1990 5.0 Lincoln town car motor&trans swap into 97 ranger???

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painterdude923
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1990 5.0 Lincoln town car motor&trans swap into 97 ranger???

Post by painterdude923 »

How easy or difficult would it be to swap the motor trans from 1990 Lincoln town car into my 1997 ranger 2wd? Car will be free and i want to just pull motor&trans and keep it fuel injected. How about the instrument cluster in the ranger because of swapping harnesses? O2senser issues? Lots of questions in my head toknow if its worth the trouble. Thanks all
plowboy34
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Re: 1990 5.0 Lincoln town car motor&trans swap into 97 range

Post by plowboy34 »

Well I have never done fuel injection so I can't help you with that part but there are many who have and it can be done fairly easy. If cgrey8 ever see's this he can steer you in the right direction in a heartbeat on that stuff, as far as installing the engine and trans and all the mechanical stuff if you have any mechanical ability it is a walk in the park.
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cgrey8
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Re: 1990 5.0 Lincoln town car motor&trans swap into 97 range

Post by cgrey8 »

The physical challenges will be fitting a Lincoln engine into the engine bay. Lincolns, Crown Vics, and Grand Marquis have one of the "longest" front accessory bracket setups of any of the Windsor engines. So getting clearance with the radiator is going to be a challenge. Older Rangers have V8 conversion radiators that push the radiator forward. Other people just cut the front of the truck and remount the radiator further forward. I don't know how easy this is to do on the 94-up front ends. I assume it's similar in complexity. But it is likely going to be a problem. It'll be an even more severe problem if you keep the stock mechanical fan. The other option is electric pusher fans.

As for computer issues, as long as you keep the wiring harness from the engine, there should be very little to do there. Just fair warning though, the Lincoln 302s didn't have "peppy" cams at all. Most people find it beneficial to swap cams.
The problem is 2-fold.
  • Lincolns probably used non-HO cams. Fortunately, I believe they were roller cams though. Any decent cam replacement is going to be a HO roller. No big deal with spark, just land the wires in the HO firing order. But rewiring the injectors will be a little more fun.
  • Lincoln EECs were most all Speed Density and Ford SD EECs are a PITA to deal with when you change anything. Even with a tuning device, they still suck. If you have ANY future plans to build the engine, you are FAR better off converting the engine to MAF and using an 89-93 Mustang computer to control it. But this also means you'll need the additional MAF wires wired in.
As you can see, you can really fall down the rabbit hole based on what you do. If this is a budget build, just keep it as-is. Just don't expect the performance to be THAT much better than a stock 97 Ranger 4.0L. It'll be a little better, but not obvious leaps-and-bounds better like a Mustang/Explorer 5.0L would be.

Also if this vehicle has to pass OBD-II emissions tests, you won't do it with that old of an EEC. I'm assuming you know this. In which case, you don't have to worry about CATs, the after-CAT sensors, tank pressure sensors, Canister purge sensor, or any of the other BS emissions sensors the newer vehicles have to tattle on you when something goes awry.

As for the dash, I don't know what will be involved there. I just keep forgetting...
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v8ranger
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Re: 1990 5.0 Lincoln town car motor&trans swap into 97 range

Post by v8ranger »

The town cars where a NON HO motor. They also have different pistons than an HO motor and the intake plenum are backwards, They point to the drivers side and the HO's point to the passenger. They are still a roller motor though and the both use the same block. I think the difference is about 40 horse.. I think the HO where 225hp and the NON HO where like 180ish...
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cgrey8
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Re: 1990 5.0 Lincoln town car motor&trans swap into 97 range

Post by cgrey8 »

As long as you have the roller components, you can replace the cam with one that is an HO-cam. Then when you wire up the distributor, wire it up to the plugs in 351w/302HO firing order instead of the old non-HO firing order. The catch is if you replace the cam, that's going to also change the computer enough that it'll need to be retuned. Lincolns were Speed Density based, not MAF based. And Ford's implementation of SD sucks. Note, SD is a solid way of controlling an engine on a platform that does it well. But none of Ford SD-based EECs from this era do SD well which may mean you are stuck with the stock cam until you decide you are ready to do some engine upgrades. Unfortunately, there'll never be a better time to do these upgrades than when the engine is on the stand. It's much more difficult to do these in the truck...particularly given I've heard you damn near have to pull the engine out to get the cam out of the engine anyway due to interference preventing the cam from sliding straight out of the engine with it sitting in the engine bay.

So if you do decide to swap the cam, here's what I would budget for:
  • The cam (new or used roller cams will work with your roller lifters). Go mild here or you'll have tuning issues for sure.
  • Upgrade valve springs & standard aftermarket light weight retainers. You don't need super-strong springs, just a standard upgrade spring/retainer package that is better than stock equipment.
  • 89-93 Mustang EEC which will get you MAF-based control and SEFI already setup for HO-firing order. You'll need to add the MAF wires to your Lincoln wiring harness, but that's not a terribly difficult thing to do.
  • A MAF. If the cam is mild, you can probably go with a stock GT MAF. Otherwise, you can get a C&L 70mm with the "clear" tube that works with stock 89-93 Mustang GT tunes.
As long as the cam is mild, you may not even require EEC retuning. However if your cam's duration@.050" gets much above 212 degrees for the intake valve, expect that the stock tune isn't going to run it well. At that point, you may need tuning hardware and software if you want it to drive like a daily-driver should.


The difference in pistons were cast vs forged. The GT engines all came with forged pistons IIRC. I don't know if it is true, but I vaguely remember somewhere around 94ish they downgraded the pistons back to cast even in the GTs for emissions reasons. As long as you aren't running heavy boost, it shouldn't matter. Cast pistons are probably good to around 350hp. If you push 400hp, it's a tossup as to whether the stock piston or the stock connecting rod is the weak link. I wouldn't trust either much beyond that. I know the new F150 Raptors have cheap "powder" connecting rods despite being a "performance" oriented truck. Retuning them can get you more HP than the stock rods can handle. So upgrade tunes for the stock Raptors have to limit the HP to about 450hp or the connecting rods fail.

Bottom line, unless this engine is going to be boosted, you won't have to worry about the strength of the pistons or connecting rods.
...Always Somethin'

89 Ranger Supercab, 331, ported GT40p heads w/1.6RRs, Crane Powermax 2020 cam, ported Explorer lower, FMS Explorer (GT40p) headers, aftermarket T5 'Z-Spec', 8.8" rear w/3.27s, Powertrax Locker, A9L w/Moates QuarterHorse, Innovate LC-1, James Duff traction bars, iDelta DC Fan controller

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