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Researching 3L swap for my 98 CSVT

J

jangs

New CEG'er
Joined
Jul 2, 2011
Messages
6
Location
Central Missouri
I've got a 98 SVT with a seized motor. Just got married and hubby had price shock when we started looking into replacing it. He's pushing me to scrap my SVT, claiming that I can find a decent running car for the price that a motor would run me. I'm quite attached to my baby and the thought of crushing it kills me! He doesn't see what the big deal about it is though.

I was looking for engines online last night when I found this site. I'd never heard of the 3L swap, but I'm VERY interested at this point. I'm trying to research it as much as possible so I can be armed when I approach the subject with him. My big questions are:

What year/make/model can the new engine come from? I've got the earlier version of the 98 SVT. I know it's got to be a 3.0L Duratec, but when I enter my car's info on sites that search for engines, they only pull up the 2.5 L's. I understand why, but I don't know what I SHOULD search under to see what engines are available.

What all needs to be converted to pull this off? I'm not completely car illiterate, but I'm FAR from being a buff, so type slowly and use small words *grin*.

Finally, this isn't swap related, but I've notice a lot of you have the production # (not sure if that's what it is called or not) for your cars. Where can I find that? Just kinda seems like a fun fact.

Thanks!
 
Thank you so much for the link! I don't mind doing the research and learning...I'm just clueless and had no idea where to start. Most of what I know has come from having little money and no one to help, so I bought the manual and parts and went on my own. It's all been repair stuff, not modifying or upgrading. The engine swap requires a bit of reaching outside the box. I'm willing to do what is needed, but I'm really thankful that there is a place where I can go to look for answers too!
 
If your interested in having this completed it's relatively easy. You can have a 3L engine for about $400 with low miles from most scrap yards. Easiest thing for you to do would be what we call a hybrid swap. This is where you use the majority of the long block 3L Duratec engine with the intake plenums,fuel rail, SVT camshafts, and timing cover from your existing 2.5L Duratec and put on your new 3L Duratec engine. This allows you to pretty much 'bolt in' the new 3L engine into your existing engine bay with no modifications. The only thing you'll need to do is grind down reliefs in your passenger side motor mount to allow you to install it on the 3L without having to remove the heads and replace the expensive head gaskets. I'm leaving out quite a bit here but you can have this swap completed reasonably for about $800 or less if you guys put your own time and labor into it. Looks of good threads on here as well as NECO (www.newcougar.org). Good luck and let us know if you stubble across some questions you can't find answers to.

As for the engines and where to get them the most common are below...

01-04 Ford Taurus and Mecury Sable (make sure it is the DOHC 3.0L which is VIN 'S' I believe)
05-06 Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner DOHC 3.0L
 
Mike, what you described sounds to me like a port match setup, and the heads will have to be ported out to the 2.5 split port setup.

The easiest place to start is figure out which setup you want to do. research each of these to see what is required with each.

Port-Match: 3L long block, 3L heads, 2.5L almost everything else. Intake on heads must be ported to match the 2.5L intake manifolds

Full 3L: Complete 3L dropped in with a few parts from the 2.5L. Modification to the fuel rail must be done (this part can be purchased as a bolt on) and tune required

Hybrid swap: 3L long block, 2.5L heads plus everything else. Heads must be modified.

That is just a brief discription much more detail is involved but try searching each of those
 
and everyone is forgetting about the MPV engine swap, which is been shown to be a direct drop in, get a tune and drive off.
 
RAD Merc SVT said:
Mike, what you described sounds to me like a port match setup, and the heads will have to be ported out to the 2.5 split port setup.
Click to expand...

Yes your correct, I was thinking port match but typed hybrid. With the Bugzuki plates the port match is pretty easy... Link to Bugzuki plates or "3L Intake Injector Plate - Full Kit"

3IntakePlates.jpg
 
newb said:
and everyone is forgetting about the MPV engine swap, which is been shown to be a direct drop in, get a tune and drive off.
Click to expand...

With modification to the fuel rail on a return fuel system (like my car) it was a "drop in tune and go" I swapped my sensors out,the siting harness onto the mpv motor, the coolant pipe out, the injectors out and called it a day. I'm still not tuned yet but will get it tunned by august... good luck I have pics and video if u need check my build thread.
 
Before you get too deep into all this stuff, I recommend putting a few things up front, so the suggestions of the members here will fit your goals better.

Things to make note of would be:

1) Details of your current car, Build date may be nice to know due to some model year splits and fuel system differences.

2) Who's doing the work to replace the engine?

3) Budget?

4) Goals? (Faster? More reliable (3.0 heads fix the 2.5 oiling issues)? Purely being able to drive it again...)

Disregard if the above has been covered already.

If your looking for the simplest way to solve the issue, then you want a "Drop-in" motor, not the MPV engine, but a stock 2.5, or a 3.0 that is prep'ed by someone who knows what they are doing, like these guys as mentioned above: 3lduratec. I don't consider the MPV engine a 'true' drop-in because of small things like EGR, Tune, Vac. Lines, that need to be dealt with. The MPV engine could be prep'ed like all the others to be a drop-in. this engine is just a little bit more expensive, but a couple goodies come with it too.

If you have the capacity to do the swap yourself (tools, common sense, time, patience, motivation, work space, etc.), you can save some big bucks by getting an engine and reading the forums here and on NECO, then performing much of the work yourself. even if you can't actually do the swap, you can save money by prep'ing the engine, and bringing it to a shop, at that point, the shop doesn't have to know it's a 3.0, it'll swap in just like a 2.5….


If all the above makes little sense, maybe this will help: The 3.0 and the 2.5 are very similar in the core, but all the trimmings are very different, the 3.0 needs to be prepared with the 2.5 trimmings, along with some slight modification to be a "Drop-in". You can put a "Full" 3.0 in there, but that needs special attention, and additional tuning.
"core" = the block, "trimmings" = everything else, however, depending on which version 3.0 you get, those definitions will change

A note on tuning: I'd recommend it for all 3.0 swaps, but you can get away without one if you build the right engine. (search: port-matched)

Good Luck!
 
if you are looking for someone else to do the complete swap then there are several of us on here that do various type swaps, usually for a decent price. like myself, i do full 3L swaps. of course, you then have to get the car to whoever is performing the swap.
 
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