Soon to swap in my 5.4 DOHC motor into a 2003 GT. Looking for all the heads up I can get before D-Day.

1) How tough is the stock automatic transmission? I'm looking to throw down 600 at the wheels with a blower on the 5.4. I don't wanna do a manual swap. If the stock tranny isn't good for that much power, can it be beefed up? Or will it need entirely replaced?

2) Brake Booster clearance with the 4V heads: read a couple things saying theres an issue with this. Havn't read anything definitive though.

3) Looked at the MM k-member spacers to drop the motor. They mention the requirement of an extended steering shaft for obvious reasons. They had a link to their "telescoping shafts" but none of the product descriptions included telescopingness. Not sure about this.

4) Rear End/Driveshaft. How robust are these stock guys? If they are prone to failure, what all needs replaced?

I will think of more questions as my brain starts to panic. I would like to complete the swap in a weekend's time, so with everything compensated for, a ready..set..go.. kinda swap.

Thanks,
Oliver

 

I sense a weekend packed full of fast food and no-doze for you!

 

Yea it's gonna be retarted. But that's what summer's for.

 

quick question for you guys that have done K-member swaps. im torn bewteen UPR's chrome molly tubular k-member and MM's tubular k-member. ive always heard about how great and strong the MM one is but UPR is made or chrome molly.. any suggestions or help?

 

UPR is fine for most cars... I consider them a drag part and not worthy of being whipped on on shitty roads. MM is, well MM. That's the only source I go to for suspension.

 

most of these stangs are weekend warriors/street driven. so i don't think you can go wrong on the k-members. but if you can afford MM i would go with them....

 

Awesome, thank you, you two. MM it is then. i cant afford to have a k-member bend or break. these back roads i live on are pure grade a hell! destroys shocks and struts and balljoints all the time.

 

i agree! all i have on my car is mm ,torque arm,and hellion turbo/mm k member .its the **** !!i would go with that so if you are going turbo or turbo in the future you will have plenty of room!

 

I'm still running the factory K, but from my personal experiences with MM, I wouldnt hesitate one bit to spend your money with them. Amazing suspension products.

 

Holy ****, this thread has been active for over 4 years!!

 

yep and i see it going another four years....the swap is getting more and more popular and when the car prices get lower and more people buy them and want more power i am sure they will find there way here.

 

And just about to cross 300 pages.

 

Got to drive around a little last night. Got a few issues worked out but have a few more of course.

 

how many posts does it take to roll over to the next page?

 

been a while since ive posted in here , motors been in about a year and im goign to get it retuned next month because im adding a lmaf and ive added a 75mm tb, plenum, and a JLT. i'm hoping for a significant improvement because i was running all stock intake parts before from my GT so it isnt breathing through a straw before.

i made 260/310 on a mustang dyno with the stock stuff (what is that ballpark on a dynojet)

taking predictions on what the gains will be!!

 

How much is this costing you guys to do the swap?

 

You can do it for damned near free. Once you have a runnable 5.4L motor, if you want just a base swap, nothing fancy, adapter plates, PI intake, stock injectors the whole thing then you're looking at ~200 for the adapter plates, whatever your tune costs, and whatever labor costs, and then a flywheel or flexplate which you can find for ~100 bucks.

It's mostly a bolt-in except for 1 bit of exhaust welding that may be needed for your car.. just a really big heavy bolt-in.

I think the low record so far is 500 bucks all in. I've got several thousand in it but, the headers actually cost me more than the whole rest of the swap. Granted they are custom fit 1-offs.

 

my first 5.4 swap cost me 200 bucks for the adapter plates and that was all. the bbk x-pipe was forced into submission and everything else bolted on. i also already had a cowl hood so i was good on clearence. this swap is at 10k for everything including the custom LT forward turbo headers. but i haven't tuned yet so add another couple hundred i'm sure...

 

How do you guys find your 5.4 Engines?
I have a 5.7 Hemi

 

Honestly the best place I've come across (thanks to r3d) is www.car-part.com . The prices seem high, but you can haggle with them most the time.

I got my 19K mile 5.4 comlete oilpan to valve covers, with a water pump and pulley, timing cover etc for $550 picked up. Good deals are everywhere you just have to look.

 

Im suprised no one mentioned this above, but you can also make some change back by selling your old 4.6. I sold my NON-PI 4.6 for 350 bones. If i had done the basic swap, that would have cut my cost's by a good chunk. Just something to think about

 

I have an 8-bolt auto flywheel if anybody needs one. And a Motorcraft reman alternator that will work for a 4.6 or 5.4.

 

horspla...what issues are you having?

 

Anyone that needs a 4" intake pipe (ie, you have a 75mm or larger TB and a 90mm MAF) should check out summit. They have Spectre 4" setups for 106 bucks. I just picked one up.

I have a 90mm MAF and a 78mm TB right now, and the only piping I could find otherwise was either very expensive or narrower than the 90mm MAF.

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SPE-9923/

 

I thought there we're some on eBay a while back that we're decently priced. Let me see if i can dig them up

 

 

Hood clearance for one. Got that handled. It runs ok but falls on its face as soon as I get into boost. The harder i get into it, the more it falls on its face. I have a tune from Amazon Tuning Solutions and was told I should be good to go. They knew all my mods etc. I just got a wideband and will work on that tonight. I don't wanna push it and screw something up. I'll see that the A/F is doing for sure and see how to do take care of it. I have a Cobra pump and it is well capable of making pressure and moving some volume. I'll just have to keep playing with it.

 

Sorry to hear that bro! Hope you get it worked out...

I've heard mixed reviews about Rick at Amazon. Guy that built my engine just had a Turbo 03 Cobra that fragged an engine (prob due to a bad tune, Amazon won't own up) and got his tune from amazon. I dunno man

 

wow horspla that is crazy.

seems like this person had the same problem to

http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/94...der-boost.html

could it be the vacuum lines?

also what did u use for sparkplugs? i dont want to use what is for a regular lightning because the na 5.4's have more compression than the stock lightning engines.

what were u gonna use for plugs r3d and what will you use the12fast4u?

 

I use autolite 104's and 103's as necessary for my combo at the moment. Stock replacement copper or 1 heat range colder. Old fashioned copper, there's nothing like it. However, I'm thinking about diamond fire plugs as I've seen real BSFC improvements on many cars from them. The plasma arc is very much thicker with them, better ignition.

Blower cars always need a trip to the dyno before you really get them dialed in. I've seen the lamest obscure thing mess up a blower tune, so don't think too bad of Amazon just yet. Call them, get an update and if you need to datalog, you need to datalog.