4.6 4v Teardown & Build Thread

[JB85]

picked up the parts today. Here are some more pictures.

just curious, for the valve cover with the oil cap...is there a way to eliminate the line from the cap to the other hole? I want to reduce as many lines as possible for this build

the shop was able to remove all the old grime off the timing chain cover and other pieces. so my plan is to paint the block black, along with the base of the intake and all other block pieces, and the intake and valve covers will be white.

I reached out to a few 3D printing places for quotes on designing me the spark plug covers. I want the covers to be black, but with a yellow Saleen logo across it

 

[JB85]

Ok so I waited until blackfriday to buy all the parts for the car.... that was a quick $10k. Here is my list of parts, let me all know what you think.

- Accel High Performance EV1 fuel injectors 30lb
- Edelbrock High Flow water pump
- Richmond Rear axel ring kit 4.3:1
- BBK 1-5/8 long tube headers titanium ceramic
- BBK underdrive pulleys
- SR Performance EGR cover
- Performance distributors screaming daemon coil
- McLeoud Lightened Steel Flywheel
- McLeoud Street Pro Organic Clutch Kit
- MMR Freeze plug kit
- MMR Head cooling Mod
- MMR IMRC delete plates and gaskets
- MMR billet fuel injector rails
- MMR billet timing crankshaft gear
- MMR flexible oil dipstick
- MMR Billet Alloy Valve Cover hold down inserts with seals
- Comp Camps N/A billet cam shafts stage 1
- Cletive Pro main bearings
- Clevite rod bearings
- SVT high volume oil pump
- MMR 4.6 4v gasket set
- MMR pro kit timing chain kit
- MMR block to oil filter adapter gasket
- water pump o-ring
- crankshaft to timing cover/harmonic balancer seal
- oil pump o-ring
- MMR cobra coolant cross over delete w/lines
- Diamond Piston kit: 10.0:1 compression, 51cc chamber, -3.5cc dish

I think that should be everything to compete the rebuild. I would really really appreciate it if anyone could chime in and let me know if there is something I am missing.

hoping this puts me to 350hp at the crank.

lasty, I need a throttle body. Can i use a stock one with this setup, or should I buy the BBK 65mm?

 

[Deceptive]

Should have gone with more compression.


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[venom1997]

Honestly I would of just honed the block out new piston rings get a kenne bell and you would of had 400-450 rwhp for less than 7k


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[JB85]

Honestly I would of just honed the block out new piston rings get a kenne bell and you would of had 400-450 rwhp for less than 7k


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I didn’t realize that supercharger was available. I’ll wait until January 1, sell some crypto, then order it! Just don’t want to get ****ed on taxes this year

 

[Adower]

I didn’t realize that supercharger was available. I’ll wait until January 1, sell some crypto, then order it! Just don’t want to get ****ed on taxes this year

Don’t get a kb. Get a centrifugal. Vortec, novi, procharger. Chose your poison.

 

[bird_dog0347]

If you plan to run a supercharger in the future, just go ahead and get some forged rods now as the stock ones are the weak link with what you currently have in your list.

 

[JB85]

finally started to rip out the old motor and transmission to get it ready for the cobra motor. the motor should be finished being built by end of month. But last night I took off the exuast, and what a POS from the factory. is that really 6 cats on the factor exhaust? goooood lord! I am going to add an offroad x pipe since I am putting BBK LT's on the car. I wonder if anyone would want these cats? or if I could make some money from the local scrap yard.

 

[KCRN12]

I'll be following this thread. I've been planning to build mine for years. Hopefully I'll get started soon. Mine was originally a GT that I did cobra swap on about 10 years ago. Interestingly enough, I also had the idea of powder coating the block black and valve covers white. I'll be interested to see how yours looks when done. I've also considered blue for the covers just to avoid it always looking dirty with the white. I think they'll look great white when they're clean, but I worry about what they'll look like dirty.

