Will Lightning Motor Bolt right up..........

[1996mustangGT]

I thought the Lightning motor came with pretty good internals while i guess i'll look around for a kit to upgrade the internals if i go the Whipple route which if i do the swap im def going to do man that'll be one sick ride plus i got some custom cams laying around i never put in my 4.6 i could put them in the 5.4 :headbang: If i knew exactly what all i needed i would have been did this swap.......

Are you including the trans? If so then the engine, trans, trans wiring harness, peice parts.
PM R3dn3ck. He has done the 5.4 Swap and is the resident expert. Its not near as difficult as people make it out to be.
If you really want it to fit under a resonably sized hood then email MM. I think they made some special motor mounts or something that sat the engine lower so you wouldnt have to run an obscene high cowl.
Like I said, nothing huge. Its going to take some time, and a good chunk of change, but its do-able.
Good luck. Im jealous

 

[98mstanggt]

I thought the Lightning motor came with pretty good internals while i guess i'll look around for a kit to upgrade the internals if i go the Whipple route which if i do the swap im def going to do man that'll be one sick ride plus i got some custom cams laying around i never put in my 4.6 i could put them in the 5.4 :headbang: If i knew exactly what all i needed i would have been did this swap.......

Are you including the trans? If so then the engine, trans, trans wiring harness, peice parts.
PM R3dn3ck. He has done the 5.4 Swap and is the resident expert. Its not near as difficult as people make it out to be.
If you really want it to fit under a resonably sized hood then email MM. I think they made some special motor mounts or something that sat the engine lower so you wouldnt have to run an obscene high cowl.
Like I said, nothing huge. Its going to take some time, and a good chunk of change, but its do-able.
Good luck. Im jealous

I sent r3dn3ck a pm so hopefully he can help out...........But yeah Ima use the Lightning transmission too.......But yeah ima get an aftermarket k member and different motor mounts cause i want the motor to sit low as possible.....Can i use my same Driveshaft, A/c lines, and all that other good stuff......

 

[bigjohnson4.6gt]

i would save the time and effort and just put the procharger on it, if you go through with the swap make sure the engine and car get along so it doesnt regurgitate the spark plugs

 

[1996mustangGT]

Regurgiatate the spark plugs...phrase of the year!

 

[r3dn3ck]

k... many of you are missing some key accurate info.

The lightning engine bolts RIGHT UP. There's no way to clear a streetable hood with the lightning blower.

Here's my advice: don't bother with the lightning motor. It has shitty weak rods that will fail at a bad time. The best part of the L motor is the standard forged pistons it came with. Other than that it's a real bag of crap for a factory supercharged engine.

If you're going to spend that kind of money, then buy yourself a built shortblock from MMR, DSS, CHP or some similar company, buy a front cover from ebay and a timing set from whereever along with a head gasket set and a set of ARP head studs. Use any set of PI heads or, better yet ported PI heads and a good blower cam (Hitech Stage 2 blower cams are GREAT for this). Grab up a HPS intake and a used vortech/paxton/procharger kit and go to town. You'll be able to make LOTS more power, the motor will last longer and you'll spend less on repairs.

The lightning blower is fantastic for trucks but it makes for a very street unfriendly car. There's (you'll not hear me say this often) too much fuggin torque with a 2v 5.4L and a roots type blower (yes a twin screw makes too much low end too). The centrifugal blowers take a little longer to spool up the boost and makes it easier to keep the tires planted and they make a shitload more top end power.

as near as I can tell you can't really use the lightning tranny. I couldn't find a way to make it fit. Good luck with that. At the very minimum you'll need a custom tranny crossmember and possibly a tail shaft housing.

Abandon hope of lowering the engine with an aftermarket k-member. The ONLY way to do it right with parts you can buy is with Maximum Motorsports new k-member spacers (I begged them to bring them to market and they did). Your stock tranny will do fine but you should pop for a fluid cooler, tighter converter, deep pan, etc...

Now then for the swap: THE ONLY THING DIFFERENT IS DECK HEIGHT. All your stock crap bolts exactly where it was. You'll need to mod the baffles in your stock oil pan and use some fittings and hose from Home depot for the heater line hookup but it's otherwise retardedly easy.

DO NOT OVERLOOK THE ADVICE ON BLOWER SELECTION. Use a centri. You'll never see over the hood with the lightning blower and you can't clear any cowl due to the blower pulley being so high up and so far forward. Even if the blower body clears the pulley won't.

