Greenbean - The 98GT - turbo 460 swap

I am attempting to mimic the stock belt routing and tensioner placement/function. Mine is a little more spread out, but I have coolant passages to work around. There will be an idler where the water pump would normally sit.

I welded a mounting tab on and drilled the holes for the tensioner. Then I welded a piece of steel across the center hole to mount the the center idler pulley and moved the power steering pump about 2" closer to the crankshaft.

Now I need to find an idler pulley mount that I can weld or bolt to the cross piece.

Lawnmower parts. Haha. I found steel pulley mounts from a lawnmower parts place. I could buy a pack of 10 for what 1 cost from an autoparts store.

Center idler mocked up. Belt routing looks good.

All pulleys and accessories on and mocked up. I have since replaced the center idler with one that has guided sides and have added 2" spacers to position the tensioner pulley.

I tossed the radiator, fan, coil packs, coolant tank and power steering reservoir in there to check the fit. The plate needed a little trimming and notching so the driver's side coil pack bracket/power steering reservoir mount would fit properly. I also chose a location for the electric water pump and began making a mount for it. It will be mounted under the driver's side frame rail.

Been looking at superchargers a lot lately. Not that I am putting one on straight away, but I don't want to paint myself into a corner. So far, a smaller blower like a TorqueStorm looks like it would work well. Their bracketry for a BBF might even work-ish with this setup.

Water pump mounting time. I took a piece of strap metal and fashioned a mount for the electric water pump. It mounts under the driver's side frame rail. The radiator outlet and the pump inlet are pretty much aligned. Just need a short piece of hose to connect them. For the outlet side, I will make a couple of adapters to connect some 3/4" hose.

I could have used a real remote mount electric pump, but I already had this one. The other consideration is the availability of a replacement should the need arise. Normal electric pumps are available everywhere, particularly the ones that fit SBC and BBC's. This one is for a BBF, but if I needed to replace it with one from a SBC, it would be real easy.

Chopped some aluminum water pump plates out and tapped them for some 45 degree 3/4" hose barbs. I tried to tap the motor plate, but was not successful. Those hose barbs will just be welded in place.

I grabbed some gaskets, scanned them and traced them in AutoCAD. The flanges will be used to adapt the 4.6L's throttle body plenum to the EFi 460's intake manifold. Each one has it's own unique bolt pattern. They will be connected using a short piece of 4" square tube to get the plenum up over the fuel rails.

The exhaust plates are basically the outline of a "regular" BBF exhaust gasket with the EFI 460 ports inside. This should seal the 1/4" or so mis-match at the top of the port when using my Hooker headers on these heads. I will send these outlines to my buddy Colby at Sinister Racecraft here in Amarillo and he will chop them out of some plate steel.

Good work BBR! Keep up the forward progress, and the new projects!

Transmissions are on my mind a lot lately. I have a C6 and an E4OD at my disposal. The C6 is the one that was in the yellow truck and it worked ok, but I drained the fluid and it was pretty darn dark. I never did ANYTHING to that trans when it was in the pickup. It worked, so I left it alone. It will definitely need to be rebuilt. I have not taken the pan off, but I figure it is full of clutch material. I considered rebuilding it myself, but am not convinced I know enough to undertake that adventure.

The E4OD is the one we were using in the yellow truck with the efi460. It worked fine once it had all the appropriate inputs and the Punisher valvebody. The converter made weird noises on decel, but I would probably replace it with a higher stall unit anyway. The drawback to using it is that it will require a standalone controller. I probably could use the efi460's EEC-IV to control the trans. Likewise, I might could use an automatic '98 GT ECM to control it and the engine, but I would like to keep their functions independent in the event I choose to change the engine management to a Megasquirt or some other aftermarket ECM.

The E4OD would allow me to run deeper rear gears and still be usable on the highway. It fit's the idea (the big block Mustang Ford should have built in 1998) behind this car better than the 3 speed automatic does. Converters are fairly expensive but less than the cost of getting the C6 rebuilt.

I have read about other guys putting the E4OD in fox chassis cars, so I am not worried about it not fitting the tunnel. The tunnel is huge in this car. The kicker will be whether my Hooker headers will clear the sides of the E4OD. I think they will, but I hop to answer that very soon. Maybe today even.

I popped the 460 off the stand and bolted it to the E4OD today to check header clearance with my Hooker Fox swap headers. They clear very very well. Actually a bit better than the C6 due to the location of the shift select lever. I also managed to dump a bunch of trans fluid on the floor. Nice.

Cam position sensors finally arrived. Supposedly I can take the shaft from the V6 one and put it in the SBF one, change the gear to a BBF gear and create a BBF cam position sensor. We will see. I have a plan B if this does not work as they say it should.

1 - 1996 5.0L Explorer cps 1 - 1999 4.2L F150 cps

About $30 ea from Rockauto.

