DanielDD

I may have located a 5.0 SBF engine. Trying to determine exactly what it is. The seller only has the engine, there is no harness that comes with it. I am pretty sure it is either a 94 or 95 H.O. My immediate concern is how difficult would it be to procure a suitable engine harness including an ECU if I buy this engine - OR should I wait and buy an engine with a full harness, including the ECU together?

mrmustang

Not difficult to find a 5.0L small block Ford.


However, I would walk away fro a seller who does not know what he has on his hands, no matter how inexpensive


Bill S.

PS: Update your profile to give your location, or are you in Florence and just trying to be cute, as some of us may know of a donor car in your area through other venues........

DanielDD

Not trying to be cute. Too old for that. I am in Huntsville. I've asked the seller for the engine block codes. We'll see..

I called one salvage yard in my area and I found a 94 GT Mustang with 130K miles. When I asked what it would cost me for the engine, wiring harness and ECU, he gave me a price of $1.5K, which I thought was unreasonable. Knowing full well that I'm going to have to break down the engine and rebuild it at that price is nuts.

MX-Brad

$1500 is insane for a pullout. They're even cheaper than that in Canada. You'd think they'd be growing on tree's in good ol' 'bamy.
I bought my '95 Mustang engine without electrical or front drive. That stuff was easy enough to source. Bought an A9L from RockAuto, bought a harness from Martin, bought a bunch of other stuff from Summitt.
You'll be doing a freshening up on any used motor you buy, so get the cheapest decent one you can. Rebuild kits are pretty cheap, and I'll bet you have some talented machine shops in your area to clean and checkover your block.

DanielDD

Agreed that $1500 is outrageous.

Machine shops in the area, good ones are hard to come by. Unfortunate..

Use to be there were several good ones in the area. Most have closed up and the few remaining aren't good. I did find a decent shop about an hour away that I now use, but even then, I've had to take work back to them after they messed it up the 1st time. Last time I used them I took a set of BMW V12 heads to them to do a valve job on them. When I got them back, I noticed they never removed the lifters before cleaning them. Ruined every single lifter. Fortunately they paid the $500 for a new set of lifters and fired the guy. The owner is a wonderful guy and I'll still use them as I simply don't trust anyone else around here.

mrmustang

Try this as a simple 1 minute search example

https://nashville.craigslist.org/cto/5377219659.html

Price is most likely negotiable, as the price up top does not match the price within the text, so it's been listed for some time. After you pull the drivetrain, you'll most likely be able to recoupe 60-90% or more of your up front costs by parting it out.

Bill S.

DanielDD

Thanks Bill. Saw that one yesterday. Its on my list along with some others as well…

Here's the link to the engine I found in the same area…

5.0 HO

MRM331

You can find harnesses on eBay pretty easily. If you were planning on having me do the mods for you I can even find one for you or use one of the ones I have lying around here as a donor. ECUs are getting harder to come by. Up until a few years ago you could get reman ones for under $150. Now used and questionable on eBay seems to be the only option. I went with a Plug-in-play megasquirt ECU this last time which is really worth the money. DIYAutotune has a PNP MS3 that plugs into a Ford Mustang harness directly for $840. This sounds like a lot but a used ECU on eBay is going to cost you around $300 the last I checked and if you do anything besides drop a stock engine in you're going to want to have it tuned for another $600. The MS3 does not require professional tuning and will actually be able to take advantage of some of the programming developments of the last 30 years to get you better MPG's and power. You can also use it to electronically run your cooling fans.

http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/m...-50-p-524.html

I love your avatar BTW.

-Jason

DanielDD

Appreciate the input Jason. I will certainly keep your suggestions in mind as I move forward.

Good stuff!

DanielDD

Finally located and brought home a suitable donor car last weekend. I initially desired an NB, but you can't touch them around here for less than $5K and even at that price point they are not in that good of shape. So, I bought this 97 with 112K miles for $2400. Unmolested, a 5 speed and in great shape for a 19 year old car and the interior is near perfect..





I have already decided on a SBF engine for the swap and found, to my dismay that buying a used engine is no longer cheap, at least in my area of the US. As I mentioned earlier, entire pullouts (engine & harness, and sometimes ECU) are running around $1500-$1700 for 1989-1993 Mustang engines. I have located a Mustang salvage yard in Atlanta (about 4 hours from me) where I can get everything needed for the above price.

The 1994-1995 mustang engines are cheaper by $500. Apparently the SN95 are not as desirable for swaps (not my words, but what I have been told).

I have found a few 1996-1997 5.0 Explorer engines within a short distance (no harness or ECU) for $500-700, but then I would have to source the various bracketry, accessories, bell housing, flywheel, etc. If I choose this route, I'm not sure I would save much over just buying an entire pullout. To be fair, I have not yet attempted to price any of these individual components at this time.

It is not my desire to buy an entire vehicle and remove what I need. While this may be beneficial to some of you, I simply don't have the available room to do it. My hat is certainly off to you that choose this route.

In the meantime, do you have any idea what I can get for selling the drivetrain in this 97 that I have? I figure the low mileage engine, transmission and differential would be worth something, but I don't know how to cost them. Any input would be appreciated.

97miatam

you may have already answered this, but why not go to a junkyard and pull an engine? It is common for the yards to have half off days where you can score a long block for a couple hundred bucks.


I have a 97 also. I sold my engine for $500, transmission $200, and torsen diff for $400 to give you an idea. I could probably have gotten more but I wanted it gone quickly so it wouldn't be in my way.

papabear

Daniel,

You may also want to see what Delk Performance has in stock. They part out tons of Mustangs. Also may want to call around to places like R&R Speed and Machine Shop here in Huntsville. They sometimes know of good engines from the racers around here.

DanielDD

Thanks for the info!

DanielDD

I called them earlier this week. Unfortunately, they didn't have what I was looking for. Asked me to call back as they get stuff in all the time. Haven't tried R&R. I talked to Market Street Performance in Scottsboro. They are checking around for me.

I've got to dial back my eagerness to get this started and be more patient. There is absolutely no reason why I have to start immediately.

elijah_mckay

Just went through close to the same thing with a 5.0. Had to clean parts of the block and finally found the casting numbers. THere are guides online so you can tell exactly what car the engine came from. If its a 94/95 mustang it should be somthing like F4Z?. Take that with a grain of salt and do your own research as well I just found this stuff out the other day as well.

EDIT: Hey another alabamian. How bout that championship?

topdownfun

It was 7 years ago but I got my unmolested 94/95 from AMP All Mustang Performance in Phoenix. Clean 74k takeout engine (no overhaul needed) complete from pan to intake, all front accessories, all wiring harnesses (including body harnesses I didn't need) plus ECU and CCRM for $1500. They added new clutch, resurfaced flywheel, bearing, clutch arm, new Fox body bell housing and new T5z and shipped it to me so it was one-stop shopping. It has served me well.

I have an extra ECU sitting around--sounds like it's now valuable!

TM