Swapping in a Ford 5.0 H.O.
This is by far the best upgrade you can do to a Jeep. The ford 5.0 is about 85lbs lighter than the typical Chevy v-8 and can produce the same amout of horsepower. Save weight on the motor, you can use that extra weight for body protection for the tub.
The Placement of the motor is very critical. When I decided where to place it in the frame, I had it attached to the transmission and transfer case to make sure the firewall cleared, yet still allowed for the transmission to mount to the skid plate. I also checked to make sure that the radiator would clear the fan. You need at least 1 inch of clearance between it and the fan blade. I even was able to use a 3 core radiator that came stock in a 1983 Jeep. I had a local radiator shop moe the upper and lower inlets, but it works great (as long as you can keep the mud out of it). You also need to take into consideration the amount of clearance the oilpan will have with the axle you are running. I had to use a oilpan from a car that was made to clear the front suspention. This is the oilpan that I used:
The motor mounts are weld in mounts, but I decided to utilize the original bolt holes that were in the frame to allow for the future move to a different frame without having to do any major cutting and rewelding. These peices were made by advance adapters. They have just about everything that you need to do any kind of swap.
I also choose the Ford motor because of the ability to bolt directly do the Jeep t176 transmission. The ford butterfly pattern is used by this transmission. I used a ford bellhousing, flywheel and presure plate, but the clutch disk was from a chevy. I did this becaue the splines on the input shaft watched perfectly.
For the exaust i used a set of stock Ford Cobra headers from a 1994 Mustang. These were donated to me for the project. They are a nice free flowing short set of headers that exit close to the block. This aides in clearance issues with the frame rails. the only problem is that if you run a manual transmission you will need to make extra parts to run the mechanical clutch mechanisim around the headers and make adjustments in the exaust pipes to clear the clutch arm during its travel. The picture below show what I came up with to solve this issue.
Wiring in a 5.0 is another story. Their is basicly on three or four wires that need to be connected. That is going to be saved for another article. :)
