Transverse to longitudinal engine swap

Montea6b

New Member
Nov 11, 2019
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Seattle, WA
Hello, newbie here... Just to be upfront, I don't currently own a Mustang. (although I previously owned a Fox body Mustang and Capri...) I bought a 3.7 Cylone engine from a 2017 Explorer with the intent to drop it into a 1976 Capri, to create a resto-mod version of the "European Mustang". What I failed to notice was that it is set up for a transverse mount. This means that the air inlet and radiator connections were on the side, which is now the back of the engine. Does anybody know if a 3.7 Mustang intake manifold swap would remedy this? In other words, are the blocks identical so that it would bolt right in? Is there anything else to consider? Thanks.
 
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Sell the FWD Cyclone and buy a RWD version. The water pump on the FWD version is driven by the timing chain and usually dumps the coolant into the crankcase upon failure. The RWD version doesn't share this design flaw.
 
And how often does that happen? Because I got a pretty good deal on an engine with only 481 miles, I would probably be willing to take my chances...
Anywhere between 0 and 120,000 miles. I've seen them fixed under warranty and done two personally, one of them in my driveway. Working on cars is what I do for a living.

If the pump fails at low speed close to your destination and is caught early, it's usually not catastrophic for the engine. The thing is, they usually fail on the highway, with your first warning being the engine knocking or locking up.
 
OK, thanks. So when you fix them, is there a corrective or preventative measure put in place to block that specific failure mode from happening again, or do you just buy another 0 - 120,000 miles? Just wondering if I could preemptively reduce the risk ahead of time.
 
OK, thanks. So when you fix them, is there a corrective or preventative measure put in place to block that specific failure mode from happening again, or do you just buy another 0 - 120,000 miles? Just wondering if I could preemptively reduce the risk ahead of time.
The fix is straight-up replacement. It's a flawed design Ford doesn't see fit to fix. It'll happen again with the new part too.

When the water pump's bearing fails, it lets the shaft wobble, allowing coolant past and into the oil. This happens quickly, I usually drain a gallon or more of coolant from the oil pan on cars where it is caught early, the unlucky ones lose nearly all of their coolant into the crankcase.

When I'm in there, I always insist on replacing the timing chain tensioner while I have it torn down, and inspecting and replacing the guides and chains as necessary. There's actually a bunch of photos of the job as performed on a 2010 Taurus in my build thread.
 
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