Forbidden Fruit, 6.8L PI 2v v10 build

Snorky · Mar 30, 2026

Made some big moves here. My shipment of the above components came in.

So I transferred the v10 from the engine stand to the cherry picker very carefully. I will say. It's nerve racking picking it up with these alternator bolts lol. The 4.6 i do with confidence.. the 6.8 is significantly larger.

once transferred to the dollies and slightly suspended. Used arp fasteners and lube to attach the mcleod steel flywheel. Hammered in the dowel pins. Then used arp fasteners to attach the mcleod super street pro clutch(my first larger single disc...) if it runs and it sucks to push in it will get an RST clutch. Perhaps I'll use that as an opportunity to run. The rst from green car in this and then get an RXT for green car... hmmm

Behold in all of its glory!!!
Next I hammered out an old alignment dowel from the 3650 I acquired who knows how long ago for this. Used some 220 grit sand paper to clean the holes up a little and take down high spots from the punch. Added a new pivot ball. Greased the pivot ball. Throwout bearing face. Splines and retainer sleeve with the appropriate lubricants. High temp grease on the bearing/splines/retainer shaft. Moly lithium high pressure on pivot ball. In the new clutch fork and bearing went.

Then married the tranny lol, cant say that everyday.... And voila!!!

Tossed on the starter and the. Just for funsies dropped the intake ontop. (Still need to final assemble that part and figure out the coolant pipe in the valley.

so motivating!!!

96blak54 · Mar 30, 2026

My sons and I were cleaning up the garage, moving things to the shop and a bare 5.4l block was in that mix. We man handled the block to my oldest sons truck tail gate and as we both were carrying the block to his truck i kept asking him who the idiot was that thought it was a good idea to put a big heavy ass 5.4l in their mustang, because that block is damn heavy! Dude, my cherry picker is a light duty, 1000lb fold up deal with heavy plastic wheels and the 5.4l complete is all that hoist wants! I would need to purchase one of them 2000lb hoists for the route you are taking!

Snorky · Mar 31, 2026

96blak54 said:
My sons and I were cleaning up the garage, moving things to the shop and a bare 5.4l block was in that mix. We man handled the block to my oldest sons truck tail gate and as we both were carrying the block to his truck i kept asking him who the idiot was that thought it was a good idea to put a big heavy ass 5.4l in their mustang, because that block is damn heavy! Dude, my cherry picker is a light duty, 1000lb fold up deal with heavy plastic wheels and the 5.4l complete is all that hoist wants! I would need to purchase one of them 2000lb hoists for the route you are taking!

LOL crazy though. The engine is allegedly an 03 cobra motor with blower setup in weight. Like a 4.6 2v with a grown man sitting on it. Hope the extra 100+ ft lb of torque across the board feels good. My guess is the feeling of a kenne bell 2v @10 lbs.

I have some duralast lift. Fully extend limit Is 1000 lbs. The real kicker is the engine stand. Went with the harbor freight one made for diesel engines with the legs that can fold up. When we got the fully assembled v10 home and on my regular stand we were nervous as hell. Thing was flexing hardddd. So we did a rapid undress of the motor immediately down to the short block. The new stand scoffs at the weight of the fully assembled engine.

I'm still stoked you were such a pioneer on the 5.4 front. I wish I went 5.4 2v with tfs heads and a centri blower in my green car over the 4.6 turbo. It would have been so much easier.

asherauto · Apr 17, 2026

What have you learned so far when it comes to the wiring and getting it running on only the essential wiring?

96blak54 · Apr 17, 2026

Snorky said:
LOL crazy though. The engine is allegedly an 03 cobra motor with blower setup in weight. Like a 4.6 2v with a grown man sitting on it. Hope the extra 100+ ft lb of torque across the board feels good. My guess is the feeling of a kenne bell 2v @10 lbs.

I have some duralast lift. Fully extend limit Is 1000 lbs. The real kicker is the engine stand. Went with the harbor freight one made for diesel engines with the legs that can fold up. When we got the fully assembled v10 home and on my regular stand we were nervous as hell. Thing was flexing hardddd. So we did a rapid undress of the motor immediately down to the short block. The new stand scoffs at the weight of the fully assembled engine.

I'm still stoked you were such a pioneer on the 5.4 front. I wish I went 5.4 2v with tfs heads and a centri blower in my green car over the 4.6 turbo. It would have been so much easier.

