Import motor swap?

Actually, before it went into a Cobra chassis, it went into a Ford Cortina. A very obscure nugget that has been lost to time...

I think people should build whatever they want, regardless of where it originated. If I saw a turbo Nissan motor in a Maverick, the first thing I would do is talk to the owner to see how they did it.

Maverick owners have been the butt of brand snobbery for eons. I find it odd and somewhat ironic that many Maverick owners would use this oppurtunity to turn their noses up at anything, especially something that takes mechanical skill, vision and ingenuity.

If it weren't for ingenuity, there would be no "resto-mod" sector of our hobby, there would be no Cobra, as mentioned previously, and for the most part, there would be no hot rod industry. Do you think, in the 50s when people were putting Caddy motors into 32 Fords, that everybody started getting all huffy? Do you think Ed Iskendarian or Vic Edelbrock Sr. cared what people thought?

Hot rodding is all about ingenuity and creativity, and seeing people get all wound up about somebody creating a different version of their car is more than a little dissapointing for me to see. Makes me wonder where this hobby has gone....

 

No problem hotrodbob. Even I have had moments of brief dementia. For some oddball reason that I still cannot recall...I dropped a 393" Cleveland into a 1981 Trans Am with a Toploader transmission. Guess I was feeling rowdy and wanted to tick the T/A crowd off. Sucker was fast too. Came to my senses when I found a Fairmont.

I keep thinking about the Turbo Coupe 2.3 idea. That's a good one. The Super Coupe V6 is another good one.

 

Seems to me that you could hybrid Buick 3.8 turbo parts onto your choice of small Ford engine... I4, I6, or 302.
If you ever look at the aftermarket for the T-Type cars, it is huge and thriving.
They have turbos and intercoolers ranging from mild (I4, I6 use) to wild (302/331 use).
Seems like the I6 guys could get a little respect with a Buick turbo and intercooler fixed to their engines. Those 3.8s, in those heavy cars can pull 10s all day with just a few mods. Granted they are fuelies.
Dave

 

Here is a link to what i found about what ratio is talking about, looks like an easy crossover, but

http://www.slantsix.org/articles/turbo-article/turbo-article.htm

 

Unless your talking about some other Pantera than the 70's they came with 351c's 4v type.

 

Pretty good reading there.
He missed out on the intercooler though.
A turbo is only one part of the formula for real HP.
Depending on design, the intercooler can multiply the power created by a turbo.
A good thing about an intercooler is that it doesn't depend on boost pressure to make power. All it does is cool the works so the engine gets more dense air mixture under boost.
Where 8 psi with a good intercooler makes 'x' hp, you would need say 12 psi with no intercooler to make the same hp figure.
Also, the 8 psi with intercooler is more tolerant of fuel octane than the same 8 psi without intercooler.
One thing to consider though, an 8 psi boost w/o cooler is 8 psi boost.
8 psi boost with a cooler is less than 8 psi at the intake. The cooler creates a loss over the added distance to the intake.
This makes what I said above a little deceiving. You have to look at psi at the intake, not at the turbo when comparing systems.

Anyway, this is why I suggested Buick turbo parts. They are designed for making boost with an intercooler. Even though the stock intercooler makes great power, there are aftermarket coolers that are not much larger that make much more power with the same turbo. It is just because the air flow is better managed. Kinda like going from stock exhaust pipe to well thought out mandrel bends. Doesn't take up any more room, just better engineering.

I also noticed that the link story used cast iron manifolds that were painstakingly welded into different configurations...
This is not really needed.
You could put the turbo on a sturdy bracket and just run mandrel bent pipe to it from the manifold or header collector.
The big thing is to remember that turbos like 'underkill' to make good throttle response. If you put 1.75" primary headers and 3" pipes into the turbo, you will have a lot of lag.

