TFS Headed 5.4 Swap

StangAddiction · Jan 19, 2016

As it sits now, my engine has a bad rod bearing (or maybe several). It knocks right in the general area of 2000-2200 rpm and Blackstone Labs sent me an oil analysis report stating that there's metal contents in my oil. Their exact words were "suspect excessive bearing wear".

Anyways I just bought a CTS-V and I had my car shipped to my parents' house in Virginia. I'll be headed out that way in March and I'm planning on pulling the engine and swapping in a 5.4 shortblock. I managed to find a used HPS intake for sale online and acquired it with a BBK 78mm throttle body thrown in.

I've still a few things to decide, but this picture motivated me:

He made 380whp with TFS 44 heads, HPS Intake, JBA shorty headers, Stage 3 MHS cams (233/236 dur), and 10.8:1 compression. It actually resembles the powerband of a Centri S/C 4.6 IMO. I'm still trying to decide on what to do about cams. I'm considering CMS or Todd Warren however. Any advice is definitely welcomed.

Also the guy who sent me the intake packaged it horrible. It was literally just thrown in the box and had all the Coil Plug screws partially threaded in. One broke off and I've been having trouble getting it out. Pictures below:

And a picture of the broken bolt:

CalBoy101 · Jan 19, 2016

Geez, what a jerk for not packaging the manifold worth a poop.

To get that busted bolt out I'd try the following.

Grind the part sticking out as flat has you can and as parallel to the tab surface as you can with a small hand grinder, being careful not to gouge the manifold.

Carefully center punch the center of this ground flat stub.

Get a left hand drill bit a little smaller than the "thread root" diameter of the bolt, ie small enough to drill into the bolt without totally drilling it away, if you try to totally drill it away you'll damage the threads in the flange.

Drill through the center of the bolt but its probably somewhat hardened steel so go slow on the drilling speed and put some oil on the tip of the bit during the drilling process

Using a left hand drill tends to loosen the bolt stub up during the drilling process and often it will back out during the drilling.

If you don't have a local place with left hand drill bits you can get one from www.mcmaster.com

Since that bolt could be pretty hard I'd get a cobalt drill bit, it will work on hardened steel if you drill at a slow speed.

If the threads in the flange got too banged up a Helicoil is an easy fix.

T-Lee. 30 · Jan 19, 2016

Subbed. Good luck with it op would love to see the finished product.

07gtS197 · Jan 19, 2016

Im debating whether to do this swap or a 4.6 3v swap. Op I cant wait to see how itll turn out. It might sway my decision.

StangAddiction · Jan 19, 2016

CalBoy101 said:
Geez, what a jerk for not packaging the manifold worth a poop.

To get that busted bolt out I'd try the following.

Grind the part sticking out as flat has you can and as parallel to the tab surface as you can with a small hand grinder, being careful not to gouge the manifold.

Carefully center punch the center of this ground flat stub.

Get a left hand drill bit a little smaller than the "thread root" diameter of the bolt, ie small enough to drill into the bolt without totally drilling it away, if you try to totally drill it away you'll damage the threads in the flange.

Drill through the center of the bolt but its probably somewhat hardened steel so go slow on the drilling speed and put some oil on the tip of the bit during the drilling process

Using a left hand drill tends to loosen the bolt stub up during the drilling process and often it will back out during the drilling.

If you don't have a local place with left hand drill bits you can get one from McMaster-Carr

Since that bolt could be pretty hard I'd get a cobalt drill bit, it will work on hardened steel if you drill at a slow speed.

If the threads in the flange got too banged up a Helicoil is an easy fix.

Thanks Cal.

I just went ahead and ordered a left hand bit set on Amazon. 2 day shipping with prime never gets old.

--

Also, this plenum cover is sealed with some kind of adhesive that I'm seriously struggling to get separated. It almost resembles JB Weld (I sure as hell hope not).

:facepalm:

CalBoy101 · Jan 19, 2016

Yikes, you're right, that does look like JB weld, if you poke it with a knife does it have a little give (hopefully) like silicone or is it pretty stiff (hopefully not) like JB weld?

In either case a heat gun on it should soften it up, try that on the most exposed corner and see if a heat gun helps get it apart.

You might want to pop the whole thing in the oven on 275 for a while if you can get away doing that, then try prying it apart.

