plstktnkr2 has had rotator cuff and foot surgery, still has to provide for his family.
My wife has a torn rotator cuff...and based on the testimonies of others, the surgery and recovery its just cruel. She just works at a rest home toting the elderly and infirm with hoists and two people assists......if you've been used to swinging M16's, pry bars, monkey wrenches and sledge hammers, the post operative phase is very sobbering when you've got a family to support.
The
plstktnkr2 SC 3.8 is very different....fitting eveything into a 3.8 block the very different and stronger F150 truck 4.2 Essex 90 internals. The work he did is 500% the work required for just a MN12 SC 3.8 swap. In addition, the stock 210 hp intercooler and the supercharger piping is just so nasty, there is no wonder these engines didn't grow in popularity.
A 100% stock swap lookes like this,
and is mainly wiring, but there are some major considerations you are gonna have to have on how you are going to pakacage A/C, intercooler, the battery, and the radiator and things.
Wiring....
And ancillaries location
in a Fox are very difficult with the labyrinth of EECIV, EDIS and intercooler "mainlines" back to the compact and light Essex 90 V6.
Just how you package this
Ford wanted advancement in design....the MN12 was very much an EA26 Austalian Ford Falcon with IRS type of car, with the same crowded engine bay. The Ford EA Falcon, introduced in 1988, might have bore a passing resemblance to the European Ford Scorpio, but under the skin, it was a watershed of Short Arm Long Sindle IFS, like the MN12 was. Ford used the Porsche 928 style IFS, and the best Jaguar style IRS they could build, both causing major intrusions into the unibody structure, and amking fitting even a 5.0 HO EFI or 4.6 liter Romeo/Modular V8 a real headache. The orginal EA 26 was supposed to be powered by an Intercooled OHC I6 like this.
The SALS EA26 and MN12 suspension system practically caressed the block on every car with that platform.
In 1989, everything had moved to Honda and Chrysler LH style cab forward, and Ford and Toyo Kogo felt that the future was packing T drive in lines into cars to make construction cheaper.
The MN 12 was the first fruit of that optimistic Japanization of the product line. Rather like the 58 Tbird, 61 Lincoln and 61 T bird, the MN 12 was a very tight envope with a very sophisticated body with truly lovely SALS IFS and that kick a$$ IRS. The engineer who did the diesing gopt laid into by the finance boys, but the car was basically as significant as the Square Bird was in 1958.
Aint no one givin it any respect!
Degree of difficulty is so great because all the Essex 90 engines are festooned with manitenance reducing parts, and although they were designed to be serviced, you've got a tight 4.193" bore center light weight alloy head engine laid so far back in the chassis, its a proper pest to upgrade anthing on the cold supply side to the blower. I've never seen a serp drive like it, nor have I seen an Eaton M90 blower install like it.
Ford sure as heck did the homeowk on this engine, but it innoculated the world from ever deciding to do another Supercharged V6, except for the GM 3800 L67 Eaton Supercharged engine.
Same kinda engine, same issues.
https://www.montrealracing.com/forum...RWD-Conversion
The Ford 3.8 SC stuff is unlike the Modular 4.6 and 5.4 Super Charged stuff, it can't hide the intercooler in an iron block with a camshaft and balance shaft in the intake....people use the 3.8 SC because its so smartly done.
Look at this! VW VR6 mit 7 psi 3.8 Thunderbird Super Charger
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