My .02
Dave

 

when you kiddies get done playing, let me know .... :evilsmile
http://mmb.maverick.to/gallery/showimage.php?i=1165&c=6


just kidding,....ya'll can get back to your bench racing now

 

Won't it run better with a cam!?!

 

true,..but he is talking 07, so I dont think thats gonna be an issue. besides, any pics or progress I may report is kinda like the magazines....by the time you read it, its old news :evilsmile ...who knows how far along it is???

and the cam, its in the box, with the rest of the goodies, just waiting for the final assembly .

ok, sorry to interrupt,...back to the trash talk now:bananaman

 

i liked the fact that he showed about 4 diff ways to set it up, all on a slant six. definately ways to improve what he did, like putting it on a ford for starters.
so what would be best for a gas tow vehicle at high altitude in your opinions, turbo or vortech S.C.? just a thought im having.

my bad on the pantera, thinking about another vehicle.....

 

For towing, I would imagine that an SC would work better. They have far more throttle response for grunt. The turbos work well on diesels because they already have a ton of grunt and the turbo can be engineered to come on at lower rpm because the diesel will red line just over 3k rpms.

Don't hear that much anymore!
Brings back memories of high school in the 80s! :bananaman

 

And it's a phrase that is still used in high school today on a regular basis.

 

Well, to each their own, but I'd never put my Maverick on a rice diet.

Except for the rice it'll eat on the street or strip. :evilsmile

I've never seen a ricer engine do anything performance-wise that a good ol' American V-8 couldn't do for a 10th of the cost.

I went to an import drag meet a couple af years ago (went to cheer on a friend racing a Mazda RX/7.....a V-8 powered RX/7!) There were tons of cars, but only a handful that could beat the few American hot rods that showed up. The imports that could had upwards of $20,000 in just the motors, and all but two of the import heavy hitters got spanked silly by a guy in a 95 Mustang who's total cost to build (including purchase of the car) was $9,100. (Yeah, it wasn't pretty, but we'll leave the gaudy paint jobs, tons of cheesy graphics, neon lights, oversized wings, spoilers and over-the-top sci-fi ground effects to the ricers)

So, the import crowd went crazy, and declared victory over the "old, outdated American muscle" because out of the several hundred import cars there, one $50,000 unstreetable import beat a $9,100 daily driver beater Mustang by 3 10ths of a second.

Imagine what that Stang could be built to do for even half the cost of that 50K import!

No, I've got nothing against putting an import motor in a Maverick........

just use and Italian or German import....with 8, 10, or 12 cylinders.

Now that would be unique!

Better yet, go buy a motor for one of the new GT-40s



BTW, there's a guy near me that's in the middle of dropping a modified T-Bird turbo coupe motor/5-speed in a 60's Comet Caliente. Should be interesting to see how it turns out.

 

^^^^The last time I went to the track, there was a guy doing his licensing runs in his '9? Civic hatchback. He made a couple of passes hovering right around ten flat, got his cert or whatever (haven't done this so I'm not quite sure how it works) and made a low nine second pass. He said he had about twenty thousand in the car.
He has my respect.

 

Does anyone notice there are more to cars than going in a straight line!!! Geez-oh-pete I got it a V8 will beat the 4 cylinder congradulations your 5.0, 5.8, 7.5 makes more power than a 2.0, 2.3, 2.5 what an amazing accomplishment

Every car is built for a purpose. When gas prices were getting stupid here I was think of getting another maverick and putting a fuel saving 4 cylinder and 5 speed in it. My buddies focus weighs 2600lbs and has 120 odd Hp. I think both those goals are obtanable on the maverick plateform and I will bet the balance on a 4 cylinder maverick would be great too. So for you straight line guys that means it would go left and right at speed. So why not put a nissan or toyota motor in a maverick? What is the real reason not to do it? You have the cool looking outside, fuel saving and better designed 4 cylinder inside. The only thing I would do is remove all nissan and toyota logo's so most won't know it's not a ford