4.6 to 5.4 Swap

[TheWeiser1]

What seems to be a spun rod bearing in my 2000 GT has encouraged me to perform a engine swap.

I am looking at VT Stage II cams for the 5.4 and an SCT chip tuned by a local dyno shop. The car currently has 3.73 gears and other than that its completely stock.

Opinions and/or suggestions welcome. Also you can check out pics of the project and a video of my engine with the spun rod bearing.

http://www.mustangaddiction.com/pics.htm?shawn/shawn.html

My 4.6 to 5.4 Intake adapter plates just arrived and the pics are posted!

 

[billfisher]

you need to know a few things.

1. 2v 5.4 without a blower will lose to any 4.6 with the same WHP.
2. you can make ~300 rwhp/360rwtq with a maxxed out 5.4 2v N/A. (330 rwhp with a 4.62v)

3. in the words of almighty Al Papito(ask him yourself @ boss3300racing.com)

quote" the words 'performance' and 5.4 2v do not belong in the same sentence"

4. with custom work 5.4 3v or 5.4 4v murders 2v. stock 5.4 3v potential is 467hp, and 4v is 600rwhp.

follow the advice of knowlegable people in here.

blow the 4.6 and forget 5.4.


unless you are an engineer.

 

[TheWeiser1]

Thanks for the advice.

I am not looking for much more than 300hp and 350 tq. Not wanting to spend a ton of money and for the price of putting another relatively stock 4.6 it only seems like a good idea to go with a 5.4. I'm not looking for 400hp + just something moderate.

 

[r3dn3ck]

5.4 2v's are putting down anywhere from 260-360rwhp. Depends on how you build it and what you do about the intake.
Here's a few of the numbers putting down that I know about (at the wheels):
289/366
340/340
353/391
268/370

Those are varying levels of build but all are street cars and all are NA. The FI cars are all seeing well over 435rwhp.

The 2v will suffer a lot up top without some head porting. Cams help a lot too. Bounce the PI intake and look to at least a Bullit or a HPS Hardball'R or the P51. The shorter runners really help it seems but only with H&C in place.

For 300rwhp...ported heads, vt stage 1, gasket match your adapter plates, intake upgrade, frpp shorties or custom longtubes. It's a pretty easy combo to pound out.

One thing to keep in mind.. the stock rods in 5.4's are a little fragile for my taste in a performance application. A set of H-beams is cheap insurance against one of the single most common failures on stock blocks.

My own 5.4 is sitting all alone waiting for install. It's all forged, high compression, HPS intake, xe270's, all the goodies. I'm hoping for ~335-350rwhp and a bit more tq.

 

[TheWeiser1]

Thanks for the advice man!

From what I was reading shorty headers are about the only thing that will work with the 5.4 swap? What are your thoughts?

Also I was planning on going with VT Stage II cams you mention Stage I why would you with stage 1 rather than 2?

Also I purchased my engine today. Its from a 2002 F-150. 5.4L 2V with 10,000 miles on it. Going to PA to pick it up on Saturday!

 

[r3dn3ck]

custom longtubes are totally workable.. you just have to custom fit them. They're great for power but the cost is high... The shorties do help out but FRPP are the only ones I know to fit out of the box. I'm considering trying a set of JBA's... we'll see.

You mentioned passing emissions. Well... you'll have trouble doing that in most states with the more aggressive stage 2 cams. If you get a custom grind with plenty of lift and keep the duration at stage 1 levels (which will limit your RPM a tad) then you can get nice bump. Just watch the valvetrain acceleration. Custom cams are worth the hassle with custom installs.

You can always retard the cams a bit and stretch out the peak power RPM that way. In any case the more cam the better as long as you can feed it a better intake at some point... anything but a typhoon should do well.