Day dreaming about a 4.0L in a Scorpio

[DPDISXR4Ti]

BTW, do the 2.9 Valve covers fit the 4.0?

I will check. I seem to recall reading somewhere that they are different.

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

I'll start a new thread in the project section. But don't count on anything right away. I mostly jumped on this because it was a great deal even without the roller rockers.

[Merkurfast]

Ive got a 1991 Ford Explorer wiring harness if you need one.

[DPDISXR4Ti]

Ive got a 1991 Ford Explorer wiring harness if you need one.

Thanks, I will keep that in mind. In the mean time, don't throw it out!

[DPDISXR4Ti]

BTW, do the 2.9 Valve covers fit the 4.0?

Yep, no problem at all. I'm not sure what the goal of the re-shaping of the valve cover was. The bolt pattern is obviously the same. I suppose the 4L cover provides a little more room to R&R fuel injectors, but that doesn't seem worthy enough. The 4L over does take a conventional screw-on cap and the neck has a fitting for a breather.

Just looking at this again now, I should have taken similar view shots of the heads (with valve covers off) to show if the sealing contour of the head changed. I'll add that here at some point, but my impression was that the 2.9 cover would seal the top of the 4.0 head just fine.

Cologne4-VC1.JPG (1018.43 KiB) Viewed 3956 times

Cologne4-VC2.JPG (1.04 MiB) Viewed 3956 times

Cologne4-VC3.JPG (1.05 MiB) Viewed 3956 times

[DPDISXR4Ti]

You can see here that the contour of the sealing surface of the heads indeed matches the covers. You can probably get by using the wrong cover, but it's probably best to used the matching one.

Cologne 2.9 head - '89 Scorpio

Cologne29-89Scorpio.JPG (1012.92 KiB) Viewed 3950 times

Cologne 4.0 head - '98TM casting as originally found on '98+ engines

Cologne40-98TMhead.JPG (1.02 MiB) Viewed 3950 times

[DPDISXR4Ti]

There's a guy in the UK (Simon Stephens), who has put a supercharged 4L OHC Cologne in a Sierra.

Cologne4OHCinSierra.jpg (343.56 KiB) Viewed 2965 times

The lower intake was turned 180 degrees and then a custom upper was fabricated. With the distributor no longer in the way it's a brilliant idea as the overhead clearance problem otherwise exists towards the front of the engine. This approach would seem to work just as well with the OHV engine in a Scorpio.

[Ed Lijewski]

Sacrificed a/c compressor?

YMMV

[DPDISXR4Ti]

Sacrificed a/c compressor?

This car was built for the track so I'm sure retaining the A/C was never a consideration. I think I'd be inclined to move the battery to the rear and put the air filter there. By having the TB rear-facing it just opens up a whole new batch of configurations I hadn't considered.

[brokencase]

I think you mean he rotated the upper intake. Rotating the lower is not required to get rid of the distributor on the 4.0. Nor is it required to place the intake inlet to the rear. The later 4.0's had no distributor.

I had a SOHC in my old SportTrac. Not a big fan of the crazy timing chain arrangement on that motor.

IMHO, If your are supercharging then you don't need the extra complexity of the SOHC.

[DPDISXR4Ti]

I think you mean he rotated the upper intake. Rotating the lower is not required to get rid of the distributor on the 4.0. Nor is it required to place the intake inlet to the rear. The later 4.0's had no distributor.

I had a SOHC in my old SportTrac. Not a big fan of the crazy timing chain arrangement on that motor.

IMHO, If your are supercharging then you don't need the extra complexity of the SOHC.

This was Simon's response to my query....

Simon Stephens
Author The lower part of the inlet manifold was turned round 180 degrees then a custom plenum made.

I didn't make my comment about the distributor clear enough I guess. Indeed the 4.0 has no distributor from the factory. As a result, it opens up the viability of fabricating a rear-facing intake such as what Simon did. In fact, initially it was a N/A engine and he ran an air filter in the former battery box area.

And I agree re: the SOHC 4L. If sticking with the Cologne V6, I would stay old-school (reliable) OHV whether N/A or pressurized.

[zxr250cc]

Hi all,

Over the last decade or so I have seen at least a dozen 3.9 L V8 Lincoln LS cars sitting on side lots in the Midwest until the tires went flat then they finally vanished. I had heard they were expensive to fix. With the comments in here I understand how they wound up junk as folks would not spend the money to fix them when the chain tensioners or cam chains popped or just needed to be changed out. I agree with the idea that it is a bad design idea. I wonder if it was designed to fail about 150K to get folks to buy a new car?

Perhaps I am too cynical...

Cheers

[DPDISXR4Ti]

Over the last decade or so I have seen at least a dozen 3.9 L V8 Lincoln LS.... With the comments in here I understand how they wound up junk as folks would not spend the money to fix them when the chain tensioners or cam chains popped or just needed to be changed out. I agree with the idea that it is a bad design idea.

Huh? You do realize the 3.9 V8 used in the LS has absolutely nothing in common with the Cologne 4.0 V6, yes?

[zxr250cc]

Hi all,

Yes, I was just commenting on the many I had seen that looked good but were junked. Deemed too expensive to fix. Having taken in that motor from Jaguar was good and bad, it seems.

I think we live in a throw away society now and we are the anomalies who want to maintain something long term. Electronics, cars, small yard equipment and most anything else that had repair capability in the past are all junk bin items now.

Just thinking out loud...

https://cararac.com/blog/ford-3-9-v8-pr ... tions.html

Cheers

[brokencase]

Well, if the they have a timing arrangement the same as the SOHC V6 it is bad enough.

You have to pull the whole engine to do the timing chains...and special tools are required. $$$

If it comes to this then one is inclined to swap out to a re-manufactured motor. About $3k from rockauto shipped to my house.

But if at 120K, if opting for the remanufactured motor then one asks oneself "What if the transmission fails soon after?"

This is the situation I found myself in. I had 16 years in the SportTrac, so one day driving past the Ford truck dealer I saw the new Ranger and pulled the trigger. I got a good trade-in.

Of course, I suspect I will be swapping out the turbo at around 120k on the Ranger! OR I will be forced out of my fossil burning Ranger and get some sort of gov't handout to buy an electric vehicle. OR the world will just come to an end.

I still miss the SportTrac. I like the form factor of it, just the right size. Seated four comfortably. I liked the polymer bed. I had Rancho adjustable shocks. I had found a bed cap on Craigslist for $100, which was really nice. I applied POR-15 on the undercarriage to stop/prevent rust on the chassis. I had finally found a nice set of tires for it. If the dealer took care of the timing chains and resold it then somebody got a good deal.