Day dreaming about a 4.0L in a Scorpio

[DPDISXR4Ti]

Clipped from the Ranger Station, I think this applies to a 4L swap into a Scorpio as well, but to less of an extent. With the way the Ranger/Explorer engine harness is integrated into the body harness, it will be unavoidable to cut and splice when putting a Ranger 4.0L harness into a Scorpio. But getting a donor harness from a vehicle where the PCM also lives in the passenger footwell can only help.

"The harness you REALLY want is from a 1990-92 Ranger

Second choice is a 1991-92 Explorer.
(Complexity)

Third choice (more complexity) is a 1993 Explorer harness

on your vehicle you do not want and really cannot use
a 1993-94 Ranger harness.

They completely re-arrainged the engine bay on the rangers for 1993.
The computer lives on the drivers side of the firewall, the battery is moved to the drivers side... it makes it an impossibly ugly job"

[brokencase]

One thing I notice...you could find it a hard time finding a decent donor. Even 92 Rangers are getting hard to find (at least near me).

However in my case, finding a spare 2.9L engine near me to play the 3.5L stroker game is darn near impossible.

Right after I bought my current Scorpio there was a Scorpio engine up on Craigslist near me that was going for $25. Should have grabbed it...

[DPDISXR4Ti]

One thing I notice...you could find it a hard time finding a decent donor. Even 92 Rangers are getting hard to find (at least near me).

However in my case, finding a spare 2.9L engine near me to play the 3.5L stroker game is darn near impossible.

Right after I bought my current Scorpio there was a Scorpio engine up on Craigslist near me that was going for $25. Should have grabbed it...

The early 90's Rangers are indeed becoming somewhat rare in the junkyards due to their age, but they're not yet in the "unobtanium" class (as Merkurs have become).

I may have a 2.9 for you at some point.

[DPDISXR4Ti]

One strike against the 4L is the fact that coolant flow through the intake manifold seems to be unavoidable....

"the coolant flows from the heads into the front of the intake manifold to the water pump (through the thermostat). It's like the flow paths of the Windsor v8."

Perhaps it's not that big a deal but you can read countless cases of intake manifold gasket failures on this engine, both internally and externally. An improved gasket seems to be the remedy.

[DPDISXR4Ti]

One strike against the 4L is the fact that coolant flow through the intake manifold seems to be unavoidable....

I guess I should have studied the 2.9 that's already in the engine bay a little better and realized that the 2.9 already has coolant flowing through it, so it's no more or less of an issue with the 4.0 OHV engine. And it seems the 4.0's that have had an issue with intake manifold gasket failures are the plastic manifold OHC intakes, not the AL OHV intakes.

Acquiring a '95 Aerostar 4L engine will be a challenge. I had an opportunity to get a whole '95 Aerostar with a running 4L for $1000, but that got grabbed up quickly. I'm not sure I really wanted a whole van carcass to deal with any way. I just don't think the extra boss on the Aerostar block (vs. the Ranger) may be worth chasing after.

I wonder if I could still run the Scorpio front end accessories on the 4.0 block? I'd need to adapt the EDIS pick-up at the crank, but I've seen that done before so it should be do-able. I just don't know if the 4L crank pulley is a harmonic balancer and thus balanced to the crankshaft.

[brokencase]

I don't think the front covers are swappable. So you may have some issues with mounting points associated with the front cover.

Don't think there is a harmonic balancer issue... I haven't heard it mentioned in any of the cases where the 4.0 crank is swapped into the 2.9L

[DPDISXR4Ti]

I don't think the front covers are swappable. So you may have some issues with mounting points associated with the front cover.

The 4L block is taller, so I bet you're right that the front cover and bracket mounting points are different.

[DPDISXR4Ti]

(from page 2)
Driver's side compared...

2.9L... Notice the two holes on the side of the block towards the rear. I think those are used for the Scorpio motor mounts.
2.9_drivers_side.jpg

4.0L... Those holes are missing on the 4.0 block. Note larger exhaust ports...are you sure you want to put the already restrictive 2.9L exhaust manifolds on the 4.0?
40_drivers_side.jpg

I guess you could make a 1/4" steel plate that attaches the front holes and offset presents the rear holes for the Scorpio motor mount to attach to.

Here's a good shot of a '94 Ranger engine driver side with the Ranger bracket still attached. An alternative to what you've described ^^ could be using the Ranger bracket with some sort of horizontal plate that reaches back to the mounting location on the Scorpio.

Cologne40-94Ranger.jpg (127.18 KiB) Viewed 4357 times

In short, there's a couple ways to skin this cat, so it's probably not worth hunting down the much more rare Aerostar engine just for the one additional mounting location.

