V8 swap questions thread

Well, my stock engine is on its way out. Luckily, this isn't my daily driver and I'm going to take this opportunity to make it into a learning experience. The idea of putting a 302 into a Mazda has always seemed interesting and well-worth it although admittedly I've never done an engine swap. As many threads as I've seen on here and on the old mazdatruckin site (RIP, lol) I've never paid too much attention to the technical aspects of a v8 swap.
So, I have a few questions to start with that I'm sure will be followed by dozens more over the next several months.
I'll try to find a carb'ed 302, to simplify the wiring. But is there any 302 I should stay away from? As in, will one from say, an F-150 or and old Lincoln sedan swap in the exact same as a Mustang? I'm gong to buy an entire parts car/truck for a donor.
Am I correct in assuming that there won't be much welding involved? I'm still getting the hang of my flux core welder, so do be on the safe side I'm going to have to have a pro do my welds. My mazda has a standard trans, so I guess it'll be simpler to keep it that way (although I wouldn't mind having an auto..) What trans should I look for?
Keep in mind I'm not building a 500hp beast here, just whatever's going to be simpler for me.

Cmon, I know lots of people have done the swap!

As for which 302, I don't think that there's enough differences between the different versions to cause any issues with going into your B - I'm not an expert on the differences between all the different 302's, though. Mine was from an 88 Mustang GT, and I did megasquirt EFI (which added a considerable amount of complication to the project.) There really wasn't much welding on mine - I did a little on the motor mounts just because I got the 94-95 pulley/accessory drive assembly, which gave me an extra 1.75" of room at the nose of the engine, so I moved the engine forward just a little, which meant a little welding on the motor mounts. This did, however, put the shifter (T5, 5 speed manual from a 2.3L Mustang) almost perfectly centered in the shifter hole in the cab, which saved some cutting and fabbing there. I think the only real welding was the trans mount - I needed to add a small 1.5" extension to it to mount the stock T5 trans mount. I originally did the driveshaft myself, but it was out of balance, and eventually had a pro driveline shop do it properly.

I know the MT site is down, but if you go to wayback.archive.org and enter the in there, it will let you view 'snapshots' of the site from various months (latest is about Apr 2011). Then, you can look through most of my 5.0 build thread and get some details from there.

Thanks for the reply! I Just wasn't sure if I'd run into any clearance problems with the oil pans on different 302s.. If I found an EFI 302 (much easier to find an 87-96 ford f150 for under a grand) how easy would it be to convert it to a carbed setup? How much wiring is there on a 302 carb'ed to make it run?

I'm pretty sure you need a front sump oil pan, or maybe a rear sump. Idk but waldonbuddy (mtrain here) can chime in, I just remember it was one or the other. Yea I kinda wish I would have rebuilt a v8 instead of the stock f2 but maybe next time.

I used the stock oil pan (rear sump, with a small sump up front IIRC - I did have to chop the cross support and re-weld it, now that I think of it - missed mentioning that one above) from the 88 5.0 on mine, and it works great. As for doing a carb setup on an EFI-based engine, you will need to get an intake for a carb, since the EFI intake just isn't going to mate with the carb. They should be fairly plentiful, however. As for wiring with the carb - not much. You just need power to the starter, ground to the block, and wiring for the oil pressure sensor and coolant temp sensor - on my project, I put 3 coolant temp sensors in (one to the Megasquirt, one using the stock 2.2 sensor and a threaded adapter, to the in-dash stock temp gauge, and one to an aftermarket gauge), and 2 oil pressure sensors (one using the stock sender to the stock oil light in the dash, and one to an aftermarket gauge)

A few pics from photobucket re the different bits I had to weld:

Extension to trans support:




Oil pan stuff:





What I started with:



After:

Awesome, thanks for the pictures!
How much extra work was it to go the EFI way compared to a carb? I found a 94 ford f150 for a donor, but its EFI for $500. Should I jump on it, or hold out and find one thats carbed .. Not sure what kind of transmission the ford has in it, but I did find a t5 from an 84 Mustang for sale

100 views and 7 replies,
Looks like ill be figuring alot out on my own... thanks for all the replies

I did a megasquirt (kit you buy and build yourself), and that added a lot of time, money and complexity to the project. If you could get the ECU and all the wiring from an EFI donor vehicle, then it would be a lot simpler, although not likely as simple as a carb'd setup - although tuning the carb can be tricky if you're not familiar with them. I, myself, am more of an EFI/computer type person, so I prefer the EFI setup, besides the EFI has better cold start, better fuel economy etc.

I'm not on this site as much as I used to be on MazdaTruckin.com, but I'm getting on it more and more often, so don't worry if you don't see a reply for a few days.

This link might be somewhat helpful - it's a snapshot of mazdatruckin.com website from Apr 2011, this link is direct to my 5.0 build, although there's only 13 pages worth (before MT went down, it was about 30 pages, and something like 25,000 views).


This might help with some of your questions.