Thank you!
One day hopefully Ill get the 5.4l car back together. Cheerleading rules my play money and time these days.

Snorky · Apr 18, 2026

Small update. I have been very busy with extended family staying for a few weeks. Have also been finish up fixing the walls and wiring in my house. Down to painting. Tying in the last junction which as been pretested and adding the trim plates. Yayyyy.

Anyway. Onto a small incremental win. Finished assembling the intake manifold. Added the IAC

Wasn't sure which gasket to use. It had a lurethane style one in there on the initial disassembly so I went with that. Hopefully no throttle hang applied. I'll tuck the paper gasket away for later on that.

On the backside of the engine I saw this and had a mini panic attack.

On closer inspection though on this passenger head this h I e literally goes nowhere.

Found 8 out of 10 COPS. They probably need new boot tubes . Need to order fasteners for the COPS and also hunt for the last 2... I may have only bought 8 a few years ago. Also ordered the last 2 bolts for the intake manifold that go through the water neck/intake into the heads. M8x90mm. Might have to shave them doen to 85mm but we will see.

On the mechanical front, I am down to alternator. Water pump pulley. The water neck, 2 COPS, the fasteners. Finishing the fuel rails. Finding and routing a belt. And running some vacuum plugs or lines/breathers or hook up a pvc of some kind.... And headers of course.

asherauto said:
What have you learned so far when it comes to the wiring and getting it running on only the essential wiring?

Getting there, so to run this thing on a stand. Off the top of my head, you will need the system for COPS/injectors, cam position sensor, crank position sensor, Throttle POS sensor. IAC sensor, IAT, MAF sensor, oil pressure sensor, coolant temp Sensor or some form of sensor to activate high speed and low speed fans. Need some kind of key on power to 1. Run the ecu, but also to run power to a solenoid that goes to the starter. I'm getting to the end of the toad on mechanical so my time will be diverted to the wiring study.

Snorky · Apr 18, 2026

96blak54 said:
Thank you!
One day hopefully Ill get the 5.4l car back together. Cheerleading rules my play money and time these days.

Definitely post some more pics of that car and project

Snorky · Apr 18, 2026

Okay.. another solid win this morning. I am getting a fire lit under my ass thinking about this.

Took the fuel rail assembly and the 11mm spring lock to 6 AN adapter to work with me. I discussed the problem with my coworker who is the MC of machining and tool and die making. If anyone can fix this fitting it's him. We decided that the spring was not expanding inside the fitting to allow for the flare end to go all the way in.

So we had 2 options. Pull the spring.

Put it over the rail.

Open the lip of the fitting. Push the fitting on and try and push the spring in. Went this avenue first. So first He made a custom cutting tool for the lathe

This way it can enter the fitting appropriately. He cut down the lip by .005". We attempted to oush it on and slide the spring in but no dice. So he needed to cut the turn the pocket relief in the area of the fitting for the spring expansion. So he careful turned that Open by an additional .010"

Once deburred, i installed the spring and tried putting it on the regular way.. but no dice.. so I pulled the spring and placed it over the rail. Bottomed the fitting out in the flare and carefully popped the spring in after. Now it holds and you can't pull iT off.

This is a huge W. Once I get a system worked out and setup. I can leak test it on the engine. Very exciting! Now I can start making fuel lines up. Measure them out and come up with a path for the lines. Also figure out what size fuel pump I dhould work with. Found the 1 missing injector on the v10 manifold. Lol

One more big check off the list.

Snorky · Apr 19, 2026

Okay.. I decided I w9uld rip the bandaid off and pour some salt into the wound. Sat down and started studying the harness.

I have 2 injector harnesses so I chose the better of the 2 to study. Have located and labeled Injectors 1-10, COPS 1-10, IAC, TPS, CAM POS, Crank POS, driver and passenger upstream 02 sensors, and what I think is a heated PCV element. I have 2 plugs I haven't identified yet.

One at the back of the engine. Wire colors appear to be Dark Green/black and yellow/red

One on the drivers side of the bay. This looks familiar from green car but I cannot remember where it goes.. most likely the fuse/power distribution box. Its wire colors appear to begrey and red(or white and red) and yellow and light green.

That's a good feeling... then the kind of shitty part. This nicer harness is fucked up here. I'll review the other crappies harness to see if these connectors are in better shape.

