2001 Ford Mustang Cobra SVT Engine Swap Rennsport Kansas City

This has been an ongoing project for some time now. The car came in with a horrible knock in the motor after the motor was run 4 quarts low on oil. Now common sense always tells us what the outcome of this will be. We worked with the owner to try and do some cheap options first to see if they would solve the issue, but in the end, the cheapest way always ends up being the most expensive way. The noise was very hard to pinpoint initially. Common sense and experience told us a rod bearing was spun. The stethoscope didn’t really agree, as the noise was to the top of the valve train and not the bottom of the motor. So we start second guessing ourselves. We tried some chain tensioners as they were very noisy, which made it better, but the underlying knock was still there. We decided to drop the pan and start pulling bearings. Actually the pan came down and was full of metal, so that was all she wrote. It wasn’t until we pulled the last bearing cap that we found a shelled crank. Sooooooo time for a new motor. The owner sourced a reman motor for a fair price, but lead time was about 6 weeks on it (maybe more, I can’t remember, all I know is this baby has been here a long time, lol). Since I had some time this week between other projects, I figured we had at least get the old motor/trans out in preparation for the new one.

Backwards on the lift for ease of using the cherry picker.

I figured it would be easiest to just drop the transmission out first, then lift the motor straight up and out.

Here is Wes removing the drive shaft. He had a little trouble. Fat Wes never had trouble with anything, and he could bend steel. Skinny Wes struggles with heavy things :p

After the axle was out of the way, and all the bellhousing bolts removed, out came the tranny.

Then this hunk o burning love needed to come out. Dalton came by a few weeks ago and disconnected alot of the stuff for us, so I had a handful of electrical connectors and accessories to pull, then out she came. Even cleared with the hood on 🙂 Hopefully the new motor will be here soon!