MX-3.com

1st gen MX6, Ford(Yamaha) SHO engine.

2002 Ford Taurus, originally equipped with a Duratec 3.0l


Reverse that order... what groundbreaking achievements do we have here?

SHO engines can be swapped reasonably into Duratec equipped cars. It's reasonable to assume the reverse can be done as well... Which means, Duratec engines can likely be swapped into SHO equipped cars. Which has(at least once) been proven possible in a 1st gen MX-6. The 1st gen MX-6 F series engine has been stuffed into an MX-3, has it not?

If the F series and SHO engines both fit and function in a 1st gen MX-6, and the F series has been swapped into an MX-3... The groundwork has been laid for an MX-3 SHO swap, assuming it physically fits.

If the SHO will work, there is POTENTIAL for the Duratec line.

Naturally, it will take both money and hard work to make this happen. That being said, it will never happen on this board. Those who have the money, lack the drive to do it. Those who have the drive, lack the money.

I've never been big on the 1st gen MX-6 aesthetically, but it's starting to look like a mean machine... Has anybody attempted a true AWS swap into an MX-3, to replace the TTLs?

I think this about sums it up then. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2HcRl4wSk or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwv61Uu1fdA You can do eet.

MrMazda92 wrote:As for the OBDII debate, I figure anyone investing the time/energy/money into a Duratec(or other non conventional) V6 swap will probably either go with aftermarket EMS, or make an adapter similar to that currently sold on MX6.com, it's a safe assumption at least...

I personally think the opposite from you... Anyone upgrading to an OBDII motor that wants reliable power should stick with factory OBDII wiring/ecm...

Aftermarket EMS's add complexity.. When not done right they are less reliable...

The only upside to an EMS system is more flexibility...

It's one thing when you aren't crossing platforms man. All of the electrical nonsense related to the trans and engine on newer cars is where the complexity is at... Just reading through the Taurus forums the other day gave enough evidence of that, people can't even swap a newer Duratec into an older model(originally equipped with a Duratec) without an electronic nightmare.

Look at the trouble you've personally had getting OBDII to work on your car... Perfect example. In the end it will be worth it for you, but most people would have given up and run it OBDI by now. Just using MX-3s as an example, a PnP MegaSquirt is exactly that... Plug and Play.

As for reliability, nothing will last if it isn't done properly.

MrMazda92 wrote:It's one thing when you aren't crossing platforms man. All of the electrical nonsense related to the trans and engine on newer cars is where the complexity is at... Just reading through the Taurus forums the other day gave enough evidence of that, people can't even swap a newer Duratec into an older model(originally equipped with a Duratec) without an electronic nightmare.

Look at the trouble you've personally had getting OBDII to work on your car... Perfect example. In the end it will be worth it for you, but most people would have given up and run it OBDI by now. Just using MX-3s as an example, a PnP MegaSquirt is exactly that... Plug and Play.

As for reliability, nothing will last if it isn't done properly.

Which trouble are you talking??? The 2 things I have run into is an odd idle, and trying to figure out my tac signal... The odd idle I am pretty sure is just a sticky IAC valve that I don't have the time/money to replace right now... the tac was sorted out once I found a more detailed pin out diagram... Neither one has stopped the car from being a reliable daily driver..

I checked out a Taurus at the junk yard and it looks like they use a full subframe instead just a crossmember. The mounts are at the front and rear passenger corner on the block and the trans mount is under the trans about 6" in front of the axle. The bay layout looks pretty similar but there would need to be a decent amount of work to use the mounts or to make it work with our crossmembers.

Redline322,

The "biggest issue" is getting it to run in the car. Physical fitment typically requires custom mounts anyways, and a custom subframe/crossmember would likely be required no matter what. Honestly, it'd probably be easier to completely replace it than to modify existing parts.
It's never going to be as easy as a B or K series swap, but the fact that it's been done with a 1st gen MX-6 makes it much more do-able than previously thought. Picking the brains of the original project owners would probably answer a lot of questions

crazycanadian,

crazycanadian wrote:I am using a stock 99 626 engine bay harness and the stock ECU...

Easily 75% of the active membership would hesitate to swap harnesses, maybe half of those who would consider it would follow through... They would give the same reasons as those who nay-say non conventional engine swaps. "Too much work for too little gain."

crazycanadian wrote: A little info.. The ECU came from a car with an automatic transmission... I have nothing for automatic transmission hooked up... Also I have non of the emissions control systems hooked up... I am throwing 10 trouble codes because of all this stuff missing... I am not throwing any kind of code that directly relates to idle or any kind of drivability problem though... From looking at the video why do you think the car is idling as it does?? It will do this high idle every time you come to a stop light or touch the throttle..

