Has anyone done a 03/04 Cobra motor and tranny swap?

[pinski]

Just out of curiousity...it's one thing that I would absolutely LOVE to do down the road when funds/time/etc allows for it. Since the cars have been largely unchanged from '94-04, how difficult would the swap be?

The motor should fit, but would need new motor mounts and a hood and STB with more clearance. Also would the transmission tunnel need any kind of alterations, or would it slide right in? I would, of course, stick with a solid rear axle, but likely get a built one even though the stocker probably would be okay for the most part.

One other thing - since my car came stock as an automatic, how much of a PITA is the manual conversion? I wouldn't think it would be that hard, add a clutch, the shifter would fit thru the current hole, or if worse came to worse, a new console could be installed.

So, I guess what I'm asking, is it feasible for this to be done without huge modification? For now, ignore the cost of the motor, because right now that still makes it impossible, but it will go down in the future (fingers crossed).

 

[bdcardinal]

we had a guy come into my work who had done that swap into his 1996 gt. he had BBK long tube headers and BBK catted H pipe. the fuel system had an Aeromotive FPR and was return style. he said that it dropped right in, they had to massage the powersteering lines for the brake booster a little, and then cut holes for the intercooler waterpump. he said that the heat exchanger fit fairly well into the Cervinis stalker front bumper. unfortunatly we had to fail him for smog becaue the headers, h pipe and fpr werent smog legal in CA, and we told him he had to convert to a returnless style fuel system since he had a 03 motor.
for the transmission he had a Viper Spec t56. he said it all fit really well.
there was a shop in houston that did all of the mods on the car, forget their name, but the install looked really good.

 

[pinski]

we had a guy come into my work who had done that swap into his 1996 gt. he had BBK long tube headers and BBK catted H pipe. the fuel system had an Aeromotive FPR and was return style. he said that it dropped right in, they had to massage the powersteering lines for the brake booster a little, and then cut holes for the intercooler waterpump. he said that the heat exchanger fit fairly well into the Cervinis stalker front bumper. unfortunatly we had to fail him for smog becaue the headers, h pipe and fpr werent smog legal in CA, and we told him he had to convert to a returnless style fuel system since he had a 03 motor.
for the transmission he had a Viper Spec t56. he said it all fit really well.
there was a shop in houston that did all of the mods on the car, forget their name, but the install looked really good.

Thanks for the reply.

I figured it would fit no problem, but it's nice to have other people out there "test" out this theory

There will always be small issues such as the waterpump and pwr steering lines, but I'm glad to see he got it all figured out. That would be something to pop the hood on a '96 and see a '03 Cobra motor in there

 

[BABstangV6]

In an issue of either 5.0 mustangs or MMFF a guy had dropped an 03 motor into his 97.

 

[snkchmr]

If I ever had problems with my motor in my Roush I would just find a wrecked 03/04 Cobra & rob the motor & trans.
From what I have seen it would cost around 10,000 to build a 500 HP 2v motor so I think it would make more sence to buy the Cobra motor & trans