i have a ford 5.0 engine laying around. i want to know if it is possible to put it in my 83 gsl. if i did this what would i need to do first to start the project. what am i getting myself into? is there a set of plans for a project like this? i know there are other guys that have done this so i was thinkin about it. so let me know

 

you wont find much help here, its like a sin to take out the rotory motor to these guys, but I have a pal that did it. Go to www.grannysspeedshop.com. They have everything you will need. The motor mount kit is around 150.00, and other that that its just work on your part, plus parts finding and custom fabbing. Good luck, they turn out fun.

 

does that mean you need a ford tranny, driveshaft and a rear end?

 

You don't need a ford rear end, you do need a ford tranny, and you'll need a custom driveshaft.

Go here for lots of good info on V-8 swaps:

http://www.torquecentral.com

 

dude, there was just a thread on that about 2 days ago....do a search and see what you find, but your breaking our hearts putting a lump of 100% american pushrod **** into an icon such as the RX-7

 

right on leif!!!!! ROTARY FORUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

A 5.0 is possible, but not recommended.

 

k, its been done, but its a fuking idiotic idea.

 

rx7's with 5.0s are fast...don't listen to anybody else, go for it.

 

rx7's with 5.0s are fast...don't listen to anybody else, go for it.

Marques

 

5.0L RX-7s are about as slow as people who double post

 

 

What are you getting yourself into? ridicule from us! lol others have done it, but we dont like them...lol

 

i agree wholeheartedly, push rods pound ***!

 

Its been done. Some like it and some don't. If you have the funds and wanna try go ahead. If you are gonna put the 5.0 engine in you might wanna think about upgrading the rear end because its gonna be a matter of time before you blow your stock one. I personally don't like the idea of not having a rotary in a RX-7, but I think I could appreciate having the torque and driveability that you would get with a V8.

 

im putting a 280z engine in a first gen 7

the trick is .. DONT TELL the guy your buying the 7 from that your swaping in a piston engine

 

Rotary's will out do piston motors ANY day of the week!!!

 

why take out a light high-tech motor, capable of so much BHP, and replace it with a heavy lo-tech pushrod engine. especialy when the problems of putting a 5.0L into a RX-7 is such a pain in the ***! you have mounting points, space issues, exaust issues, differential..no to mention the havoc it will cause with your front suspension.

 

The 5.0 and the rotary are close enough in weight that it does not matter.

The 5.0 fits the engine bay better than the rotary does. (Much better than, say, a Fox-body, or a 60's Falcon) Swap the crossember around backwards and the Fox oil pan drops right down over it.

Sure you have to fabricate your own motor mount brackets. It's an *engine swap*. That's what engine swaps are *like*.

Rearend... well, I can see that, unless you have an overdrive tranny, in which case 3.91 can almost be considered conservative compared to what I've seen some 'Stang-bangers run. Fortunately the car has a solid axle, so you can just weld new brackets onto a different rearend and throw it on up there. Might not be a bad idea for rotary-powered cars either.

And finally... yes the rotary has potential. The 5.0 has even more potential.

It's different strokes for different folks. I'd been seriously contemplating a boinger swap (not a 5.0: but another V8 incredibly small for its displacement) but my paradigm shifted and now I find myself wanting an engine that has a powerband that works from redline all the way down to near idle, and a powerband that isn't *too* high up, so an N/A rotary is just *perfect*. Plus there's that rotary shriek

Also been contemplating a Duratech 2.3l swap. People have been getting HP that would shame some bridgeports, using the stock cams and unported heads. It's a *fine* engine and Mazda guys should be glad that it's being used in various Mazda products as well as Fords.

 

yea if anything, put a 2.3turbo in it.

 

Sorry my first double post ever, that does make me slow.

Rotary engines have their advantages, and I still love them, but nothing beats the power/cost ratio of a v8 swap. Not to mention the huge aftermarket for 5.0 motors, parts are cheap as hell.

-Marques

 

Interestingly enough the 2.3t weighs about the same as a 5.0. It's a combination of the 5.0 being an exceptionally light package, and the 2.3t being *heavily* beefed up by Ford for turbo use.

How beefed up? Try 30+psi (and 400+ lb-ft of torque) on stock 100k junkyard bottom ends.

I would not doubt it if the 2.3 block was significantly heavier than the 5.0 block. And then there are the super heavy duty con rods, heavy duty crank, heavy OHC type cylinder head (more mass in the head than OHV)...

Random thread drift: j9fd3s is always telling me about how some teams in the JGTCC machined out about 66 kilograms from RB26 engine blocks to save weight, and still had enough beef to make power under race conditions. Well, 66 kilograms is 145.2lb, or about ten pounds more than an entire 5.0 block.

Just picture that - the RB26 engine has so much metal in it that you could remove a 5.0 block's worth of iron and still have reliability. Or on the flip side, the 5.0 block has so little iron that you could safely carve it out of a RB26 without the engine caring (unless maybe it was one of those sick 1000+hp engines!)

 

Oh yeah the other reason why I am staying rotary.

PARTS!

Sure the oarts are cheap but building a piston engine is so excruciating! There are so many tolerances and clearances and surfaces to be machined and selective fits and shimmings and special-order parts. Rotaries are much more simplerful - in the time it takes to properly set up a pair of heads I can do an entire rotor-motor.

 

ok, um. how much do you think a 5.0 weighs? cuz a rotary is 198LBs...i carried mine accrss the garage when i did my engine swap, your talking about an engine of 1.3L with 3 moving parts, and comparing it to an engine of 5.0L with hundreds of moving parts...if a 5.0 weighs as much as a rotary i'll **** my pants.

 

That's a looong engine. Tall, too. Nice and torquey, though, and an inline six is smooth running.