen one, but I hear that you can find em in trans that the pan hasn't been dropped.

 

[RangerSVT]

If thats the case, the fluid hasn't been changed in 168k miles, but the good news is that the fluid was still red, no burn smell at all, and the magnet had what looked like about 50k mile fluid deposits I'm installing an external oil filter (fl1a style) to make filter changes easier as well as filter smaller particles than Ford has designed. Im also installing a second external cooler. I have the stock external cooler from the donor, and an identical one on the ST, so with the 5.0 rad and both external trans coolers, keeping the trans cool should not be a problem. Future upgrades when funds allow will be an upgraded aluminum pan with trans temp gauge sending unit port built-in...

SVT

 

[shane96ranger]

Kyle is exactly right. My buddy who is a transmission builder collects them as a souvenir. He calls them "Popsicle Sticks" for some reason. He told me that's a sure sign he's the first one to take the pan off.

EDIT: He also has told me several times that the 4R70W is Ford's best 4 speed. Mine has 205K on it now. We are going to be changing the fluid soon - I'll crap if I find one of those "Popsicle Sticks" in there.

 

[RangerSVT]

Well, today is Sunday, and time to pull the motor out of the ST... Or so i thought. Had to cut grass today, so 5.5 hrs later I took a little nap from the sun taking the energy out of me, that nap turned into 3 hrs. So since I'm well rested, teardown will begin early tomorrow! Stay tuned....

SVT

 

[Josh40601]

Stoked!!!

 

[disciplerocks]

Agreed with shane and Kyle on the plug.

 

[RangerSVT]

OK!!! Had some good progress today.I didn't get as many detailed pics as I wanted to today, but the removal is straight forward and won't go into too much detail removing the 4.0. I will cover the important things related to the v8 swap, but removal of parts is basically the same as the donor..Here is the ST with the hood off. This is the last time it will run....Under the power of the 4.0 that is...

Here are the radiators side by side. The original 4.0 is on the left, the 5.0 on the right. Believe it or not, the 4.0 rad with auto and a tow package is a single core radiator There is a possibility the previous owner of the ST swapped radiators, but in the condition I received it, its a single. The 5.0 is double row, and is the same size (heighth and thickness of end tanks), which means direct swap

Unplug the battery harness at the distribution box...

My helper. Who knew redheads were good at wrenching

Here is the altenator/low oil sensor harness...

Going....

Going....

GONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

The empty engine bay. Notice the motor mounts, the position of the bolt pattern...

Here is the driver side. The 4.0 mount is in place, I'm holding the 5.0 mount...

Removing the motor mount on a 4x4 equipped SALA suspension requires lowering, but not removing, the front axle housing. Near the driveshaft flange of the front axle housing is one of two bolts on the driver side that needs removed. The other is just below the motor mount, seen in the pic...

It's tight, but a shallow socket with a regular ratchet can remove the single 18mm nut holding the motor mount in place...

If you have a flex head ratchet, like I used here, it makes removal a little faster as it gives you more room...

Here is the mount removed. You can see the nut that is used to retain the mount in place....

Here is the 5.0 mount in place...

And this is where the bad news starts....For my viewers anyway. My battery died on my phone, so the pics end here. The passenger side is slightly easier. There is one bolt holding the passenger side axle housing in place, located right below the motor mount. There is an access through the framerail right above the halfshaft. I used an 18mm deepwell socket with a 6" extension and a flex head ratchet, but a regular ratchet can be used. With both motor mounts swapped, I took some measurements and compared them to the measurements from the donor's mounts. The measurements were the same I also measured from the motor mounts to the firewall on both sides on both the donor and the ST. What do you know, again, the measurements match up. It's looking like this will be a 100% bolt in swap. With the motor out, I wanted to do some past due scheduled maintenance (fuel filter) I got the old one out, only to find out that the replacement filter was the wrong diameter size. The replacement filter was about 2/3 the size of the original. Didn't think nothing of it, since it has two inlets, one 3/8 and the other 1/4, and one outlet (3/8), until I tried to hook up the engine side. The engine side uses 1/4 size line, the filter housing was 3/8...A quick look at the part numbers at both the box and the new filter, both were different numbers. It appears the filter was either swapped by mistake, or someone wanted to pull a prank...Either way, I was down for now. With the 4.0 out of the way, the 5.0 was now ready for its new home. With the motor and trans attached together and complete, it they went. Things were going good til I got the crank near the core support. Then I remembered when I did SVT's V8 swap I had to remove the upper intake to get the motor in, and had said the motor and trans needs to be separated to be installed. Well, looks like I'm taking another upper intake off to install. Seeing how this is the third ranger V8 swap I've done personally, and all 3 I had the trans connected to the motor and all 3 had to have the upper intake removed, you would think I would remember this, especially since I just did a ranger V8 swap barely a month ago!! Anyways, with the motor in the engine bay, the motor mount plates are sitting on the mounts like they are suppose to. The valve covers are right up against the firewall, and between the water pump pulley and the condensor (condensor was not removed for engine removal/installation, only the radiator and fan blade) there is between 6-8 inches, maybe more. Looks like I will be able to use the 5.0 rad with the stock mechanical fan I haven't measured, but a quick look at the trans mount looks like it will fall in the stock location, so no trans mount mods needed. Once I got the motor on its mounts, I called it a day. Tomorrow I will get pics of the motor in place and the rest of the install. I had pudding face BIG TIME once the V8 was in!!!
Here is a pic of the oil filter housing Ford used on the non-oil cooler 5.0 engines...

And here is a pic of the oil adapter housing used on the 2.9L engines....