Snorky · Apr 23, 2026

So I've moved on, I will return t9 those 2 plugs later. I out in an order and received a 2v header flange and some 1 5/8 exhaust pipe.

These will be used to add a set of primaries onto the bbk longtubes. I have an aluminum Plate with the bolt patter than will be used to line up 3 flanges with the 1 front one. This will be the template.

I will worry about heating them up and using percussive encouragement when they are on the engine and it has started already. I will probably measure the gap from say the upr K to the edge of a 4.6 header in my green car. Then subtract an inch. Heat and bash till I think it will clear lol

More good new on the wiring front. I sifted through the dash harness and located the obd2 port and the 3 cluster plugs. I am starting to sift through them. I hope to eliminate everything else.

I want the ECU to communicate with the cluster and obd2 port. I want the ecu to manage the Cops, injectors. Maf, iac, tps coolant temp, oil pressure, cam & crank sensors, 02 sensors. And have an input from the tr3650 harness for speed/reverse lights.. I will put in a fused relay box to run the cops. Injectors,fused key on power through there. Pumps,and maybe something with the starter . Might be missing something.. it'll come to me.

I installed my fuel tails and cop bolts. Only 2 of the cop bolts I drilled out I forgot to tap. Snd one the bolt ear snapped off the intake manifold -_-.... damnit.. so I'll have 9 cop bolts lol.

Oh well. I'll tap the holes next time I'm up there. I need to order the last 2 cops I'm missing as well. Unless anyone has some old ones they want to donate to science. I need to order some orb to AN fittings for the oil filter relocation kit. Also need to get a pcv valve and hoses/caps for the vacuum lines.. and feed the fuel pressure regulator as well.

Here it is in almost all of its glory. Added the Intake bellows, the breather from iac to intake pipe. And a hose from the valve cover to the intake pipe as well.

96blak54 · Apr 24, 2026

Oh you gonna hate installing the headers. I wish you the bests of luck!!!

ttocs · Apr 24, 2026

nah, just drop it in man. Raise it up about 8-10 ft and drop it and gravity will do all the hard work. Work smarter not harder

.

I had not even considered how much fun that will be till ya mentioned it.

Snorky · Apr 24, 2026

96blak54 said:
Oh you gonna hate installing the headers. I wish you the bests of luck!!!

LOL I'm going to put them on and eventually put the engine in from below. By that time, I might have a garage and a lift. The whole process of installation will potentially be a huge conundrum. i am assuming the tranny being ~1 back will require some firewall/trans tunnel influence. I am taking this one step at a time.
Step 1. Complete the engine/standalone setup
Step 2. PRAY!!
Step 3. Start it
Step 4. Worry about the install

Snorky · Apr 24, 2026

Can a

ttocs said:
nah, just drop it in man. Raise it up about 8-10 ft and drop it and gravity will do all the hard work. Work smarter not harder .

I had not even considered how much fun that will be till ya mentioned it.

Can always spit on it first

Snorky · Apr 24, 2026

Got a water proof, fused relay box in. This should help solve some of the problems for the missing fuse box harness. I can run the cops. Injectors. Fuel pumps, electric fan/key on power, etc. Through this. Once i comb through the harness some more i can plan out my attack. I can depin a lot of the harnesses and "delete" unused items.

07GtS197 · Apr 24, 2026

How much did that set you back? I need something like that for my 90 Grand Marquis for a headlight relay harness.

Snorky · Apr 25, 2026

07GtS197 said:
How much did that set you back? I need something like that for my 90 Grand Marquis for a headlight relay harness.

$50, it's all pre-wired In as seen. Link below. On initial inspection I am pleased with the quality. I am sure someone.,somewhere will say its a waste of money and that 8 years ago they piece mealed one together for $20. Which is fine... as soon as I get everything working and in a car I am anticipating a flood of that.

https://a.co/d/0h0rJnv9

ttocs · Apr 25, 2026

you should only need one fuse and one relay to add a headlight relay. Most of the kits just have them inline somewhere to be easily tucked away and hidden.

07GtS197 · Apr 25, 2026

Those old panthers don’t have headlight relays at all. I’d rather have a fuse box so I can add more circuits in the future anyway.

Snorky · Apr 25, 2026

ttocs said:
you should only need one fuse and one relay to add a headlight relay. Most of the kits just have them inline somewhere to be easily tucked away and hidden.