To be 100% fair, mentioning only the current state of your car(after months of troubleshooting error codes and lack of tach signal, etc), without considering how much work it took to get it there... Is a colossal mistake. People will start thinking an OBDII swap is a bolt-on affair, and end up scrapping their projects because they lack what it takes to finish them.

Yes, it ran from the get-go, but it was far from "easy" to get it where you have today. Believe me, I give you mad props for what you've done, it's a hell of an accomplishment, and I assure you that I am not bashing your project, hard work, or end results... I just don't want people getting the wrong idea about the complexity of it.

PnP Megasquirt(only one aftermarket system, out of several available, the CHEAPEST by far for comparable features) is, as the title puts it, plug and play. I have verified this myself, having driven a bone stock K8 around town on a base tune with zero tuning. I went so far as to test the same ECU(with a KL base tune, downloaded from another forum) on my '93 KL swapped GS. Both ran flawlessly, without a single hiccup. 2 pop tabs, removing the stock ECU, and plugging in the PnP unit. It was a 5-7 minute swap, because I couldn't get the stock ECU to detach from the harness at first.

Granted, I didn't build the unit myself, and that saved me from troubles that others have discovered and overcome in the past.

MrMazda92 wrote:Easily 75% of the active membership would hesitate to swap harnesses, maybe half of those who would consider it would follow through... They would give the same reasons as those who nay-say non conventional engine swaps. "Too much work for too little gain."

crazycanadian wrote: A little info.. The ECU came from a car with an automatic transmission... I have nothing for automatic transmission hooked up... Also I have non of the emissions control systems hooked up... I am throwing 10 trouble codes because of all this stuff missing... I am not throwing any kind of code that directly relates to idle or any kind of drivability problem though... From looking at the video why do you think the car is idling as it does?? It will do this high idle every time you come to a stop light or touch the throttle..

To be 100% fair, mentioning only the current state of your car(after months of troubleshooting error codes and lack of tach signal, etc), without considering how much work it took to get it there... Is a colossal mistake. People will start thinking an OBDII swap is a bolt-on affair, and end up scrapping their projects because they lack what it takes to finish them.

Yes, it ran from the get-go, but it was far from "easy" to get it where you have today. Believe me, I give you mad props for what you've done, it's a hell of an accomplishment, and I assure you that I am not bashing your project, hard work, or end results... I just don't want people getting the wrong idea about the complexity of it.

I think you are missing what all has gone on with my swap... The tac was the biggest problem I have faced.. I was held up due to a lack of info in the wiring diagrams... I didn't spend much more then hour on it though... Other then that I have spent 10 min with a scan tool after work taking the video, 5 min fixing a coolant line.... The swap took 2 months to do, but it wasn't just a motor swap...

All the other trouble codes I am not worried about.. I am not trying to solve them because there is no need to..

The complexity of this kind of stuff is miss guided by poor/missing/wrong information... You need to understand what it takes to make the factory motor run happy before you do the swap...

To make the stock KLG4/stock 99 ecu and harness in my car work all I needed to know was what wires to feed power to and what wires to ground.. Plug everything in and fire up the car... I added more complexity by making my tac/cooling fan/fuel pump/gauges all work like they would from the factory...

A stand alone system in my opinion isn't the wrong way to go.. Its more flexible..If you are going with a huge swap you aren't likely sticking with a stock motor, then there is a need for tuning abilities.. Some swaps will require you go with stand alone due to networking/security issues you wont be able to get around...

It takes a hell of a lot more work to swap a harness and troubleshoot problems than plug and play...

Will it be more reliable down the road if they swap to OBDII? I can't answer that, as I honestly don't know. I see OBDII vehicles daily driven all over the place, but it's hard to tell who has 5+ years on a standalone aftermarket EMS.

If reliability is all you are comparing, I have no basis to argue by. There are far more OBDII equipped cars out there than standalone EMS equipped ones. I'll concede the point because there simply isn't enough information to even attempt continuing the discussion on that point.

MrMazda92 wrote:It takes a hell of a lot more work to swap a harness and troubleshoot problems than plug and play....

Plug and Play is going to be easier in some regards... But going out side the box, like this thread is about. You wont find a plug and play stand alone system... You'll still have to wire things for it, and trouble shoot...

Are we talking about K/B series swaps, or Duratec/SHO at this point?

There isn't anything plug and play about a Duratec/SHO swap, that's a given... I still believe that aftermarket would be less complicated than swapping 10-12 year old harnesses into 20+ year old cars...

Use the factory sensors, and build a MegaSquirt or similar to suit...

There isn't an easy way to do it, or it would have been done.

crazycanadian wrote:I like my KLG4... Not as much power as a ZE, but a newier motor that easy enough to swap in..