Knock the roll pins out, swap the shafts, put a gear from an old 460 distributor on it, drill a new hole in the shaft for the thrust collar roll pin, you're done.

I didn't measure the diameter of the housings. I know the SBF one is a skosh smaller. I may look for a little fatter oring in my big box of orings to snug it up a little. Not really worried about it though.

Just measured the housings.

302 = 1.493"
Crusty 460 distributor = 1.525"

So basically there is 0.030" diff between the two I have. I might be less if I took the time to really clean the 460 distributor. Haha.

I put a #218 o-ring on it and it fits the block really nicely.

Lowering springs are in and I just finished doing the brakes.  Next is swapping the rack for one I have that doesn't leak. That will wrap up all the chassis stuff I have planned for this car.

Borrowed some '03 GT (my old ones from the Blue GT) wheels to I can move the car around. I kinda like the way they look.



I swapped tie rod ends being very careful to put the new ones on at the same length as the originals. I take step back, look, and it is pretty toed out!

Apparently the control arm pick-up points on the Fox k-member are slightly narrower left to right, narrowing the front track width a bit.

Car is on the ground and waiting to get a good engine bay pressure washing.



I ordered a converter for it. I did the "Make an Offer" thing on ebay for a new Boss Hog 2800-3200 converter (Part no. 24403) and saved $30 off asking price. I did not want to try to use the stock E4OD converter because I knew it would be way too tight for any sort of performance application. At $450, it is the most expensive item I have purchased for this car.

I also picked up a solenoid pack for the E4OD. They say if it has fluid in the connector, replace it. This one has had fluid in the connector since we've owned it. It worked ok I guess, but never had converter clutch lockup. It was $80

Total project cost update: $2154

The plan is to drain the fluid out of the E4, pop the pan off, mount it on an engine stand, flip it over, change the solenoid pack and maybe pull the valvebody and send it back to Punisher for a more aggressive calibration. He will do a calibration change for free, so I would just be out the cost of shipping.

I hung the E4 from the engine hoist and drilled a small hole in the pan to drain it. I let it hang there overnight and that got most all of the fluid out. I pulled the pan while it was hanging and was very happy with how clean it was. I didn't have an engine stand free, so I let it down on a piece of shop carpet and rolled it over upside down. I will just remove the solenoid pack and valve body with it sitting on the floor.

BigBlockRanger wrote:pull the valvebody and send it back to Punisher for a more aggressive calibration.  He will do a calibration change for free, so I would just be out the cost of shipping.

Paul is a great guy and his E4OD & 4R100 valve bodies are the best on the market!

Yes, we were very pleased with the shift quality when this trans was in the pickup. I just want it a little snappier for this car.

Well, just had a little shift in the project that I think will be awesome. I was cruising FB Marketplace and ran across an ad for a complete Mass-Flo efi setup for a 460. It is the older version (Ford A9L mass air EEC-IV based) but is a brand new, COMPLETE kit. Converted Torker II manifold, fuel rails, 30lb injectors, 1000 cfm 4bbl throttle body, wiring harness, ECU, Baumann Optishift E4OD controller, Mallory Comp 9000 distributor, Mallory Promaster e-coil, 80mm Pro-M MAF, air filter, and an aluminum throttle body hat.

This is a major win. I am probably most excited about the intake and the E4OD controller because these were two things that I really wanted, but felt were too expensive for the scope of this project. The added bonus is that the intake will allow me to use 'regular' 460 heads thereby making future upgrades a bit easier. The other added bonus is this setup is already calibrated for a 460 so it *should* be pretty much be plug and play with minimal fiddling required to make it run.

The drawback to this setup is that this ECU will not control everything the stock EEC-V ECU will. Namely the two-speed fuel pump and the two-speed electric fans. I will be exploring suitable work-arounds for these issues. The other issue is the alternator is currently occupying the same space as the distributor......

It's Christmas in June. Holy cow this stuff is nice. The parts chair couldn't hold it all. Haha.

Pleasant surprises:
1. The Optishift will allow me to use the cruise control buttons as paddle shifters.
2. The Mass-Flo harness has a relay board that can control the electric fan.

Very Nice are those ports on the Torker II Intake going to line up OK with the Truck Head Intake Ports?

Nope. I took a pic inside the Torker to show the intake runner mis-match from a standard intake to an efi head. Of particular note is the hole at the bottom corner that goes right into the lifter valley.

I mocked it all up on the efi 460 that was on the stand. And while it doesn't really have the "look" I was aiming for, I think it will perform better and have more headroom for upgrades. It is also fairly tall with the carb hat on. I was considering a cowl hood, but this may make one a necessity.

I would love to just bolt it all on and go. But I am leaning toward using an EDIS8 module rather than try to relocate the alternator. Any relocation would require a complete rethink of the serpentine belt stuff and I would like to avoid that!