Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications 3.0L Duratec Thinking of building a 3L

Hey everyone, this is my first post so please be kind. anyway ive been reading the site for about a month now and i love it so when i got my 98 tour lx or se??? whatever, i got all the information i needed. Now, more to the point. The car has 90000km on it and is in great shape. still has like 15 months left on the feta gard platinum warranty so this car should be good to me for at least that. in the meantime while my car is covered id like to slowly build a 3l hybrid, upon expiration i plan on dumping in the 3L in. my concern is this, The whole reason for purchasing this car was to have a reliable fun to drive car. sShould i put the 3l engine in would that compromise that too much. i have read the forums and have decided that if my readings are correct, i will use the 2.5 heads and keep it NA. i dont want to go crazy with power but if this "hybrid" engine is just as reliable as teh 2.5 but more powerful im in for sure. One concern that iu havnt been able to addresse is what about the computer, tranny, and all teh little things like i heard you need new injectors,intake etc..... where can you aquire this stuff? one more thing, if i have the hybrid 3l in the car is ford able to service it without scratching thier heads and bending me over for some custom labour....sorry for the 2000 page novel but any information anyone can provide would help me greatly. thanks a lot everyone

dude,
break up the post, people will read it, if they see a big block of text in a paragraph, eyes glaze over. Like this. . .

So, contact buckshot77 for your 3L hybrid questions. He'll prep and get you up on everything. Reliability is excellent, power is significantly more, especially since you have a non-SVT, though an SVT TB, UIM/LIM would be a good idea (look at spmotorsports.com for those, I think that's all on sale too).

Good luck with your project!

yeah reliability is very good with the 3L....anyhow I would suggest maybe doing work to the transmission as well. Terry Haines can do that for you as well as the 3L, so can buckshot.

3L hybrid is the way to go.

Find a used SVT TB and send it to rick for optomizing or else follow how to listed and DIY

Pick up SVT UIM, and then decide whether or not you will use the 2.5L LIM or the 3L.

First and foremost, if you ever plan on having a Ford service department work on your car after you do the 3L, you had better be very good friends with your service tech.

Most dealerships would have trouble even understanding the what & why behind installing a hybrid engine, and most likely even more trouble understanding a problem that isn't directly out of the Service Manual (which doesn't exist for a 3L hybrid).

Not to say there isn't a Ford dealer out there that is capable of working on it, but you are no more or less likely to have good results with a non-dealership mechanic. And an independant shop will almost definitely charge a lower labor rate than a dealership.

You'd also better understand what you are getting yourself into. Driving a car with any type of non-factory installed engine can and will be an effort in troubleshooting and symptom analysis. What you are doing is getting a variety of systems that were never meant to work together by Ford Motor Company, and make them work together.

Ask anyone who has a 3L, and they can rattle off a significant list of "My car was doing this, it turned out to be this, I fixed it by doing this" stories. Or "I should have done this when I built the motor, so I have to go do it now" stories. Most of them are minor little knick-knack things. Some are major show stoppers. I can think of two people off the top of my head that have had to remove their engine because of problems they've encountered.

I'm not trying to scare you off, but I want to make sure you understand the risk/reward ratio for doing something like this will vary from person to person. I've been lucky: I'm not making as much power as some other people with a 3L but I'm getting great reliability out of the motor, so my project has met most of my goals so far. Daily driver: CHECK. Sub-15 second 1/4 mile: CHECK (heh, barely, I want to improve on that). 200 FWHP: ??? (might be, haven't been to a dyno in over a year).

In my case, my choices were limited, as I was dealing with a blown engine. IMHO, no sense in throwing away a perfectly good engine, especially when there are power making options that can be used with your current engine (S/C, T/C, nitrous). Unless you are looking for a challenge and/or have money to burn.

But keep in mind: Every single 3L is a custom job, so nobody can predict what sort of problems you will run into, if any at all. But really, if a major concern is having a dealership work on it, I'd say just go out and buy a 100hp nitrous kit instead.