Since a couple guys mentioned supercharging, I'll go ahead and add that I'm planning to hopefully go forced induction. I was thinking TT, but I might be leaning more toward supercharging, now. I just like the idea of earlier boost. Do the centrifugal SCs like pro charger still have to build boost? I know they're belt driven, but I feel like I read years ago that they still have lag that you don't get with Kenne Bell systems. Is this right or is my memory failing me?

 

[I_like_turtlez]

finally started to rip out the old motor and transmission to get it ready for the cobra motor. the motor should be finished being built by end of month. But last night I took off the exuast, and what a POS from the factory. is that really 6 cats on the factor exhaust? goooood lord! I am going to add an offroad x pipe since I am putting BBK LT's on the car. I wonder if anyone would want these cats? or if I could make some money from the local scrap yard.

Lol yeah they stuffed 6 cats on these things. Cutting them out and adding louder mufflers adds 20-25rwhp; it's not hard to get these cars over 300rwhp

 

[JB85]

I'll be following this thread. I've been planning to build mine for years. Hopefully I'll get started soon. Mine was originally a GT that I did cobra swap on about 10 years ago. Interestingly enough, I also had the idea of powder coating the block black and valve covers white. I'll be interested to see how yours looks when done. I've also considered blue for the covers just to avoid it always looking dirty with the white. I think they'll look great white when they're clean, but I worry about what they'll look like dirty.

Since a couple guys mentioned supercharging, I'll go ahead and add that I'm planning to hopefully go forced induction. I was thinking TT, but I might be leaning more toward supercharging, now. I just like the idea of earlier boost. Do the centrifugal SCs like pro charger still have to build boost? I know they're belt driven, but I feel like I read years ago that they still have lag that you don't get with Kenne Bell systems. Is this right or is my memory failing me?

Ya the reason I went white is because of the white car. I was worried about them getting dirty too, but I’ll honestly put less than 3000 miles a year on the car. It’s just going to be a weekend cruiser when I get time to take the wife and kid out in it.

How hard was it to do the 4V swap? From what I’m reading it’s fairly easy, just reversing the polarity on the plug wires. Any tips for me?

Also, I’ll post a list of every part I bought for the motor. I have decided against supercharging it.


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[Bdubbs]

finally started to rip out the old motor and transmission to get it ready for the cobra motor. the motor should be finished being built by end of month. But last night I took off the exuast, and what a POS from the factory. is that really 6 cats on the factor exhaust? goooood lord! I am going to add an offroad x pipe since I am putting BBK LT's on the car. I wonder if anyone would want these cats? or if I could make some money from the local scrap yard.

I'd buy that stock mid pipe if you were local to me. Don't junk or scrap it. One day it will be worth some money. Probably already is for the purist.

Edit: Thought it was for 03-04 cobra. Geez 6 cats...

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[KCRN12]

Ya the reason I went white is because of the white car. I was worried about them getting dirty too, but I’ll honestly put less than 3000 miles a year on the car. It’s just going to be a weekend cruiser when I get time to take the wife and kid out in it.

How hard was it to do the 4V swap? From what I’m reading it’s fairly easy, just reversing the polarity on the plug wires. Any tips for me?

Also, I’ll post a list of every part I bought for the motor. I have decided against supercharging it.


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Yeah, mine is white too, that’s why I was thinking of it as well. I have white wheels and white accents on the interior, so I figured, carrying that through under the hood would be nice.

The swap was honestly pretty straightforward and easy. The main thing that I had to modify were adding a little wire length to the TPS and ECT sensors. I deleted the EGR and just made custom plates for that out of some flat bar. I’ve blocked off the port in the manifold , with a penny. I deleted the passive air injection, so there were a lot of vacuum tubes I had to plug. I use the factory, GT, harness and computer, just extended those few wires. I shot an email to the tuner that was Dyno tuning it when I was done and got a start up tune for it and just flashed that in to be able to drive safely to the shop for Dyno tuning.

