long story short i blew my 4.0, not entirely sure how bad the internals are. on to the pictures




so at first I figured might as well swap in the 5.0, I had wanted to, but not until I had the truck paid off, but things don't always go as planned. Then I a friend found me an '04 explorer, with low miles, with the 4.0 sohc for $500. told him I was stubborn and if I had to pull a motor out, and put one back in, I didn't want to put a 4.0 back in. So i looked and looked and looked for a running expo/mounty with a 5.0 and without outrageous miles on it. found one for a bit more than I was looking to spend, but with barely over 100,000 miles. By the time i got together the money for it, the guy had already sold it. Then my same friend found me another explorer with a 4.0, something like 60,000 miles, guy was asking $400 for the motor, decided to go and buy it, but yet again was already sold by the time i got there. Then I got in touch with a friend of a friend that buys cars from salvage auctions. He got me a 99 mountaineer with 134,000 miles, and of course a 5.0. Truck was from the north so theres a bit of rust here and there, it does however have awd, leather interior, all the goodies.

Plans for motor work are as follows
intake
full exhaust (torque monster headers when money permits)
trick flow stage one cam
port and polish
and if money permits forged pistons and direct port nitrous (150 shot to start)
and if I do run nitrous ill definitely run a chip/programmer, most likely Sct Xcal 3

I do plan to take apart, and rebuild the motor top to bottom, if I'm gonna do the swap, might as well do it right.

now with this swap there are a couple of things I know are going to be a problem, some maybe more so than others, any input is greatly appreciated, I'll definitely need the help with this one.
gauge cluster
PATS
VSS (will be using the mountaineer engine, transmission, and rear end if that helps)
Keeping 4wd using a Borg Warner 4406 (i think)
Any other wiring problems to look out for since I have a 2004?
Any other possible problems?

On to what progress pics I have
transmission out

engine on its way out



and finally out

 

good luck with the swap...to the best of my knowledge nobody has attempted it on an 04 before

 

I think Bob might chime in on this thread.

He can write out instructions on a 5.0 swap in Chinese while standing on his head.

 

X2 ... You're going where no other 04+ Ranger owner has gone before. But I'd say it can be done if you're going with custom gauges or a 2003 or older cluster.

Btw ... how many RPMs did you take your 4.0 SOHC to? I've seen a lot of them taken up to some high RPMs and they never blew up.

 

How'd you blow that thing up? a 04+ swap sounds like fun.

 

shouldnt be too bad, just integrate both wiring harnesses and use the mountianeer gauges? or all aftermarket gauges.

 

X2.....how many miles were on the clock?

 

Sad to say about 89,000 miles on the clock. Was something wrong with the engine, wouldn't go over 60 without sputtering, was gonna stop and check it out when I got to where I was going, truck never made it. Was reveing between 5500 and 6500 if I recall correctly, which is about how i treat the truck regularly. As for the gauges I'll probably try to make the 04 cluster work, and if I can't figure it out, I'll just use the mountaineer gauges. Hope to have some more progress pics after the weekend. Working full time and going to school full time doesn't leave much spare time.
If/when bob chimes in, is it absolutely necessary to use a custom rear drive shaft? I've read the Explorer guys being able to use one from a 4x4 expedition with the 2wd/4wd transfer case.

 

Pm him

His username is rwenzing