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Mustang turbo 4 Engine


260DET

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Into a S30 or S130, auto or manual, I'm always thinking circuit racing so a four is good to get the weight back for 50/50 weight distribution or even some rear bias to help get the power down out of corners. Guess that the 4 would be lighter than the L6 too, lighter is good in these old flexy chassis and of course helps power to weight. Have not researched the power these 4's are making but I'm guessing 'sufficient'. Working on another race car at the moment but do have a nice 2+0 280ZX roller sitting there doing nothing;. Hmmmm.

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What got me thinking is the bigger capacity of the Ecoboost 4 compared with the usual 4, viability would basically depend on it's rev limit, weight and head flow capacity plus general serviceability. There is a lot of looking backwards in the engine swap world plus there is the always present LS challenge which is now the bench mark for engine swap choice? The only  LS downsides are lubrication and the ever present V8 exhaust challenge, with a 4 a proper extractor exhaust will easily fit in any reasonably sized car. Real extractor exhausts for the LS don't exist unless pipes are run from one bank to the other. One engine bay for the motor another for the headers LOL.

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The turbo is bolted directly to the head on that EcoBoost motor, so that's going to make exhaust pretty simple I think. It might also make upgrading the turbo more difficult. Not sure what kind of power you are after, Richard, but here's a vid where they did intake/exhaust/tune on a Mustang and gained 113 hp and 96 ft/lbs: 

 

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These motors also have a helluva lot better transmission options than most swaps. The T56 is great, don't get me wrong, but it's a heavy beast. Garrett has stepped up to offer bolt on turbo upgrades, and others will follow. As this is now the definiove "base" mustang engine, they'll be in wreaking yards everywhere with parts gallore. 350whp is common in mustang circles with basic bolt ons and a tune, which is as much as you'd be looking at for most typical budget LS builds. 500+hp is certainly doable, but factory rods start to be a concern. Seems Ford likes making rods the weak point these days. I haven't figured out why yet, but it's more than a coincidence.

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It sounds like a great conversion, particularly in the US where you have lots of Mustangs with a fair percentage of them ending up in wrecking yards well before the term of their natural life. Aftermarket con rods should not be a problem? OE forged crank is a big plus. If I was starting now this would a serious drivetrain contender.

Edited by 260DET
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37 minutes ago, 260DET said:

It sounds like a great conversion, particularly in the US where you have lots of Mustangs with a fair percentage of them ending up in wrecking yards well before the term of their natural life. Aftermarket con rods should not be a problem? OE forged crank is a big plus. If I was starting now this would a serious drivetrain contender.

Yeah, aftermarket rods are certainly already a thing, hence why there's already 9 second ecoboost mustangs. ;-)

 

And yes, we're fortunate. A quick glace at ONE national wrecker, there's 11 2015+ ecoboost mustangs with manuals up for auction:

https://www.copart.com/vehicleFinderSearch/?displayStr=Ford,MUSTANG,[2015 TO 2020]&from=%2FvehicleFinder%2F&searchStr={"MISC":["%23MakeCode:FORD OR %23MakeDesc:Ford","%23LotModel:MUSTANG","%23VehicleTypeCode:VEHTYPE_V","%23LotYear:[2015 TO 2020]"],"sortByZip":false,"buyerEnteredZip":null}&searchCriteria={"query":["MUSTANG"],"filter":{"ENGN":["engine:\"2.3L 4\""],"MISC":["%23MakeCode:FORD OR %23MakeDesc:Ford","%23VehicleTypeCode:VEHTYPE_V","%23LotYear:[2015 TO 2020]"],"TMTP":["transmission_type:\"MANUAL\""]},"sort":["auction_date_type desc","auction_date_utc asc"],"watchListOnly":false,"searchName":"","freeFormSearch":false}

 

Of course there's also the ebay sources of wreckers pulling engines and shipping them, but then you're likely going to need to source a harness+ECU and who knows what else is missing. Most of those are also currently sans transmission. Those seem to be selling around 2-3k which means a running engine + trans is certainly attainable under 5k, which isn't far off from what SR20's are going for these days...

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An aftermarket ECU and a general purpose loom would be one way, they have drive by wire, VVT and so on pretty well sorted these days and are particularly suitable for turbo engines. The problem with this sort of new swap is that most want the knowledge of others who have done it before, hey, pioneering is fun providing the time line is flexible.

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My one concern with going standalone with these engines, and swapping in general is that they're direct injection. Not sure how difficult it would be to retrofit an existing fuel system for DI usage and try to tune with an alternate ECU.

 

EDIT: And also, this is a thing:

https://performanceparts.ford.com/part/M-6017-23T

 

I don't think you'll get a DBW standalone + Harness + Throttle Pedal + misc parts that kid comes with for less money. You'd still be left needing the capability to tune it, but it's hard to ignore the plug in and go allure of something like that kit.

Edited by Gollum
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Fuel shouldn’t be much different than regular as the high pressure pump is in the engine. Just a standard return style fuel system feeding will work. Oe is returnless,  but this can be adjusted in the tune. 

 

Other concern is is the security of the oe ecu. Has what’s called PATS. Won’t start without key signal which usually interfaces  with the stock cluster. So you’d need Custer as well if you want to retain a working ecu. 

We put a 5.0 coyote into a friends 79 Volvo. For the 2014 model we were able to ship the ecu to a guy at hp tuners and have him delete the pats. Old models you could delete it in the tune, but new ones require a physical advancded mod/programming of the ecu. Alternatively you could try and load a performance pack firmware which has no security, but they don’t run nearly as well as oe code. 

 

I looked at the engine as an option, but the sound of the I6 swayed me. 

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That Ford Performance kit looks the go, in my book that sort of equipment is essential if available, problems in that engine control area can cost heaps to diagnose and fix let alone the frustration and trying to find someone who can do it. Time is better spent on building the race car.

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On 1/4/2019 at 8:52 AM, Gollum said:

Yeah, PATS can be disabled. Some engine wreckers even offer that as a service when you buy an engine from them. The ford performance kit I linked wouldn't have that issue.

It’s iust a cost thing. If you have access to the parts car, the oem harness is pretty complete. Also the service manual for ford is very good and easy to read. I figured out which wires needed power or ignition power fairly in a few hours. PATS removal was $250 sent to Eric at HP tuners. 

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