So a few years back my then girlfriend and now fiance decided I needed to have something to wrench on. So we went on Craigslist and found us an 89 f150 ext cab short bed. It's ugly. Old roller paint job and funky stripes. But it's tons of fun. It's got a 4.9 straight 6 with a 5speed m5r2 transmission I believe, don't hold me to that last part. I could be a liar. Fast forward a cross country move and a few years it's had a great evolution until this point when we went to start it and it's just making horrible noises. So we decided for my birthday it's time for an engine swap. So now that we live in south Florida and junkyards are nothing like California junkyards, hurricanes might have a factor in that, we turned to eBay and bought a 5.8 351w from a 93 Broncos for 600 shipped.
Fast forward a few days and it arrived on a very sketchy pallet. Almost fell off of the back of the truck. Literally. So we decided to test the engine and performed a cylinder leakage test after removing the intake manifold and valve covers and found a lot of blow by from the rings, 60%. And found 90% coming from the valves on cylinders 1 4 6 and 8. So we made the decision to rebuild it and also contacted the seller of the engine and they generously gave me most of my money back for the engine having issues.
So I did some research and keep in mind this 351w will be a daily driver and I wanted to make this as much of a bolt in swap as I could. So now for the good stuff, I picked up the following:
88 f250 5.8 speed density ecu should plug in with no check engine light.
89 f150 5.8 harness.
V8 engine tower brackets from lmc truck
5.8 alternator.
5.8 engine accessory brackets.
5.8 fan and pulley
5.8 radiator
5.8 flywheel.
Now for the fun parts:
Cheap long tube headers 3.0 inch collectors
Speed way motors bullet race mufflers 3.0inch bought in a pair.
4ft 3.0inch exhaust pipe.
Crane cams 444232 cam and lifters.
Mahle piston rings with plasma moly coating.
Clevite tm77 p series rod and main bearings tri metal.
Speed pro cast flat top with valve relief pistons.
Arp head bolts.
Fel pro gasket set
Msd cap, rotor, plug wires, coil, plugs.
So we measured the motor and everything is pretty close and not really needing any machine work. So the plan it to clean it up and hone the cylinders. Clean up the heads, lap the valves replace any damaged ones. Also clean up the head ports and bowls.
I'll keep posting updates until it runs. I'll have it built this week/weekend and have it installed the weekend after it's built.
Here is some teaser pics:
Sent from my SM-J727T1 using Tapatalk
Fast forward a few days and it arrived on a very sketchy pallet. Almost fell off of the back of the truck. Literally. So we decided to test the engine and performed a cylinder leakage test after removing the intake manifold and valve covers and found a lot of blow by from the rings, 60%. And found 90% coming from the valves on cylinders 1 4 6 and 8. So we made the decision to rebuild it and also contacted the seller of the engine and they generously gave me most of my money back for the engine having issues.
So I did some research and keep in mind this 351w will be a daily driver and I wanted to make this as much of a bolt in swap as I could. So now for the good stuff, I picked up the following:
88 f250 5.8 speed density ecu should plug in with no check engine light.
89 f150 5.8 harness.
V8 engine tower brackets from lmc truck
5.8 alternator.
5.8 engine accessory brackets.
5.8 fan and pulley
5.8 radiator
5.8 flywheel.
Now for the fun parts:
Cheap long tube headers 3.0 inch collectors
Speed way motors bullet race mufflers 3.0inch bought in a pair.
4ft 3.0inch exhaust pipe.
Crane cams 444232 cam and lifters.
Mahle piston rings with plasma moly coating.
Clevite tm77 p series rod and main bearings tri metal.
Speed pro cast flat top with valve relief pistons.
Arp head bolts.
Fel pro gasket set
Msd cap, rotor, plug wires, coil, plugs.
So we measured the motor and everything is pretty close and not really needing any machine work. So the plan it to clean it up and hone the cylinders. Clean up the heads, lap the valves replace any damaged ones. Also clean up the head ports and bowls.
I'll keep posting updates until it runs. I'll have it built this week/weekend and have it installed the weekend after it's built.
Here is some teaser pics:
Sent from my SM-J727T1 using Tapatalk