Early 944 Ford 5.0l conversion

I've been lurking in another thread since my conversion got underway 2 years ago. I just brought it home from the garage where we've been doing all the work and I figured now would be a good time to start my own thread in the Member Conversions forum.

All of the parts needed to do this conversion were either off-the-shelf parts for other cars, custom parts designed and made by us or a combination of the two. The part that took the longest was the box upper intake we needed so the engine would fit without bulging the hood or lowering the crossmember.

I have a bell housing from a '67 Ford Comet, a clutch disc for a Dodge truck, a throwout bearing from a 2011 Mustang GT500, a MAF from a 2005 Crown Vic, and the list goes on. The placement and height of the Ford distributor prompted me to run EDIS.

I know the Ford Windsor doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense for a swap, but I like things that are a bit unusual. The LSx has a lot more power potential, but I'm not going for ultimate power. The journey of putting this engine in the car was half of the reason for doing it, especially after a certain company whose initials are Renegade Hybrids told me it wasn't possible to do it.

I'll try to get around to posting some pictures of the process in this thread.

Here's a link to most of the pictures of the swap on my944 pictures on Google+. It's missing a couple and I want to go through and add descriptions, but most of it is there.

I went out last night and removed all the old crumbling foam from the underside of the hood and get a tach working. I'm using the IDM line from my ignition module for my tach signal, and it appears the VDO tachs won't take that signal. I ended up using that signal to drive a transistor to charge a relay coil to give me a flyback signal like what you'd get from the stock ignition coil. Unfortunately, I appear to have fried my stock tach, so I modified a 924 tach and put the face and needle from the 944 tach on it. I hope to go back to the 944 unit so I can try to get the cruise control working since the VSS runs through it.

The motor sounds great! Should be a very fun ride!

acorad wrote:The motor sounds great! Should be a very fun ride!

I think it sounds even better with the exhaust done. With the N/A gearing, it drones a bit at freeway speeds, but it sure sounds awesome idling and wide open.