Thread: Has anyone put a 4.6 Ford in a rod yet?

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Three years ago I helped a cohort put one in a '68 Bronco (converted to 2 wheel drive with a set of late model mustang struts)...Had a local Ford mod motor whiz do all the wiring.... We used a Milodon pan and a remote oil filter mount with -10 lines. For the exhaust, we had a local laser cut company cut out some flanges and built a set of long tube headers, 1 5/8" with a 3" collector. Been awhile, but if my (feeble) memory serves me correctly we used the stock steering box, relocated the column slightly, and a double universal joint (from Speedway).

Anyway, it worked out very well, other then burning up a couple of AOD trannies till he had one built. Last year he had the same shop that did the wiring add a Procharger to it, and is now doing some research on converting to the DOHC heads, or maybe the 3 valve. It's a bullet now, but I guess there's really no such thing as too much horsepower.

Should be a bit easier now, there's a lot more parts available for the engine and the swap has been done by enough folks that there's some good information out on the "how to" part of it... Sometime this winter I'll be getting back on a guy's '67 Mustang that is getting a full chassis and a supercharged 5.3 with a Tremec 5 speed....

Sounds like you're getting close on yours! Sure would be a shame to give up on it now and do some feeble I6.... No comparison in performance, operating efficiency, and good old eye candy appeal.......

Originally Posted by Dave Severson

Sounds like you're getting close on yours! Sure would be a shame to give up on it now and do some feeble I6.... No comparison in performance, operating efficiency, and good old eye candy appeal.......

Yep, I agree on these points, although...
I am well past my high horsepower days, I just want an engine to get me around, and not eat me out of house and home.
I have a .030 over 454 block, heads, crank and rods just gathering dust in the corner of the shop.
It was for my former Chevelle, just never got around to it.
The 4.6 was going to be just that, a good "small" efficient engine.
The P.O. told me it got 26 on the highway, and that was good enough for me.

Originally Posted by Mc39

Yep, I agree on these points, although...
I am well past my high horsepower days, I just want an engine to get me around, and not eat me out of house and home.
I have a .030 over 454 block, heads, crank and rods just gathering dust in the corner of the shop.
It was for my former Chevelle, just never got around to it.
The 4.6 was going to be just that, a good "small" efficient engine.
The P.O. told me it got 26 on the highway, and that was good enough for me.

I'd consider 26 mpg to be conservative...With the right gears and tune up it should do quite well on fuel and performance....best of both worlds.

When the 196 6cyl in my Rambler starts to give trouble, I'm going to replace it with a Ford V8 with EFI.. right now considering a crown vic 5.0L, but thinking about a 4.6 as a junkyard I go to sells engines for $129 each flat rate, and they have a couple rows of cars with both at any given time.. but I can only go 4.6 if the tape measure says I can ither way, mid 20's MPG is likely.. which is much better than the 19MPG that I get with the 196/ BW 3spd auto ( which is cousin to the Ford FMX trans )