They're supposed to be a great motor, make good power, are lightweight and can be found cheaply. Yet when one does an internet search it seems that the enthusiast community pretty well yawns at them. I'm thinking of one as a transplant candidate - megasquirt et cetera.
Any thoughts from those more in-the-know than I?
Are these the 3.5L and 3.7L engines used by Ford?
If so,we have the 3.5 in our Explorer and it boots a pretty heavy vehicle along quite nicely. 290 Hp from 3.5L
That's the one. It made Ward's top 10 best engine list, and has very similar specs to Nissan's VQ series engines. I rented a Mustang with one and thought that it comported itself quite nicely. It isn't on Kennedy's adapter list yet....
Crank wheel is Ford Standard 36-1. Forget what the camwheels are.
The only thing about them is the majority of them are transverse, and the water pump is on the left head hanging over the transmission, so not very RWD-swappable.
There's not much enthusiast community because every car these came in weighed pretty well north of 4000 lbs. That being said, the Duratec 35 in my Mom's Lincoln MKX pulled strong and problem free for 70,000 miles until she sold it.
Nothing much to add other than that the Duratec 35 in my wife's Taurus has given us 99k trouble-free miles so far and pulls pretty hard in a big wagonish thing.
Anyhow, I bet you get more useful info here than your thread on CC.... 
You need Alfadriver in here.
I think the biggest item on these modern engines is that you have to electronically "trick" them into thinking they are in the right chassis or they won't run.
Knurled wrote: The only thing about them is the majority of them are transverse, and the water pump is on the left head hanging over the transmission, so not very RWD-swappable.
Didn't they come in the F-150 and Mustang? Those would be 2 hugely popular rwd layouts, and it's probably seen as the least attractive engine choice in both cases too, which means they should be cheap, and easy to find.
Knurled wrote: Crank wheel is Ford Standard 36-1. Forget what the camwheels are. The only thing about them is the majority of them are transverse, and the water pump is on the left head hanging over the transmission, so not very RWD-swappable.
The early non VCT engines are just one lobe cams signals, but the VCT has 4+1 teeth to control the VCT.
I like them a lot, but not for reasons many here really care about. But I think Knurled's point about the RWD swappability is something to consider. Besides the Mustangs, the other source for V6's would be F150's- as it's the base of the base engine. I think the change to that happened somewhere around 2010, or just before that.
The simpler the engine, the easier it is to use an aftermarket controller. At the moment, don't even bother with a DIY solution to direct injection. But with the VCT features on many other engines, matching them up to work should not be too difficult- other than the electronic throttle. And that would be finding a correct sized cable throttle and idle air motors.
Good, solid engines. (and great emissions)
Ok, so no DIY direct injection controller. And it wouldn't make much sense to put a more typical fuel injection system over the top.
Off to Ford's parts website and they have this for the 3.5 Ecoboost w/manual trans: http://fordperformanceracingparts.com/parts/part_details.asp?PartKeyField=25296
Just a cool $2300 MSRP; I wonder what you'd pay at the dealership.
A quick check on Car-part and a 2013 F150 3.5 Ecoboost is going for around $3300. Another lookup for a 2013 Mustang's 3.7 6 speed is about $800.
$6400 and still need a flywheel and clutch.
In reply to iadr:
Yes, Mazda's 3.5 and 3.7 are the Ford engines. (as are the recent earlier 3.0l V6's, the last significant Mazda V6 was the 2.5)
In reply to RossD:
Or just turbo the 3.7l from the Mustang.
In reply to alfadriver:
Would that Ford control pack be able to manage if you threw the turbo stuff on the naturally aspirated 3.7?
In reply to RossD:
No, the calibration is limited to the NA range.
There were some tuners that were putting a turbo package together for the Mustang V6, but I have no idea how that worked out.
For an RWD engine swap- I don't think the original controller would be that easy to use, anyway.
RossD wrote: In reply to alfadriver: Would that Ford control pack be able to manage if you threw the turbo stuff on the naturally aspirated 3.7?
Could you just use a Mustang PCM, and then buy a $400 aftermarket tuner with custom tunes(SCT is common for OBDII Fords) to accomodate the boost and delete unnecessary functions and sensor inputs? If possible, it would be much cheaper than other options.
In reply to STM317:
Which Mustang controller does V6 DI? I'm not aware of one.
alfadriver wrote: In reply to STM317: Which Mustang controller does V6 DI? I'm not aware of one.
I was thinking one of the newer Mustang 3.7's had gotten direct injection. My mistake (I'll edit that from my previous post). But that makes the answer about boosting a 3.7 even easier. No fancy control pack needed. It's just a tune as far as software is concerned.
In reply to STM317:
I didn't realize that either. I'm always learning ...
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