4.6 DOHC Swap into 96 Ranger
 

I have always been sort of unconventional and wanted to stand out when it came to my vehicles. So instead of going with the normal 302 swap, that most rangers get; I decided to go with a 32 valve mod motor.

Here's the truck before the swap.
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The power plant consisted of a worn out 3.0L that would overheat, after about 30 mins of driving. I didn't bother to track down the source of the overheating issue, as this swap had been in the works for sometime, and its never driven.

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From the ECU, I will then split off to the Lincoln engine harness and to the ranger body harness. Luckily ford uses basically the same pinouts and wire color combinations for their ECUS, so that was fairly straight forward; minus adding and subtracting a few wires.
Currently the wiring is on hold, as I finally got the engine back.

I pulled the motor from a warn out junkyard Mark VIII, as I was able to find one at my local u pull.
The engine refresh consisted of; refresh of the rods, crank and pistons, new rings, torque plate hone, decking and all ARP studs. The heads received stock Cobra cams and a 3 angle valve job. Machinist assembled the short block and heads.
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In case you were wondering what I am using for a transmission, I was able to track down a T-45 for $60. Only downside is it needs to be rebuilt. Oh well, onto the shoehorning.

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As I should have learned from the other few guys who have done this swap, ranger motor mounts need to be removed.
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The T-45 mounts the same way as the ranger transmission, but will not sit on the factory (my case a raised SD) crossmember.
So some changes will have to be made.

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I will update this as I continue to work on it. Right now I am just trying to figure out where to locate the motor and transmission mounts.
My biggest hangup is the factory steering box. After doing some research, I think I am going to go with a late 70s F150 steering box, as they are outside the frame and also have a forward facing pitman arm, like my ranger. So if anyone has an extra, let me know. Haha.

This looks very good. Reminds me of my old 86. Had a 351W under the hood :)
Always told myself we my boy gets older I would build another one.

Cool project!!:-X22 Do you plan to run a supercharger on it?

Thanks.
Possibly down the road. Its so easy to slap forced induction on these motors, but the cost is what would be holding me back.

Trucks tv has done pretty much this swap with a list of what was needed to make it all work.
I don't remember which they used , but a rack and pinion set up will work out much better for you .

They built their own front suspension system on their Mazda/Ranger.

Yea, I have seen the episodes. The ranger they used though had control arm suspension with rack and pinon, unlike my I-beams and steering box.
A rack and pinon set up wouldn't work on a i-beam suspension either, due to different arc travel lengths of the spindles and steering tie rods. Trust me, I wish it was that easy.

kudos to you for this project. The exhaust looks tricky. The steering column is stabbed on the inside of the frame rail along with the intermediate shaft and box. If you were to move the box on the out side, the spring and perch are in the way, not to mention the column is no where near the in line with the box. Would an intermediate shaft with u-joints make that type of extreme angle safely? Share with us lots of pics, be cause this is one awesome yet helluva swap.

Awesome project. I look forward to the progress

Thanks guys. I plan on keeping the progress pics flowing.

Made a little bit of progress this weekend.

Removed the factory steering box, and that made for so much more room.
Having removed that, I played around a little bit with placement; and landed with the perfect spot.
My driveline angle is now a good -3* allowing the transmission output shaft to be in the ideal position.
I moved the transmission mount forward 2.5" from the factory location.
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By havng a -3* angle, this should allow me to run the factory oil pan without any modification. Although it currently isnt mounted, here is the clearance.

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And since I removed the factory steering box, this allowed me to maintain the power steering pump; but I will still have to relocate the wateroutlet and oil filter.
I am now just in the market for the late 70s F150 4wd steering box, and I should have the steering issue somewhat in check. I am going to have to shorten the steering shaft coming through the firewall, add a u joint to jog around the head; then hopefully it should be a straight shot to the f150 steering box. Im just hoping the spring perch isnt in the way. Once I have the steering box situation figured out, I will then move on to fabbing up the motor mounts.

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My header clearance on the passenger side is going to be fun though. Luckily the driver side has plenty of room. I will be fabbing up my own headers and already have the flanges.

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Alright, made some more progress.
I received my F150 steering box, mocked it up and decided it is pretty much my best option; so I decided to move on.

The stock Mark VIII oil pan wasn't going to work with where I decided to mount the engine. I did some research, and a Mustang oil pan wouldnt have worked either. The mark pan is thinner (which I needed) and has a greater distance from the front to where the slope starts.
So I pulled out the paint marker, tape measure, angle grinder and went to work.

I basically made a 3" square on each side, connected the dots and went to cutting.

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And this is what I ended up with.
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It ended up clearing the I beam by about 1/8", when I lowered the motor back into place.
Went to the local metal supermarket, picked up some 18 gauge sheet metal and went to work.

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The notch has since been finished, and I will post of some more pics when I get the chance.

After the pan was taken care of, I started to tackle the motor mounts.
I started by trimming the factory Mark VIII block plates.

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Once I knew the block plates would work, I took some measurements; and tried to figure out if I could run bushings, instead of solid mounting it.
Ended up finding some bolt through engine mount cushions, from speedway motors (P/N 7209314) and figured I would give them a shot.

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Threw them on the block plates, and sure enough; they are gonna work!!
They do compress a decent amount, but I am unsure if I will keep the bottom bushing.

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Plus, I get should have some decent header clearance on the passenger side, which was a worry.
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Ended up cutting up some metal plate, and started on the lower engine mounts.

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Cut some wood to simulate the space of the bushings and went to making the mounts permanent.

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Just need to fab up the gussets, and I should be good to go.
Once the motor mounts are finished, the motor and transmission will be pulled back out, transmission will be rebuilt, oil pan will be leak checked and then everything goes back in for good.
After that will be addressing the steering situation, fabbing up some headers and fabbing up mounts for my new radiator and fan.

Awesome work.

So finally finished up my motor mounts and this is what I came up with.
I'll post pics of the bushing installed down the road, once the motor is back in for good.

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Next I decided to tackle the blower/AC box. I pretty much knew from the beginning I was going to axe the AC, which I was fine with. I thought about axing the blower too, but my girlfriend pretty much said she would never ride around with me. :redface: So I decided it best to mod the blower box, and not the girlfriend.

Here is the clearance issue.

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And after some careful dremeling.

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Then I went to town with some fiberglass.
Just stretched some fleece over the egdes, securred them with self tapping screws and went to "glassing".

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Here it is after an initial coat of resin.
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And then after a few layers of fiberglass cloth.

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I will eventually get to sanding and the finish work of it.

While the fiberglass was curing, I also set to work on extending the oil pick up tube. I had to extend it 1", due to the notch I made in the oil pan.

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I also seam sealed the welds on the oil pan. As soon as it dries, I plan on filling it up with water; leaving it over night and check for any leaks.
Once that is wrapped up, its onto rebuilding the transmission!!

Finally had a chance to tear into the transmission. It is a T-45, out of a 99 Vorteched Cobra. Got it for $60, due to the owner having a little too much fun and not wanting to have it rebuilt; as he swapped in a T-56.

From the pics you can see he pretty much destroyed the counter shaft gear along with the input shaft gear, other wise it is pretty sound.
The plan is to just replace both the input and cluster shafts with new bearings, and then new seals. Synchros seemed pretty good, and none of the other gears had any damage. Thank god for the "shavings" magnet. Haha.

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