Please please please folks, log onto Mustangboards.com and check out my big swap sticky in the 4.6 tech section. There's over 5000 replies and a couple dozen cars either done swapping or in the process. There's more info there than I can provide.

I'm about to close escrow on my new house so I'll be generally unavailable except for the time I spend on MB. Since I'm an admin there I can't just ignore it and I check daily on my swap thread and my PM's there.

Please check out my threads there... there's new pics of the longtube headers with collectors welded on. They're total fuggin art.

 

[98mstanggt]

Man im having second thoughts on this Lightning swap now lol I thought the L motor came with good internals, and i also thought the Transmission bolted right up too Thank goodness for Forums..... not to mention the hood issue.....It seem it would be easier and cheaper to just buy a regular 5.4 motor and go from there will a procharger bolt right up to the 5.4 too??? And o yeah i know HPS came out with the 5.4 Intake did they ever come out with the 5.4 Longtubes???

 

[Lightning Struck]

Man im having second thoughts on this Lightning swap now lol I thought the L motor came with good internals, and i also thought the Transmission bolted right up too Thank goodness for Forums..... not to mention the hood issue.....It seem it would be easier and cheaper to just buy a regular 5.4 motor and go from there will a procharger bolt right up to the 5.4 too??? And o yeah i know HPS came out with the 5.4 Intake did they ever come out with the 5.4 Longtubes???

the weak link in the stock internals is the Rods, swap them out and you will be fine. As far as longtubes there are a few ones such as Dynatech / Kooks / and JLP's own.....

 

[98mstanggt]

I bet a regular 5.4 with Trickflow new heads, hps intake and some good cams would be a pretty good swap

 

[Jrgunn5150]

I bet a rocket engine would be a good swap, even better yet, one that backfires chunks of gold.

 

[g36 monkey]

I bet a rocket engine would be a good swap, even better yet, one that backfires chunks of gold.

ive had one of those
it ended up getting too pricy, when it back fired, it really fired, and hurled gold nuggets at roughly 200 mph.
so many shattered windshields
people were not satisfied with just the gold
they expected windshield replacement on top of all that.

some people....

 

[bigjohnson4.6gt]

why not just do a 4v swap, it would be so much easier and you would get much more numbers

 

[98mstanggt]

why not just do a 4v swap, it would be so much easier and you would get much more numbers

I thought about it but would have to change so much stuff probably just going to get the new trickflow heads when that come out and call it a day For now.....

 

[Jrgunn5150]

why not just do a 4v swap, it would be so much easier and you would get much more numbers

I thought about it but would have to change so much stuff probably just going to get the new trickflow heads when that come out and call it a day For now.....

You dont have to change anything but the motor...

 

[bigjohnson4.6gt]

like jr said you dont have to change anything but the motor, without modifying the hood/clearance etc.. its just a drop and go type of deal

 

[98mstanggt]

like jr said you dont have to change anything but the motor, without modifying the hood/clearance etc.. its just a drop and go type of deal

You guys talking about the 4v???? I thought it was more involved then the 2v.......

 

[bigjohnson4.6gt]

like jr said you dont have to change anything but the motor, without modifying the hood/clearance etc.. its just a drop and go type of deal

You guys talking about the 4v???? I thought it was more involved then the 2v.......

yeah we are talking about the 4v. It bolts right up and I am almost positive you can still use the same wiring harness, you just need a minor tune with it

 

[98mstanggt]

like jr said you dont have to change anything but the motor, without modifying the hood/clearance etc.. its just a drop and go type of deal

You guys talking about the 4v???? I thought it was more involved then the 2v.......

yeah we are talking about the 4v. It bolts right up and I am almost positive you can still use the same wiring harness, you just need a minor tune with it

So the Transmission bolt up too.......I think the wiring harness has to be extended or something thats bout all i know.......

 

[g36 monkey]

now im about to sound stupid here, so everyone gets to make fun of me.

how would you transfer from a lightning column shifter to the shifter in the mustang.
for some reason i didnt think it would be an easy process.

explain please?
otherwise i was thinking the swap would be drop and go.

 

[Jrgunn5150]

now im about to sound stupid here, so everyone gets to make fun of me.

how would you transfer from a lightning column shifter to the shifter in the mustang.
for some reason i didnt think it would be an easy process.

explain please?
otherwise i was thinking the swap would be drop and go.

Why would you need the Lightning steering column?

 

[Dairy King]

He's talking about the linkage from the column to the tranny on the Lightning and convert that over to the console shifter on a mustang to keep it down on the console, not on the column.