Water pumps are in issue especially with the older models, your water pump will go eventually (it's made with a plastic impeller for gosh sakes) unless your lucky and someone ahead of you has replaced it with a metal impellered wp.
Make sure you replace the plugs, don't trust the 100k mark that the manufacturer suggests. Just make sure you don't use bosch, it's best to go with motorcraft ones.
There are numerous othere little issues that pop up with any older car, at least with the MTX you'll have less spendy issues with teh tranny. (ie the atx cd4e is horribly expensive to fix!!)
Swapping engines is tough as it is a horizantly opposed engine but not too tough if you know what you're doing. Have fun the mtx duratech is one of the sweetest sounding engines out there and is a blast to drive. (I do miss mine even though ti was a atx.)
