I am looking for feedback. I am thinking about installing the suspension, engine and tranny from a 2000 Mustang GT into a 48 Ford F1.

 

Engine and tranny shouldn't be very hard...suspension will be the hard part because you would need to fabricate strut towers or fabricate upper control arms and convert it to shock/spring or coilovers on the front end...the rear shouldn't be that difficult if you know how to do the link setup they have.

As long as you have the donor car the engine and tranny should be relatively easy since you can take all necessary computer/electronic stuff off of it.

Go for it though, sounds like a sweet idea.

 

You should search the threads, this type of swap has come up many times. Bottom line, sure, you can do anything, but a 4.6 isn't a torque motor and big torque is what it takes to move a truck with the frontal area of a barn. You are also looking at major frame reconstruction to get that tranny into a '48, the center crossmember isn't designed for a trans to pass over it. (Is it a 5-sp or a AOD?)

 

48, I believe I spoke to you on the phone several months ago when you were looking to sell the stock drive train in your truck. You live in the Monument area, right? I agree with the previous posts, the mcpherson strut needs an upper mount which would be difficult to fab, but the rear would be doable. There are better options for front suspension. There is a great thread in this forum about front suspension alternatives on our trucks, perhaps someone else could post the link. Unfortunatly, most modern vehicles aren't good IFS donors due to FWD and/or struts, so we all tend to use the same stuff, mostly from older cars. MII is popular, Volare is easy and cheap. We spoke about Corvette, but there's some expense involved. I chose a Jaguar, which is easy and cheap. AFA the tranny crossmember for a modern tranny, my cross member had been cut out when I got my truck, but I don't think it would have worked with my t5 trans. I fabbed my own. You're welcome to contact me and take a look at my truck. Front and rear suspension are in, and a mock up engine and tranny are installed. -Rusty

 

Here is link to articles https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/idx/10/0/

 

Thanks to all the replys

 

There is a 40 Ford truck locally that has the engine/trans from a late model Mustang in it as well as the instruement cluster. If it will go into a 40 it will danged sure go into a 48. I think this guy had the work done, it was by no mean a low budget project.

Hope your fab skills are good
Bobby

 

Welcome to FTE!

Like they said, "anything CAN be done." To install the 4.6 with the T5, or the AOD, will require you to remove your inner fender wells (the 4.6 is a pretty wide motor) and install a different crossmember to mount the tranny to. There was an article in CCT last fall (I think) that put a T5 into a 49. You have to change the tranny cover, and the shifter comes up right against the stock seat, so you either have to cut a center section out of it, or put in buckets. So far as the suspension swap goes, that's a lot of fabrication, and there are probably cheaper (in time and money) ways to get a high quality IFS with all the modern conveniences. Just make sure that you've got a good sense of the ripple effect changing one thing can have, and you're prepared for it.

Best of luck!

 

Here are some pics of a cobra engine in an earlier Ford truck, they are from the Rods at Ruidoso show last year:







Note he used the cluster to make it easier for the ECU and other electronics to work, to me the electronics will be the hardest part, you will either need a stand alone box or try and use the factory box and take a lot of the factory sensors with it. Also KarKraft is now producing 5.4L's with carb'd intakes, not sure if they have 4.6's yet.

 

I'd like to borrow the shoe horn he used to put that together!