figured out a mod/engine swap im going to do for 10186

[timothymoore]

when i graduate this may, I will be able to get a full time job somewhere making decent money. After that i plan on doing a motor swap in my delorean after i clean the frame up and fix the fiberglass issues i have.

The motor i plan on going with after consideration is going to be a 2001-2009 Ford SOHC 4.0 V6 out of either a Ford Ranger or Ford Mustang. I've been around the4.0 for a while and i know they are quite reliable and pack good HP while still getting good gas. I had an 02 ranger with the SOHC 4.0 with the 4x4 package and averaged 22 mpg. Im certain that the mpg and power would increase after putting the engine in the delorean being aroun 2000 pounds lighter than the ranger.

another reason for going this way is cost factor. Every thing that i see for the PRV is starting to go up in price making it even harder for average guys like i to buy a PRV and or rebuild/restore one. For what it would cost to buy one or have mine rebuilt by a pro, I can buy a totalled donor Ranger/Mustang and still have a couple thousand left over while having all the wiring and fuel system parts id need for the swap in the donor vehicle.

Im going to try andstart saving now so I can get the show on the road come summer time. Hope to video blog the progression of the swap.


Any advice from the people whove done a swap would be greatly appreciated.

[Rich W]

when i graduate this may, I will be able to get a full time job somewhere making decent money. After that i plan on doing a motor swap in my delorean after i clean the frame up and fix the fiberglass issues i have.

The motor i plan on going with after consideration is going to be a 2001-2009 Ford SOHC 4.0 V6 out of either a Ford Ranger or Ford Mustang. I've been around the4.0 for a while and i know they are quite reliable and pack good HP while still getting good gas. I had an 02 ranger with the SOHC 4.0 with the 4x4 package and averaged 22 mpg. Im certain that the mpg and power would increase after putting the engine in the delorean being aroun 2000 pounds lighter than the ranger.

another reason for going this way is cost factor. Every thing that i see for the PRV is starting to go up in price making it even harder for average guys like i to buy a PRV and or rebuild/restore one. For what it would cost to buy one or have mine rebuilt by a pro, I can buy a totalled donor Ranger/Mustang and still have a couple thousand left over while having all the wiring and fuel system parts id need for the swap in the donor vehicle.

Im going to try andstart saving now so I can get the show on the road come summer time. Hope to video blog the progression of the swap.


Any advice from the people whove done a swap would be greatly appreciated.

TM,

If you plan to use the Ford SOHC 4.0 V6 out of a Ford Ranger, I highly recommend you do a whole lot of the preventative maintenance
on the engine, especially replacing the oil pan gasket, while you have the engine out, before doing the swap. I just did this job on my
nephews Ranger over the holidays and it was one of the worst jobs I have had to do in recent memory. The previous owner had done
a half-ass job on the gasket replacement sometime in the past, so this made the job much worse.

As you may know, when you remove the plated hardware on this vintage Ford vehicle, you need to put anti-seize on the bolts when you
put it all back together. The PO did not do this step and almost all the hardware was seized in place and even the torch would not help.
For this job, the transmission needs to be unbolted, engine needs to be raised up at least 3"-4", so the exhaust needed to be unbolted,
O2 sensor stripped in bung, needed to weld on a new bung, etc. etc.

Bottom line, with all the broken bolts, easy-out work, heli-coils and more, it took about 30 hours to do this task, along with a few of the
other things associated with the job (while you are in there or while the parts are off), like cleaning and re-painting the oil pan, etc.

After all the work, so far so good and I hope it holds up for another 150K miles or so (or at least until my nephew is done with college).
The Ford SOHC 4.0 V6 is a good little, strong motor and I am a big fan of Blue Oval vehicles in general.

Current Blue Oval fleet:

1999 Ford F350 Ext. Dually with 5.4L Triton V8
1994 Ford E530 RV Conversion with 7.3L Diesel
1994 Ford F250 Ext. 4x4 with 460 V8
1990 Ford F250 Ext. 2WD with 460 V8
1990 Ford F350 Ext. Dually with 460 V8
1992 Ford Explorer with 4.0 V6
1988 Ford Mustang GT with 5.0 V8
1995 Mercury Marquis with 4.6 V8

Later,
Rich W.

[Nicholas R]

Here's a giant +1 for what Rich said.

When you've got the Ford motor sitting on the engine stand, do every single thing you can to it to spruce it up right then. Don't leave anything to chance. When I did my swap, I did a ton of stuff on the LS1 while it was out of the car. New oil pump, new double roller timing chain and sprockets, new gaskets everywhere, excessive motor cleaning, and much much more.

