IT'S THE CIRCLE, THE CIRCLE OF LIIIIIIFE!

Ok, let me get you back up to speed on Grace's state of affairs. It's been a while, so I'll forgive you if you've forgotten. Right before we moved to Michigan, I took her in to a shop to be dyno tuned. She did great, making 350 HP and 380 lb/ft before she ran out of fuel pump. The engine started to run lean at about 5000 RPM, so the tuner shut it down. I was hoping to get that issue fixed and get back on the dyno and see if I could touch 400 HP, but before I could I blew a head gasket. At that point I had to just get it back together so it could get on a truck to be shipped to Michigan. I got it back together with a new gasket, but it still burned coolant. I've been through this before, and last time it was a split cylinder wall, so I suspected that again. I didn't really get a chance to verify it.

In the interim I had a lot of time to think about this project and if it was what I wanted it to be. As you may remember, I battled some vibration issues, and several attempts to fix it were not completely successful. It got better every time, but it still ended up being a pretty uncomfortable place to be due to noise and vibration. I've come to the conclusion that this engine, being a 4-cylinder without balance shafts, is just not a good match for this chassis. Good luck to anyone else doing this swap, but knowing what I know now, I'd go a different route. V8, I6, even 4-cylinder with balance shafts like a Duratec or Ecotec, but not the old 2.3 tractor engine. Additionally, this engine has not been terribly reliable for me. In fact, I'd probably say that it has been terribly unreliable for me. I put some pretty good parts into this setup so I knew that if I parted it out I could probably fund a swap to a different engine.

Well, last Friday I listed up the parts on the TurboFord website and Facebook group. A lot of stuff moved really fast. To keep my customers happy, on Friday night I borrowed an engine hoist and stand from my cousin and I tore right into it. Jen and the boy are out of town so I capitalized on my lack of other obligations and spent most of the day in the shop. I'm happy to report that thanks to the electric heater I did not freeze! Ok, it's picture time:

Workspace.

One last glamour shot of the engine bay.

Bye-bye turbo, I'm gonna miss you.

For reals though.

Up!

And away!!

Front view

Side view

Rear view

Things went pretty smoothly, it was a standard engine removal. It took a few hours as expected. Then as I tore the engine down, I took a few pics. These are some of the parts that are being sold off. As I said above, they are good parts, so I'm pretty happy with my PayPal account balance right now. I should be able to complete my new swap easily without dipping into my bank account. This was part of the deal I made with Jen, she (justifiably) wasn't terribly excited when I told her I wanted to change it up just after finishing the 2.3 swap.

Aluminum Flywheel

Adapter plate for 5.0 clutch on 2.3.

Adapter plate removed

Intake manifold measurements

Trigger wheel kit

Rods and Pistons

And here we see the root of the problem (I think). That boogery looking spot in the cylinder wall catches my fingernail slightly when I run it across. It's not a clearly visible crack like the last time I split a cylinder wall in one of these engines, but I'm pretty sure this is what's turning the oil milky and sending coolant into the exhaust.

I'll finish off with some serious nostalgia. I was looking through my google photo albums to see if I could find any old photos of the split cylinder wall. I could not, but I did come across a photo from over ten years ago of me and my cousin (the same one I just borrowed the engine hoist from) in college, swapping out a busted shortblock on this same stupid (there have been 5 different shortblocks...) engine when it was in the Ranger. Funny how these things come around full circle.

Me on the left with hair, my cousin Mark on the right