The Tragic Tale of ElSuperPinto

Got me thinking of my old truck..... This is pretty much exactly what it was. Mine had the steel wheels with trim rings and was a solid, dark metallic brown. Loved that truck.....

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Back to ElSuperPinto...

It's super-slow in the shop today, so I decided to mock up the 4.6 with all its new junkyard-fresh parts... even with everything wearing a "patina" it's starting to really look like something.
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Sometimes Ford is a little... special.

You see, on the 4.6 DOHC in the Mark VIII, one of the exhaust manifolds incorporates about a foot of pipe and the catalytic converter all as one piece like so:
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This means every salvage yard out there cuts the converter off, leaving you with a manifold that looks like the one laying on the valve cover here:


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Well, not wanting to beat a piece of pipe into the right shape to match that odd end, and wanting a flange to bolt new pipe to for routing to the turbo, I did a bit of research and discovered that the 4.6 DOHC in the Continental (which is front-wheel-drive) used a cast iron manifold that hugs tight to the block and has a turnout that, while not perfect, will work for my purposes. I found one for the cheap-enough sum of $40 on Ebay, and ordered it.

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When it got here, there was a problem. It has a 2" exit.
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This is opposed to the exit on the other manifold, which is 2.5" at the flange:
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I think I'm going to take both off and measure them internally as best I can and see if the tubular manifold on the passenger side is really going to be that much less restrictive, and if I could possibly port the iron manifold to bring it closer. I plan on mounting the turbo on the passenger side, so maybe this will work out somehow. I don't know at this point... maybe I'll say screw the turbo, put the big Sullivan high-rise manifold on it with a carb, and make it look like an old-school big block in spite of its tiny internal displacement. It'll make all of the power of the current 302, but look and sound a lot better doing it.





Nah. I want that 500 or so horsepower... I've been playing with the idea of rear-mounting the turbo STS-style, it's not like there's not a lot of room right by the gas tank (there would be a heat shield) or where one of the mufflers currently resides, and it'd actually simplify everything but the oil plumbing (it'd need an electric pump to send the oil back to the oil pan).
 
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I think you are on the right way to measure/compare the cross-section of the manifolds. It doesn't need to be that bad if they are just a bit smaller. I also would compare it to the cross-section of the turbo flange.
Is there a big diffrence in HP numbers of the the two engines where the manifold comes from? If there is no diffrence, I think it is a sign - beside comparison of the cross-section - that you can use both.
I like the last monifold more, because it looks much more beefy...
 
I think you are on the right way to measure/compare the cross-section of the manifolds. It doesn't need to be that bad if they are just a bit smaller. I also would compare it to the cross-section of the turbo flange.
Is there a big diffrence in HP numbers of the the two engines where the manifold comes from? If there is no diffrence, I think it is a sign - beside comparison of the cross-section - that you can use both.
I like the last monifold more, because it looks much more beefy...
There was 20 horsepower difference in power output between the two versions of the engine, with slight differences between the intake manifolds in addition to the different exhaust manifolds. Maybe it won't matter.
 
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So... let's see what I have...

Lincoln Mark VIII long block, wiring harness and various other pieces
Lincoln Continental fuel rails, exhaust manifold, alternator, and coolant crossover
Lincoln Town Car ignition module
Lincoln Aviator valvecovers and coils

Still need a Lincoln Continental oil pan and pickup tube.

This thing's the next Hot Rod Lincoln...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=868DSi85odQ
 
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I like Commander Cody.
When you say Hot Rod Lincoln I think...

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I should've totally shoved a supercharger on my '75 Thunderbird (it shared most of it's components with that Lincoln you posted) and just kept it in spite of the $4.00/gallon gas of the time. :(
 
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Look at that pile of ...
frick n fracking EVIL!!
Here's the thing about R1234yf...

It's a fantastic refrigerant from a cooling standpoint. We're talking damned-near R12 good, and a damned sight better than R134a good. It also, aside from some slight differences, means that the 17+ years of experience I have working on R134a systems isn't going to waste because it operates at similar pressures in similar volumes and works in the same manner. On top of that, unlike R12 which was depleting the ozone layer and R134a which was worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, it simple breaks down into its basic molecules when released to atmosphere, harmlessly dispersing itself.

For all of those positives, it also has significant drawbacks. For one, it's flammable. Not propane (also a good refrigerant from a cooling standpoint) or gasoline flammable, but somewhere around the level of motor oil. On top of that, the heat from the flame breaks it down into some particularly nasty stuff that'll simply kill you if inhaled. Then there's the fact that it's apparently somewhat corrosive, meaning that Honda and GM dealerships are replacing a boatload of condensers and we at BMW are replacing evaporators and hard lines.
 
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When I say 1234yf cools, I mean it COOLS! This is at idle, not moving, in a heated shop almost immediately after startup. I've had 1234yf systems dip into the 30s on a 100 degree day with the car moving.

Too bad about all that other stuff. :doh:
 
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You seem like the guy to ask. Restarting my new ac changeover on my fox..ES12a seems pretty good after a lot of reading. Now you have me thinking 1234yf. Do you recommend ES12a. All new system. I had nothing but trouble with 134.
 
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You seem like the guy to ask. Restarting my new ac changeover on my fox..ES12a seems pretty good after a lot of reading. Now you have me thinking 1234yf. Do you recommend ES12a. All new system. I had nothing but trouble with 134.
Don't switch an non-R1234yf system over to it.

On top of it being mildly corrosive and mildly flammable and turning into toxic by-products if it catches fire, it's expensive as hell. The odds are your old R12 system wouldn't handle it, hell, systems from one of the beacons of reliability (Honda) aren't holding up to it in spite of being designed for it.

ES12a is just a blend of propane and butane, so it's more flammable than 1234, but it's going to cool as good as, if not better than R12. The big downsides are the flammability and the fact it's actually illegal: https://www.epa.gov/snap/unacceptable-substitute-refrigerants

134a in old R12 systems is a real crap shoot and depends almost 100% on getting ALL of the moisture out of the system and using Ester oil instead of trying to use PAG.
 
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