A 2004 4x4 ranger is my daily driver. It's definitely a strong, reliable motor.

I agree that your best option is probably to buy a totaled ranger. Should be rather inexpensive, then you'll have all the wiring harnesses, computers, ecus etc that you need to get it going. You shouldn't have to spend time in junkyards to find extra parts. After you get everything you need, just sell what's left to a junkyard or scrapyard.

Also just one last piece of advice, make sure you're aware of everything you'll have to do before you start the project. Main reason being, that it will likely be a LOT more than you anticipate. Do your best to map it out and understand what is required before hand so that you dont loose steam in the middle and end up with a very disassembled DeLorean. Try to map out your budget and timeline ahead of time. It's not easy; it can definitely be done, but it is a lot of work. When you finish the project, believe me, it will all be worth it. Unfortunately, there will be some times in the middle where you'll wish you never started the project. Just push through. You can have all the motivation in the world at the beginning but after facing problem after problem, it will be easy to quit an loose interest. You just really have to stick with it. I knew this was bound to happen to me, which is why I made my graduation dependant on my swap finishing. Anytime I began to loose steam, I though about the potential of not graduating to get more motivation. Without that, I honestly cannot say what would have happened.

Best of luck! In my opinion the world needs more DeLorean engine swaps! :D

[timothymoore]

questions i had been pondering about the swap is this:

1: when mounting the 5 speed delorean trans to the 4.0 :

do i still go with the DeLorean clutch or a ford?
can i make an adapter plate for the trans or should i make a custom bellhousing?
when i go to put it all together, Can i still use the DeLorean starter, or should i go with another?
Which flywheel do i go with?

2: when doing the wiring:

How do i or how would i go about integrating the wiring from the ford wiring into the delorean in order for things like brake lights, and other original delorean electronics to work? or should i gut it all in favor of the ford wiring?

[galbiati]

questions i had been pondering about the swap is this:

1: when mounting the 5 speed delorean trans to the 4.0 :

do i still go with the DeLorean clutch or a ford?
can i make an adapter plate for the trans or should i make a custom bellhousing?
when i go to put it all together, Can i still use the DeLorean starter, or should i go with another?
Which flywheel do i go with?

2: when doing the wiring:

How do i or how would i go about integrating the wiring from the ford wiring into the delorean in order for things like brake lights, and other original delorean electronics to work? or should i gut it all in favor of the ford wiring?

The brake lights will not be affected by the engine swap and will still work even with no motor or transmission present. tachometer, oil and coolant would be the only things to worry about with modification.

[vwdmc16]

... putting the engine in the delorean being around2000 pounds lighter than the ranger...



Rangers weigh 5000lbs? :confused2:


Best of luck with getting this swap done! it will be alot of work! Ive wanted to put an Isuzu 6VE1 3.5 v6 in my car for a long time but im just about off that crack pipe as im realizing how hard it will be come to get good replacement parts for that engine.

[Nicholas R]

questions i had been pondering about the swap is this:

1: when mounting the 5 speed delorean trans to the 4.0 :

do i still go with the DeLorean clutch or a ford?
can i make an adapter plate for the trans or should i make a custom bellhousing?
when i go to put it all together, Can i still use the DeLorean starter, or should i go with another?
Which flywheel do i go with?

2: when doing the wiring:

How do i or how would i go about integrating the wiring from the ford wiring into the delorean in order for things like brake lights, and other original delorean electronics to work? or should i gut it all in favor of the ford wiring?

Get on the GT40s forum. (gt40s.com) They use our gearbox all the time and are always bolting them to ford motors. You should have no problem finding what you need there.

For question 1:
-Unless you change the input shaft, the splines on the transmission will still be DeLorean meaning you have to use a clutch with a 15/16-21 spline center. There are input shafts out there that you can buy with a ford spline pattern but they are very expensive.

-You can make an adapter plate or you can buy a bellhousing. I believe the GT40 guys can tell you where to get a bellhousing

-It is unlikely you will be able to use the DeLorean starter. There will almost surely be a part of the engine in the way. Your starter setup will likely be fully custom. I recommend using a high torque gear reduction starter; they're very compact and produce a lot of starting power.

