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Freshly Painted CSVT - It's not mine

Good find man, its fun buying a car and tracking down the history of it on CEG.

Ive replaced a lot of 2.5L engines with 3L because they blew up, I think it greatly depends on the owner operator.
 
TGO said:
Nice color. Though, another reason I never cared for a 3L swap. At least on this board...the failure rate negates any benefits.
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Yep. I remember pointing out a few years ago that the 3Ls would also have spun bearing problems because they used the same connecting rods as the 2.5L. A lot of people dumped on me for saying that. Here we are a few years later and just by reading about all the 3Ls spinning bearings since then, my claim has been proven true.
 
mrspindlelegs said:
"3Ls would also have spun bearing problems because they used the same connecting rods as the 2.5L."
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you are ignoring the longer stroke and lower RPM's of the 3L?
True the sintered powder rods are pure crap, they never had any business being in the 2.5
 
DesertDawg said:
you are ignoring the longer stroke and lower RPM's of the 3L?
True the sintered powder rods are pure crap, they never had any business being in the 2.5
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The 3.0L is bigger bore but has the same stroke as the 2.5L. The Duratec 3.0L definitely ran at lower rpms when put in the Taurus/Sable/Escape/Lincoln LS/Jaquar because those were all automatic transmission cars. When the CDW27 crowd started putting these in manual transmission cars and beating on them (pushing higher revs and putting the engine through faster rates of change in rpms), the connecting rod Achilles heel revealed itself once again. Early on, it was tougher to see the pattern due to the mistakes made with hybrid builds and FI applications.

If you want a 3.0L to last, upgrade the connecting rods regardless of the application being NA vs FI. Also upgrade the transaxle (keyed shift tower & stronger differential). It does cost a bit up front but will pay off in much fewer catastrophic failures requiring 2nd and even 3rd engine replacements down the road. It's the adage at work here: You can have "cheap and fast", "fast and last", but you can't have "cheap and last." At least it is true for the Duratec V6s.
 
IDK what it is. I just know that a lot of the "famous" 3L builds here have •••• the bed at some point. Maybe it is the rods...maybe it is the people doing the work. I remember this car...that kid put a lot of work in to it. Sucks to see it sell for $700. But then again I can't think of anyone in NJ I'd trust to put together a 3L motor for me. Unless he did it himself which explains a lot.

That said I can only think of a handful of 3L's that stood the test of time here.
 
Here is how she was picked up.












And how she looks right now, 2 days later.















Plan on driving in to work one day this week to get it up on the lift and replace the rod bearings. Also need to figure out why they stuck the one wheel with a good tire in the truck and put the spare on.
 
Looks like a good start to what will be a really nice ride when the motor is fixed.
 
Also, on the discussion of the popped 3L engines, it almost didn't matter if the motor was a stock 3L ported, hybrid, full, BUILT, etc, so many of them went bad. I think 90% of the owners were so concerned with making it fast but not reliable.

I could give 2-•••••s if it's fast, I just want it to get A-B, stop, go, and look good while doing it. Maybe that's why mine is still OK for now :shrug:.


I have over 30k miles and 5+ years on my ported 3L in eggplant. I know it's under fueled and I have raced it with no catastrophic engine failure (auto-x and VIR). I'm not saying mine will last forever either, shoot, mine could be the next to fail.
 
great find!! looks great, looking forward to reading up on the progress of getting her back on the road again!!
 
95_Mystique said:
Plan on driving in to work one day this week to get it up on the lift and replace the rod bearings. Also need to figure out why they stuck the one wheel with a good tire in the truck and put the spare on.
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Is that gonna last?

blu_fuz said:
Also, on the discussion of the popped 3L engines, it almost didn't matter if the motor was a stock 3L ported, hybrid, full, BUILT, etc, so many of them went bad. I think 90% of the owners were so concerned with making it fast but not reliable.

I could give 2-•••••s if it's fast, I just want it to get A-B, stop, go, and look good while doing it. Maybe that's why mine is still OK for now :shrug:.


I have over 30k miles and 5+ years on my ported 3L in eggplant. I know it's under fueled and I have raced it with no catastrophic engine failure (auto-x and VIR). I'm not saying mine will last forever either, shoot, mine could be the next to fail.
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I haven't done any official research..but it seems to me the hybrids, like this car here, seem to be the most prone to having issues. If you just take a 3L out of a Taurus or something I wouldn't say that makes it any less reliable.
 
I agree, it seemed more to be the hybrid builds in the beginning that never made it :-/
 
As long as there isn't any kind of scoring on the crank, it should be fine. The knock is VERY minor at this time. Much less worse than my hybrid when it went. This car, btw is a portmatched car, not a hybrid.

My hybrid, which wasn't built by me, was bound to fail with me behind the wheel. I beat the piss out of the car, and expect something to break sooner or later. I think I've beaten this 2.5 way worse than I did with my 3L, and it has yet to go, and has more than double the mileage of the 3L. I don't exactly do it for reliability, it'd done for power. Sure, the hybrid i'll be building will follow the same setup as my last one, which will be an Escape bottom end, 02 Cougar heads (had the oil passages that line up with the 3L block), but will have a fully balanced bottom end with better bearings. Sure, it'll fail at some point in time. Just part of the game.

If my daily driver breaks, its no big deal. I just walk to work if I have to. I live less than a mile from my work
 
95_Mystique said:
As long as there isn't any kind of scoring on the crank, it should be fine. The knock is VERY minor at this time. Much less worse than my hybrid when it went. This car, btw is a portmatched car, not a hybrid.

My hybrid, which wasn't built by me, was bound to fail with me behind the wheel. I beat the piss out of the car, and expect something to break sooner or later. I think I've beaten this 2.5 way worse than I did with my 3L, and it has yet to go, and has more than double the mileage of the 3L. I don't exactly do it for reliability, it'd done for power. Sure, the hybrid i'll be building will follow the same setup as my last one, which will be an Escape bottom end, 02 Cougar heads (had the oil passages that line up with the 3L block), but will have a fully balanced bottom end with better bearings. Sure, it'll fail at some point in time. Just part of the game.

If my daily driver breaks, its no big deal. I just walk to work if I have to. I live less than a mile from my work
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Even if the crank isn't scored, the problem with spinning bearings lies in the connecting rods. The inner diameter of the rod journal end has expanded such that it can no longer hold the bearing in place. The metal tabs on the bearings are not what holds the bearing in place, it is the compression of the inner diameter surface against the outer bearing wall.
 
I am aware of that, and plan on taking measurements when I have it all apart. I can almost bet it was more of an oil starvation problem that caused the wearing of the bearing, and not an actual spun bearing. If it comes down to it, I will replace the motor. That's just maint. work for me. Not a big deal.
 
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