Learn me: Taurus SHO

Surely someone here knows a thing or two about these beasties.  Specifically a 93 automatic with the 3.2.  Looking at one, cheap, for a banger rally type build.   Overall car seems appropriate, needs paint, but nice interior, blah blah.  Runs and drives...but....engine is bogging under acceleration.  Haven't gone to see it in person yet but the seller has been pretty straightforward so far.  His diagnostic attempts have been pretty basic, said he smoke checked for intake leaks, a common issue.  Did new plugs, fuel pump and fuel filter, no change.  Quick internet searching says possibly a cam position sensor.  Anyone with knowledge on these things know of anything else to check?   Overall upside is it's pretty dang cheap.  And it comes with a spare motor with supposedly only 77k on it.  

In tangentially related news I did see an older Festiva for sale in town for cheap the other day ;)

I had a 92 manual 3.0, so I can't help with the engine issue. I just wanted to say, if I recall correctly, the previous gen SHO had a bigger rear sway bar.  I swapped one into mine, and it made the handling a lot more lively. 

Lots of replacement parts for those engines (crank position sensor, cam position sensor, etc) are NLA. Good luck finding useable old ones.

Good thing is, they make really nice mancave art:

In reply to earlybroncoguy1 :

Cam position sensor is available at my local FLAPs.  Car comes with a full spare motor I can cannibalize if needed.  General consensus from the SHO groups I talked to today is vacuum leak so it may be an easy fix.  Wont get to check it out until next friday so it may not even still be there.

In reply to JThw8 :

Make extra sure that it's the sensor for the SHO engine and not the pushrod engine.  A lot of parts catalogs get screwy for low volume vehicles.

Try to find an exhaust system for an AWD Quantum.  FLAPS catalogs say they exist, because they don't differentiate between FWD and AWD since they made so few AWD vehicles.

Friend had one with the 3.0 and manual back in highschool. 

If the 3.2 is anything like the 3.0 the rod bearings are maintenance item and they love to leak oil. 

I have trouble thinking of a more beautiful looking engine than the SHO engine. I want one just to look at it.

CyberEric said:

I have trouble thinking of a more beautiful looking engine than the SHO engine. I want one just to look at it.

Im partial to the Alfa 164 but the SHO is a close 2nd

A friend of mine who used to be really into these cars basically gave up due to unavailability of cam timing chain guides (the one that links the two cams together on a single head).  All the junkyard ones are worn out and you can't get new ones.

Perhaps 3d printing has helped this?  I dunno, this was a few years ago before that was really a thing.

Not to hijack, but I have a spare SHO upper intake manifold if anyone really wants one as garage art, etc.

Far be it from ANYONE on this board to enable or encourage the purchase of a 30-year-old orphan vehicle (I mean, it goes without saying, right?), but these guys at SHOSource say they have crank and cam position sensors in stock. (No affiliation, and no knowledge beyond the website.)

Local car lot has a much later model sho police car version for sale. I have no need for it but I want it.  
 

All versions of the SHO I think were good looking cars.  

Agree that the engine was one of the best looking around and even if the output was modest (a couple of hundred bhp or so). The V8 version that came after it looked similar but not quite as good.

This is a similar more modern engine used in the Nissan GTR - wonder if the designers had seen an SHO engine?

wspohn said:

Agree that the engine was one of the best looking around and even if the output was modest (a couple of hundred bhp or so).

Pretty hot stuff for a V6 back in the day

The 3.0 SHO made 220 hp when the 5.0 V8 was making 225. Agreed, impressive for its time.

I'd rather look at the SHO engine than the Alfa engine, I like the snakes in a basket look. But that Alfa unit is up there. The rest of the Alfa is better looking though.

I have a weird thing for SHOs, I even like the second, or maybe it was third gen with the V8.