This would be my option as well. Find a 1998-2002 mazda 626. There are 4 of them with motors, all around 200,000km in kelowna at picknpull. I was there yesterday

crazycanadian wrote: Plug and Play is going to be easier in some regards... But going out side the box, like this thread is about. You wont find a plug and play stand alone system... You'll still have to wire things for it, and trouble shoot...

I wonder if it would be easier if your car is already OBD2? I haven't seen the harness from the 626 to be able to compare.

Daninski wrote:

crazycanadian wrote: Plug and Play is going to be easier in some regards... But going out side the box, like this thread is about. You wont find a plug and play stand alone system... You'll still have to wire things for it, and trouble shoot...

I wonder if it would be easier if your car is already OBD2? I haven't seen the harness from the 626 to be able to compare.

It wont make much of a difference.... Its usually in how you approach doing the swap... Some cars the body harness and systems are tied heavily into the engine controls... If thats the case you need to look at swapping over more then just the engine controls...Some times you don't even have to change the harness just swap around sensor and you can back date a motor.. Making an OBD2 set up work on an OBD1 system

A few examples... my KLG4 swap it was just the engine stuff I needed, Nothing was plug and play, but it wasn't overly complicated to wire...

A friend of mine swapped a 3800SC motor into his 2001 cavalier convertable.. He had to use the complete harness from the bonneville donnor car.. The gauge cluster... PCM... and BCM to make the swap work...Due to the factory anti theft system.. In the end you work on the car as though it was a stock bonneville sse....

The B6T swap I did on my 89 323 I just needed the engine harness/pcm stuff... Mazda made it so easy that it was plug and play...

I did a 2.3L HO quad 4 swap in my old V6 90 cavalier... The quad 4 harness was almost a plug and play set up with the cavalier body harness.. I just had to change a couple pins around...

I helped a couple friends swap out their OBD1 3.1L/2.8L V6's in their cavaliers for OBD2 3400 SFI motors... We used the stock OBD1 cavalier harness and ecu on the OBD2 motors simply by switching a few sensors around...

I agree, the only time it's harder is when the ECU and/or the engine harness is part of the BCM or body wiring harness. The only hard part is interfacing with the cluster and maybe and key/tumbler security. Than you have those in the Honda communities putting in the 3.2 V6 from a TL, and they need to put the stereo from that car in there as well. That's getting a little crazy and complicated...

I just picked up MS for the truck because the ECM has PMS and I can't wait to bypass that thing, but factory boosted cars can be that way apparently...

Note also that the Gen1 Probe (ala Mx6) did have the Vulcan V6 option, which may facilitate the installation of a newer Ford V6, but I have no guess on that...

Realistically, There is NO replacement for a KLZE like a KLZE, it's that simple.

A KLZE is : The easiest and the cheapest most power low mileage solution/upgrade you can get. It uses the OEM mounts, linkages, harness, trans, everything that's already included in the car and requires NO custom modifications. You can swap the motor and nothing else and it WILL work. The mileage will suck, intake and exhaust will limit power, and you'll burn out the original clutch before your next oil change, but it will work. It can be done with hand tools and an engine hoist, in the driveway, in the rain, half-loaded, in a weekend, if your good.

It doesn't matter what you've seen in other cars, if it fits, it will work in some way, but as stated in this thread and many times in others, the required custom work (fab, parts and wiring) significantly increases cost and time, and lowers reliability and ease of maintenance.

You can argue which best "other" V6 option you want best, if it's a Ford Yamaha SHO or a Duratec, a Honda J30/J32, a VW VR6, A Nissan VG/VQ, a Toyota 2GR or what ever V6 that pops in your head after slipping and hitting your head on the bathroom sink while standing on the toilet. All the essential work needed to get it in there and working is the same, the required parts and fab will differ of course, but the job is not much different between each, with each having their own challenges with the inherit nature of the functioning design of the motor and it's transmission in relative to a car body it wasn't concieved to go into. Of course it's easier when someone else had already done it, so you know it's doable in a manner of speaking, which makes it more encouraging than to embark on a challenge with no references, and you find out after spending several grand of your hard earned money and countless hours that in that particular case of your project that the motor you wanted in there just will not work for the life of you because XXX reason makes it impossible for XXX part to work and make the swap functional. But people like talking about these non-conventional swaps because they want to be different; you're not really being different if you're doing that particular swap because someone else has.

In the end, there is no KLZE replacement, not by a long shot, not in the simplistic way that the KLZE interchanges with the K8/KF/KLDE and OEM-like maintenance. If someone wants something other than that, than it's up to them to decide, depending on their budget and ability, on which motor to go with, and shouldn't/doesn't need to be approved by anyone else but themselves and anyone physically working on it.