-Your DeLorean flywheel will obviously not bolt to a ford engine. You're going to have to do some stack up work here. You need to find a flywheel that will fit inside the DeLorean transmission, bolt to the ford crankshaft, have the proper step for your clutch, have the proper ring gear diameter to work with your starter decision, AND sit at the proper offset so that when you bolt everything together, your clutch fork engages the pressure plate properly. If this isn't all worked out, there is little chance your clutch will work. Also do NOT forget to support the input shaft inside the crankshaft. You're going to have to do something to make sure that the pilot bearing is in position to accept the input shaft.

If I were you I would learn how to use a solid modeling program. Here is an example of the modeling I had to do to determine my drivetrain stackup:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5-I5PpXf7Hk/T3czDxqvOfI/AAAAAAAAAks/oJne9qUPonM/s1600/Stackup.JPG
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DBF2psDdv9c/T3cyexA1ImI/AAAAAAAAAjk/Bnaa6u5OWrU/s1600/Cross+Section.JPG

For the wiring, you're going get rid of a lot of delorean stuff (brakelights are still connected to your brake pedal though). I recommend building another fuse block for all the engine fuses. You're going to have to figure out which ford circuits are live all the time, which are live with ignition, etc. Then you also have to sire up all your gauges (shouldn't be too difficult). Truly the wiring is the easy part. Getting everything else to properly fit is where youre going to be pulling your hair out. Good luck! :D

[Rich W]

<snip>

Also do NOT forget to support the input shaft inside the crankshaft. You're going to have to do something to make sure that the pilot bearing is in position to accept the input shaft.

<snip>



+1 on this topic. This was a failure point on the 3.8L Grand National Turbo V6 conversion project (in progress) when I purchased it.

Without the input shaft being supported, all kinds of nasty things can happen inside the transmission. Luckily, this transmission had the
rear nut spin off (a known DeLorean manual transmission issue) and ground through the rear cover before any trans damage was done
but there was a whole lot of "aluminum glitter" in side the transmission case needed to be flushed out prior to the repair and upgrades.

The solution for my dilema (since I have a custom bell-housing installed) was to fabricate (machine) a custom pilot bearing "cup" which
is seated in the end of the crankshaft. It took a couple tries to get it machined just right (thanks to Dave Swingle and Peter Kuchan)
so that there is sufficient support of the end of the input shaft, using a stock DMC pilot bearing and stock DMC clutch assembly.

Later,
Rich W.

[DMCMW Dave]

For question 1:
-Unless you change the input shaft, the splines on the transmission will still be DeLorean meaning you have to use a clutch with a 15/16-21 spline center. There are input shafts out there that you can buy with a ford spline pattern but they are very expensive.
--
-Your DeLorean flywheel will obviously not bolt to a ford engine. You're going to have to do some stack up work here.

You conveniently didn't mention that you somehow carved an entire new flywheel from a huge hunk of aluminum. . . . still a very impressive piece of work to me!

And good luck finding another clutch disk that will fit the DMC input splines. Nick - I don't recall what you did there but that 15/16 - 21 spl is a very odd duck in the clutch business. As Rich alluded to, often you'll end up designing everything else around the DMC clutch.

[vwdmc16]

What is the commonly agreed upon maximum power a stock DMC clutch can handle?

[timothymoore]

Rangers weigh 5000lbs? :confused2:


Best of luck with getting this swap done! it will be alot of work! Ive wanted to put an Isuzu 6VE1 3.5 v6 in my car for a long time but im just about off that crack pipe as im realizing how hard it will be come to get good replacement parts for that engine.

my bad, they weigh 4000 give or take a couple hundred pounds for the 4x4 EXT cab.

[BABIS]

What is the commonly agreed upon maximum power a stock DMC clutch can handle?

about 250 hp ( or even less) . for example, my friend has a 3.0 biturbo PRV with the ordinary clutch and it starts slipping at 4000 rpm, when pushed hard.
if you have more than 250 hp and a stock UN1 gearbox you need to mount the Alpine A610 clutch which has a reinforced pressure plate (it adds about 1/3 of the stock pressure) but is very expensive..

[Chris Burns]

Good luck to you Tim. I am really looking forward to seeing VIN 10186 ride again!

[deloreanz]

about 250 hp ( or even less) . for example, my friend has a 3.0 biturbo PRV with the ordinary clutch and it starts slipping at 4000 rpm, when pushed hard.
if you have more than 250 hp and a stock UN1 gearbox you need to mount the Alpine A610 clutch which has a reinforced pressure plate (it adds about 1/3 of the stock pressure) but is very expensive..

Does anyone have experience with John Hervey's clutches or pressure plates? I was planning on picking one for the 3.0L swap I've been working on.

That might be an option for this project to avoid changing the input shaft.