Engine Swap Questions

85TbirdSC

Registered User
I am in the process of swapping engines in my 91SC 5spd. AS far as I know the eng that came out of the 91 is all original and has never came out. The mounts let go and rubbed a hole in the pan, it was ran out of oil so I am swapping engines.

The 3.8SC that I am installing I bought from a retired Ford field engineer. He said the engine came out of a TbirdSC that was wrecked while the engineers where testing it. It had very low miles on it but I am not sure what year it is. I got it in 1996 and installed it in a 1985 Tbird body. It ran great and I put about 10,000 miles on it since then.

I have both engines out and am almost ready to complete the swap but I am running into a couple of differences between the two.

The engine out of the 85 (calling it 85 for referance) has a small cooling line going to the throttle body. It comes from the oil cooler discharge along the left side valve cover. Where the heater hose is right behind the dipstick tube. Along with the 5/8 heater hose fitting there is a small (1/4" or so) nipple that comes off sends it into a hard tube that is mounted across the back of the engine around to the throttle boby. From the throttle body it goes into a small nipple on the right side heater hose tube. And there is not a temp sensor in the heater hose tube. Also the Oxygen Sensors for this engine are three wire.

The engine out of the 91 has no fittings or cooloing line running to the throttle body. It also has a temp sensor in the right side heater hose tube along the valve cover. The oxygen sensors are four wire.

I know my safest bet would be to strip the engine harness and cooling lines off of the 91 and swap them to the other engine and swap throttle bodies. I already have every thing off the 85 engine cleaned and painted ready to install.

My question is am I going to run into problems if I leave the engine out of the 85 intact, Swap oxy sensors and intall or do I have to swap harness and throttle body?

Thanks in advance,
Sean
 
Last edited:
the throttle body thing isn't a big deal, just plug the lines. Many people do this anyway becuase its just more of a hassle if its there. Use whichever oxygen sensors worked for the car that the engine is going into
 
I believe it was just 1989 and 1990 that had the cooler lines to the throttle body.


cheers
Ed N.
 
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