Like I said, it’s been over 10 years since I did the swap, so I’m probably forgetting things. I didn’t do a full rebuild. I just bought the complete engine and transmission from a 97 cobra and dropped it in. If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know, but that was the gist of it.

I did the swap by myself on crutches for a broken leg and just had a little help from my brother getting things lined up when dropping the engine back in, if that tells you anything about the relative ease of it.

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[KCRN12]

Oh, I also forgot to mention the IMRC delete. If you’re not using a cobra pcm and harness there are no electronics to run the IMRC. So I took them off, removed the blades from the shaft and put them back on. Someone used to (and may still) make a billet delete plate, but it was expensive and I was in school and poor, lol. So I just gutted the ones I had so they’d always be open and ran with it. It definitely does affect your low end power. The car feels kinda flat low down, but once you get in the higher RPMs it really kicks on. It almost feels like turbo lag.


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[JB85]

Oh, I also forgot to mention the IMRC delete. If you’re not using a cobra pcm and harness there are no electronics to run the IMRC. So I took them off, removed the blades from the shaft and put them back on. Someone used to (and may still) make a billet delete plate, but it was expensive and I was in school and poor, lol. So I just gutted the ones I had so they’d always be open and ran with it. It definitely does affect your low end power. The car feels kinda flat low down, but once you get in the higher RPMs it really kicks on. It almost feels like turbo lag.


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Thanks! That’s good to know! I did buy the MMR delete plates. This makes me feel so much better about the swap. Hopefully with upping the compression it won’t feel that flat down low. I also bought a set of 4.3:1 gears too.

Your car looks beautiful too!! I think you should go with the white cam covers too!


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[KCRN12]

Thanks! That’s good to know! I did buy the MMR delete plates. This makes me feel so much better about the swap. Hopefully with upping the compression it won’t feel that flat down low. I also bought a set of 4.3:1 gears too.

Your car looks beautiful too!! I think you should go with the white cam covers too!


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Thanks. That pic was taken a while ago. It’s in pretty terrible shape right now. I had an unfortunate situation where I put it in my shed when the forecast was calling for hail and decided to leave it since I didn’t have garage space at the time. Unfortunately there apparently wasn’t enough ventilation even though the shed it was in just has basically fence board walls. Now there’s mold inside that I have to deal with. The fuel pump took a crap, so it won’t even start right now, and then the paint started delaminating.

As much as it pained me, a few weeks ago I had to chip off all the loose paint, sand some surface rust, scuff the paint around the damaged areas and spray paint it just to protect it from becoming a rust bucket. I was so upset.

My plan now is to gut the interior to clean all the surfaces, bomb it for mold, replace the carpet, do a rear seat delete, Corbeau seats, rebuild the engine, blower, T56 swap, and paint refresh. It’s gonna take forever. It’ll prob be a decade before it’s done, honestly.


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[01yellercobra]

FWIW, the white paint of that era just sucked. My son had a white 98 GT and while it wasn't perfect, it was in decent shape. The paint just started falling off basically. So I wouldn't blame everything on the shed.

 

[KCRN12]

FWIW, the white paint of that era just sucked. My son had a white 98 GT and while it wasn't perfect, it was in decent shape. The paint just started falling off basically. So I wouldn't blame everything on the shed.

I don’t blame the shed for the paint. I blame the shed for the interior mold. The paint is mostly from me not having enough garage space for more than one vehicle and too much tree cover of the driveway for too many years. In 2019 I bought a 2017 Sierra 1500 Denali and that took the garage spot and then the car didn’t get driven nearly as much and it sat under trees and the paint wasn’t taken care of like it had been. It already had some really small flaking areas, but lack of maintenance on my part caused it to deteriorate pretty quickly.

It’ll get taken care of one day.


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[JB85]

While the motor is being built, I decided to buy some refurbed mach 1 calipers, paint them black and add the Saleen decal to it. I think it turned out halfway descent. Thanks to 98 svt for making the decals!