Are you following what I'm thinking?? But why would you ask I swap em out?? Ford swapped all explorer 5.0 motors to the 820S style filters which are smaller than the FL1A filters used on previous 5.0's. Also, when I bought the oil filter relocation kit from TransDapt for SVT, I had the straight block adapter left over since TTB rangers need the 90* block adapter. I plan to get another dual filter housing and a couple of lines and going with a dual filter setup. Also, some EFI 5.8 motors had the sandwich style oil coolers, which I could also install between the adapter housing and the relocation block adapter. This gives me some options. I still need to mount my additional trans cooler next to the stock location cooler, as well as install my external trans oil filter... Enjoy and stay tuned for the upgrades...

SVT

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I like the detailed explanations you give with your pics.
Subscribed.

Richard

 

[Josh40601]

Awesome buddy!

 

[03ranger30]

I would probably find one of those sticks in the transmission pan on my dad's truck, almost 270k miles and hasn't been changed once.

 

[shane96ranger]

I also love the details you provide. I'm interested in the mpg's you get out of it with a 5.0 in it. Thanks for the read!

 

[RangerSVT]

Got some more stuff done today, but I had a bunch of interruptions and didn't get as much done as I'd hoped. I started with the electrical under the hood. Mainly the altenator harness. The altenator charging circuit is slightly different from the donor to the ST. Here you can see the ST 4.0 altenator harness. Power goes from the altenator to the power distibution block located on the driver side firewall, crimped to the same terminal is the wire that goes to the battery, and from the battery to the starter...

Here is the section removed from the 4.0 harness that will be re-used. Notice the two fuse links at the end of one of the cables? The other side of the fuse links goes to the altenator output...

This is the explorer 5.0's altenator harness end, notice the altenator output is not tied to the battery side...

....This is why. The explorer's circuit uses a high amp fuse rather than the fuse links the ST uses....

After finding the correct length, I cut the altenator cable and soldered the fuse links to the altenator cable, therefore combining the ST end with the explorer altenator end...

Here is the finished product, complete with heat shrink with the sealing glue inside...

The cable ends made up with eyelets crimped on. I prefer to solder the cables into the eyelets/battery lugs, but I didn't have any way to heat up the solder...

And the finished battery cables....

The ST altenator harness has the AC high pressure switch circuit along with the low oil sender circuit. The explorer has the high pressure switch circuit in the fenderwell harness. The reason is on the 4.0, the ST has the high pressure switch is on the back of the AC compressor...

The 5.0 explorer has the switch in the high pressure line, near the condensor...

Here are the pressure switch wires that are in the altenator harness. The red/yellow and black/white wires is the circuit, however the black/white is shared by another circuit(ground side), and is in the plug. Only the red/yellow wire is missing from the 5.0 harness. I haven't yet, but later I will use the 4.0 harness plug (since the plug itself has the provision for the wire, all remaining unused pins are sealed/not drilled through the plug) and just re-pin the plug...

Here is the clearance between the radiator and the water pump shaft....

...and the clearance with the stock mechanical fan in place. There is a little better than 3/4" clearance at the top of the clutch blade (the trans is still not mounted and is sitting a couple inches low, so when the trans gets mounted, it will level out the clutch blades to radiator)....

Here is the fan shrouds, on the left is the 5.0, the right the 4.0. Notice the cutout on the right shroud for the single row radiator. It will not fit the 2 row rad, so the donor shroud is used...

Here is the shroud in place. Looks like it came from Ford this way. For now, I will run this setup. Later I plan to swap to an electric fan to improve fuel economy...

Here is the heater control valve. It is designed so when you turn on the heat from the climate control panel, it opens allowing hot water to travel from the engine to the heater core. These are known to leak and is only one more moving part to fail. I simply and easily removed this out of the system. The heater hose coming into the valve was removed and placed directly onto the heater core. There is a vacuum line coming from the cab to operate the valve. I would just plug this line off, however the previous owner already removed the valve from service and plugged the line...

The power steering return line from the ST is a little short from reaching the reservoir, so the donor return line is used....

The front bumper is removed, but not necessary for the swap. I chose to make a simple upgrade while I performed this swap. I am adding a second trans cooler as I have two spare stock coolers. I'm going to add one next to the stock location on the right...

Here is the second cooler mounted in place...

Wait a minute, why does this look different, I thought they were the same coolers...This is why. The ST cooler has a 2" mounting plate under the cooler, lifting the cooler up higher to get more airflow....

Here is the cooler I added...

I decided for the time being to leave it like this. Later I will modify the bracket to lift up the cooler. Here is the oil filter housing I will be using for my external trans filter. I wanted to install the filter on the hot side of the trans line (before the coolers), but I would have had to cut the trans line coming from the trans, as its one continuous line from the trans to the radiator. So I put it after all the coolers...

I mounted the filter housing to the lower front core support for ease of changing. It's high enough to be safe from obstacles should they arrive, and easy enough to reach. Here is the filter and coolers mounted and plumbed ready for action...

I didn't get any pics and didn't cover it, but the upper intake is back on the motor. The gasket was not damaged when the upper intake plenum was removed, so it was re-used to save some coin. It's only 6 bolts and is straight forward. Tomorrow I will get a couple pics of it and show the location of the bolts. Only thing left under the hood is the throttle cable and the engine to firewall ground. Stay tuned as tomorrow I will cover installing a low range tcase. Should be starting it for the first time tomorrow...

SVT

 

[Josh40601]

Looks great Rick. So the plug to the ST is not the same as the Expo plug? (42 pin plug)