[brokencase]

Yep. You definitely will have to fabricate something. So it probably doesn't matter so much what you start with.

[dimswits]

What transmission are you contemplating anyway?

I plan to leave the T-9 in there.

*whistling noise*

I have personally seen the T9 ripped to shreds by a 2.9. The 4.0 OHV has 32% more peak torque...

[DPDISXR4Ti]

You may recognize this engine (hint, look a couple posts above)....

Cologne4Scranton-3.JPG (71.66 KiB) Viewed 4327 times

Cologne4Scranton-4.JPG (82.33 KiB) Viewed 4327 times

[DPDISXR4Ti]

And look what I found when I took one of the covers off tonight...

Cologne4Scranton-1.JPG (1.07 MiB) Viewed 4327 times

Perhaps here's the bad news. It's got 98TM6090AD heads, but apparently he ran this engine on a stock '94 Ranger tune. These heads should have required less ignition advance.

Cologne4Scranton-2.JPG (965.08 KiB) Viewed 4327 times

I'll have to tear the thing down to see what I've got. Given that I got the whole engine for $125, I could throw the whole thing away less the roller rockers and still come out ahead! Should make for an interesting adventure.

[brokencase]

They don't look like the Tom Morana rockers (http://www.moranav6racing.com). Wonder where they came from...
BTW, do the 2.9 Valve covers fit the 4.0?


So this is the official start of the 4.0L swap?

[andyofcolumbusmerkur]

It's cool that you use the "truck" for truck things. And you don't need another vehicle for those special tasks.

[DPDISXR4Ti]

Did some digging and here's what I must have, including the 98TM heads. I cut and pasted this from a couple 20 year-old threads....

September 20, 2001
Hello, I run a set of 4.0 roller tip rockers. They are 1.6 ratio, stock ratio is a 1.46, and they are made of Billet aluminum. They also come with a lifetime warrenty against defects in workmanship and material. They have a Roller tip and a broze bushing. They work with the stock rocker shaft. Now for the best thing of all, they are also ADJUSTABLE!!! So there's no guessing game when it comes to pushrod length for that new cam. They will work fine with your stock cam or performance cam. The Rocker's reduced my engine temperture by 10 degrees under normal driving conditions and improved throttle responce greatly. They increase lift by .030 and give your cam 40 degree's more duration. They are very nice peice but they do come at a price $374.99. I'll try to post a picture of them or a link to one. Im not too sure how this forum works with pictures!! If your interested then please email me.. Dstuddard904@aol.com Thanks Doug904.

P.S. I also can offer you a dual spring with retainers set up if your worried about this but its not nessecary to run with these rockers. I do recommend them with a larger cam. I do alot of aftermarket performance mods to the OHV 4.0 and I have alot of information for the not so faint of heart dealing with internal mods and cylinder heads. You can get alot of power from the 4.0 but it comes with a price, its not as bad as you think but its up there. Im currently building a web site that will detail alot of my experiences with my 4.0 and some others I've delt with. So far the best tuning I've done to a friends 4.0 Splash ended up with a 12.90 1/4 mile time. I'm working on my new enigne this year and hope to do alot better!! i've done everything from dual springs to polishing the rods. Blueprinting and balancing everything!! So feel free to ask any questions you like and to just drop me an email with your mods, I love to talk 4.0's and like to meet new peolpe!!
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I have them made by "Probe Industries" a very well known manufactorer of high performance race products. There is another company that sells these same rockers but they sell them at a higher price then I do. Im not in it for the money I just love the 4.0 performance idea and the look on a unsuspecting 5.0 owner when I fly by him.

1) Yes they can be used with your stock rocker shafts. They acuatally come seperate and have to be assembled on your shafts. For a small extra I will assemble them on hte shafts for you and all I ask in return is that you send me your stock shafts so that I can have them for the next set. IF you liek I will return your stock rockers.

2) Yes they accept stock pushrod ends. These were designed to be a direct bolt on. There isn't any modifaction nessesary to install them on your 4.0.

3) I run the stock size vavle in my cylinder heads. The heads aren't really large enough to run an oversize vavle and it just isn't practical to do this. WHat I do run are the 98TM casting cylinder heads due to there better intake runner and round exhaust runner which equals to better flow numbers. You need to port the exhaust, really just kinda clean and smooth it, but it will yeild greatly increased flow numbers over the stock D-shaped exhaust. Something to remember if you wanna run 95 or newer heads on a pre-95. The combustion chamber is 10cc smaller so this will increase your compression ratio to 10:1 rather then 9:1 giving more performance but if your running a supercharger or nitrous this isn't always what your looking for.