I drove a couple of automatics when I worked at a car dealership that sold them. They seemed all right. However my dad bought a 92 with the five-speed after I brought it home for an overnight. He loved the car. He bought it with about 6,000 miles on it and sold it to me when it had 120,000 miles on it. He replaced the brake pads shocks and struts and I believe the power antenna motor aside from that it was dead nuts reliable. I bought it and had to make it better so I put solid aluminum subframe mounts on it and new suspension I can't remember what type and drove it for about 25,000 miles before it needed a clutch. I would buy another one it was a very good car

In reply to JThw8 :

Just be aware that a lot of parts databases don't know the difference between the real, actual DOHC SHO 3.0 V6, and the regular old 3.0 V6. Crank position sensors for the SHO V6 were unique, they were a maintenance item, but the source dried up a couple of years ago, good luck finding the right one. Even a useable old one.

Spark plug wires? Unique.

Timing chains (inside the heads, between the double cams)? Timing belts (external, from the crank to the cam sprockets)? Water pumps? Thermostats? Thermostat housings? Head gaskets? Head bolts? Valve cover gaskets?

Yeah, those, and many others, unique to that engine. There was actually quite a few parts different between the 3.0 (early, manual car) and the 3.2 (later, automatic cars).   

Will said:

The 3.0 SHO made 220 hp when the 5.0 V8 was making 225. Agreed, impressive for its time.

Allegedly it was supposed to make a lot more power, and rev significantly higher, as it was designed to be a super-engine for the Scorpio.  Ford of Germany turned the project down, so they stuffed it in the Taurus instead after neutering it.

Seems a little fishy but some things line up, like the horribly restrictive exhaust system, and the way the original cars had laughably undersized clutches, almost as if the car was created by parts-bin at the last minute.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I heard those rumors, too, even the one that the biggest problem for the engine is the alternator speed.  And that a handful of mods could make 300hp.  Not sure if I ever believed them.  And it was really curious for an engine to be for a pretty specific car that 2 different post models came out for the Taurus.  BTW, the super car that I had saw it intended for was a mid engine car- which was axed for the original Explorer.  (again, no idea if what I was told was true or not).  

My first real "test car" was a 3.2 auto as we developed electronic throttle.  Cool car.  Fun to really change how it drove with the pedal to throttle transition.

An elderly neighbor had one from new and had all sorts of problems with it. I recall him ranting about the terrible automatic transmission and it being a common problem. Interesting that no one in this thread has mentioned anything about it. Maybe he got a lemon.

In reply to kb58 :

The automatic was different from the one used with the Vulcan engine.

I still remember it vividly.... they had to wait until the next generation chassis, because to make a strong enough auto, they had to move the engine forward and down a bit, which meant chassis changes, etc.  It's the same beefier trans as used with the transverse 4.6 in the Continentals.  I've forgotten all the TLAs now, but I remember working on them all when they were new.

Say, remember when Ford was putting DOHC 4.6l V8s in front drive cars?  It wasn't just Cadillac doing that.

I think this was the last generation before Ford started pulling timing a lot during a shift, which was all you could really do pre-drive by wire.   Transmission life went up dramatically once they realized they could make smooth shifts with engine management instead of just sleeeeazing the trans into the next gear.

I used to race a 93 SHO in Lemons. The only engine issues we ever had were related to the crank position sensor hall magnets coming undone, and the car would misfire pretty badly. Unfortunately for our 2013 race at Road America, we couldn't get the sensor off without removing the engine.

One of the engine mounts is a big rubber isolator to the subframe that can come unbonded and let the engine flop around.

The front suspension is mcpherson strut with lower control arms and radius rods. The rubber wears out and then things get wonky. Might want to look at those if you buy it.

For endurance racing, it was ok. The car is pretty heavy and never handled all that well, but the engine was enough to make up for it. We spent years trying to keep brakes on the thing before biting the bullet and doing a cobra conversion. Even with the 96 and up conversion we would get the fronts so hot that we had to change basically the whole corner of the car every 8 hours. The heat would melt the caliper seals, cook the grease out of the wheel bearings killing them, along with the tie rod ends, ball joints. Going to the aluminum 2 piston cobra brakes (from Sho Source) solved all of that.

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

In reply to kb58 :

The automatic was different from the one used with the Vulcan engine.

  It's the same beefier trans as used with the transverse 4.6 in the Continentals. 

Does this mean if I run out of bad ideas I can put a Continental 4.6 in a jelly bean Taurus?

In reply to Will :

Or a SHO engine in a 3.0 Ranger.