Learn me: Taurus SHO

Will said:

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?

That would be a very bad bad idea since there's no way it will fit.  The Continental is a much larger car.  The SHO engines barely fit.

RossD said:

In reply to Will :

Or a SHO engine in a 3.0 Ranger.

Or in the middle of a Festiva.  

Well crazy swaps are a fun daydream...Since the Aston Martin V12 was based off of the V6 Duratec, it should bolt up to a Contour transaxle right? Put that in the back of a Focus.

But I digress.

Realistically, the later 3.0l Duratec is probably a more available engine to do this with.  Not much down on power from the base SHO, but the engine was produced in such numbers that you should be able to find a ton of them out there for engine swaps.  Can even get a manual from a few cars (mostly Mazdas, I think).  Or even a 3.0 RWD manual from a Lincoln.  

Just miss the whole Yamaha thing, which is a cool thing, indeed.

alfadriver said:

Will said:

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?

That would be a very bad bad idea since there's no way it will fit.  The Continental is a much larger car.  The SHO engines barely fit.

Oh, it didn't really fit the Continential, either.   Obviously it DID, but they were miserable bastards to do any service work on at all.

For all of the things Ford used to do at the time for ease of assembly, I am shocked that the 4.6 Continental ever made it past the idea stage.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I think it's worse when you go back and think of what the Continental was just prior to that- just the 3,0l Vulcan moving a car bigger than it's Taurus cousin.  It should have been the perfect fit for the premium SHO motor, but instead of that, they jumped to the 4.6 4V.  In an engine bay that only really fit the 60deg V8 from Yamaha.  

But my parents got one, and really enjoyed it.  It was detuned enough to not stress the car a lot.  Then again, it was detuned enough to be the Yamaha motor.

That motor was really interesting with it's "economic" effect on the Taurus- when US engineers could not even add a washer to hold the radiator on better with their powertrain changes, Yamaha was allowed to almost change the entire radiator support for a really small volume engine- let alone the whole powertrain.  It's kind a relief that it turned out to be such a legendary motor afterall.  

Continentals had the 3.8, if they ever had the 3.0 I never saw it.  The Sable could have the 3.0 or 3.8.

Head gasket failure on the 3.8 was a given.  We didn't even bother checking the heads for warpage, they were always good.  It was always the right side head, IIRC at the front cylinder.  (Forget now if this was cylinder 1 or cylinder 4)  I wonder if they didn't have a problem on the assembly line where the bolt in that location didn't get torqued.

What is weird is I never saw the head gasket issue on longitudinal cars, it was only the transverse.  And the problems stopped with the SPI engine.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Oh, yea, forgot that motor.  Still, the Yamaha was a nice premium over that, and would have made the Conti a lot more sporty car- an image that was attempted a few times for Lincoln.  For such a great motor, it's odd to me that it never showed up in a Lincoln.  Especially once the auto showed up- more torque, auto trans- perfect for the Continental.