Can Anyone Out There Tell Me How To Tell The Difference In A 4.6 Romeo, And A 4.6 Windsor. Just Say That U Didnt Have The Truck To Get A Vin, No Sticker On The Valve Cover, How Would U Tell The Difference. I Work At A Salvage Yard And We Shipped A Motor In And My Cust. Is Convinced That We Got Him The Wrong One, Anyone???

 

I know the romeo and the windsor have different amount of flywheel bolts... like 5 and 6 or somthing... im not sure how many each has but there only one off..

 

This should be pretty easy:

The Windsor is a 5.0 or 5.8 liter engine, no 4.6 windsor to my knowledge. It is a pushrod overhead valve V-8. They can be found in 1996 and prior F-150s, and 1997 and prior F-250/F350. The 4.6 Romeo is an overhead cam v-8, which came in the new body style F-150's in 1997, and the new F250/350 in 1998. The easiest physical difference is the spark plug location. In the windsor the plugs are on the lower side of the valve covers, right between the exhaust manifold runners. You can physically see the spark plug hex. On the Romeo 4.6, they are on top, next to the fuel injectors. The romeo uses long spark plug boots, and the plugs are completely concealed with the boots in place. Also, the Romeo has plastic valve covers with a rounded protrusion at the front to cover the overhead cam sprockets. And the alternator sits right on top center of the motor, the late windsors have them on the passenger side. These engines are totally different, there is zero interchangeability.

 

Yea, they made a windsor 4.6... its the most common. Im not exactly sure the physical differences, but the engine code for the windsor is a 6 in the vin, the romeo is a w.... there are some guys in here that can tell ya though.

 

romeo flywheel has 6 bolts, the windsors had 8

 

I know for sure I saw it on my 97 F150 4.6 windsor that there is a W on the drivers side of the block toward the rear of the motor.

 

Yes, the Windsor plant now makes 4.6L and 5.4L engines. Like mentioned above, Romeo has 6 flywheel bolts and the Windsor has 8. There are also some differences in the valvetrain as well.
And don't forget, 99-up is a PI engine with different heads and intake manifold than the 97-98.

 

Outside of calibration issues with the ECM, the only way that 4.6 Romeo wouldn't swap for a 4.6 Windsor is the 6 vs 8 bolts at the flywheel. How many bolts does the valve cover have? 11 or 14. Car designated Romeos have 11. All Windsors (and I'll have to check this) and the truck Romeos should have 14.

-Kerry

 

Actually This entire answer is incorrect. They do make a 4.6L Windsor AND a 4.6L Romeo. The Windsor uses an 8 bolt crankshaft and flywheel, where the Romeo uses a standard 6 bolt configuration. Also the cross-supports for the Main caps is different.
I have a Romeo 4.6L in a '97 F-150 and it DOES NOT have plastic valve covers, and unlike other 4.6L versions, it also has an aluminum intake manifold instead of plastic.

 

it had plastic valve covers from the factory

and all the NPI motors had aluminum intake manifolds

 

Your knowledge is very limited. Ford made many more 4.6L Modular Windsor engines than they made Romeo engines.

I do not know the differences, however.

 

- they use the same camshafts
- same exhaust and intake manifold bolt patterns / gaskets
- different valve/cam covers
-different head to timing cover bolts