Jgib4 · Jan 19, 2016

Im no expert but why would you put a stage 3 cam in a 5.4. The usable power on that motor is all down low under 6 grand. Why wouldn't you get a stage 1 or 2 cam that actually will make peak power in that range instead of reving the piss out of it to trying to make power.

69MUSTANGCOUPE393CID · Jan 19, 2016

That seal is the factory original HPS seal. Mine had it too and it's a SOB to get off. I used a razor blade and slowly cut it away. I'm glad I did too because the idiot who packed mine filled it with packing peanuts which ended up all inside the intake, he also apparently ported and never cleaned it so it was full of metal shavings...

Also when you install that manifold you may have to grind away some of the lettering on the bottom because it might hit the valley of the block when you drop it down. The guy I got mine from had to do that, I don't have personal experience putting it on yet but he said he had to.

Also 3V... no way. 2V or 4V; the tuning of a 3V will be a bitch because it's a different generation. I'm running TFS heads with custom TFS cams. If you do in fact come to the dark side and go 2V and run the Trickflow heads, make sure you have specific cams made. Regular PI cam's won't run as well. Oh and BTW Trickflows own cams are PI cam's, they don't even offer cams for their own heads. They say they work but really they're not the best. Learned that the hard way...

Far as big cams in a 5.4, if you're going built put a huge cam in. If you're not, as stated above the usable power band of a stock rodded 5.4 is 5-5500 tops if you want the engine to stay together.

sharkbait · Jan 19, 2016

5.4's make power at low rpm because the heads flow terribly and they run out of airflow.

With a set of cams and heads that thing will rev just fine

07gtS197 · Jan 19, 2016

If I did a 3v swap Id do it with the frpp control pack, otherwise imo it isnt worth it. With the 3v ecu tuning shouldnt be an issue.

StangAddiction · Jan 20, 2016

Jgib4 said:
Im no expert but why would you put a stage 3 cam in a 5.4. The usable power on that motor is all down low under 6 grand. Why wouldn't you get a stage 1 or 2 cam that actually will make peak power in that range instead of reving the piss out of it to trying to make power.

The stages are modeled for a 4.6 and I hate the term "stage" when it comes to cams because it's somewhat inconsistent between cam manufacturers (not that you would expect consistency). Regardless, what would be considered a stage 3 cam for a 4.6 would not be a stage 3 cam for a 5.4 (more like a stage 2 or somewhere between 1 and 2 depending on the manufacturer). Simply put, displacement eats duration. A 5.4 with stock PI heads and cams will peak before 5000 rpm regardless of the intake used because the 5.4 needs more cam duration to feed the larger volume in the cylinder. The same cam peaks 600-700 rpm later on the 4.6 because of the smaller displacement. Also, that aggressive cam idle you'd get with a lopey cam in a 4.6 wont sound as aggressive in a 5.4 and the powerband as a whole will shift to the left. This is why I'm considering Jim or Todd for cams. I'm hoping they'll be able to spec me an appropriate set of cams for my intentions.

My current hurdle right now is to take some measurements on the HPS intake to figure out on paper what RPM it will run out of breath at. My guess is ~6000ish rpm from dynos I've seen. That one I posted earlier seems to flat line there. I'm thinking na_svt would be able to shed some light on that topic.

69MUSTANGCOUPE393CID said:
That seal is the factory original HPS seal. Mine had it too and it's a SOB to get off. I used a razor blade and slowly cut it away. I'm glad I did too because the idiot who packed mine filled it with packing peanuts which ended up all inside the intake, he also apparently ported and never cleaned it so it was full of metal shavings...

Thanks for the info about the seal. I've been soaking it in water and alcohol and it's softening up a lot. I've invested a decent amount of time into trying to get a razor blade in there but to no avail. I'm just going to keep softening it and hopefully when i apply heat to it will separate easily.

69MUSTANGCOUPE393CID said:
Also when you install that manifold you may have to grind away some of the lettering on the bottom because it might hit the valley of the block when you drop it down. The guy I got mine from had to do that, I don't have personal experience putting it on yet but he said he had to.

The 5.4 has some kind of structural ribbing in the valley it seams. I've been told the ribbing needs to be ground down in the diagonal section some where I circled in the picture below. Apparently it hits on the lowest part of the plenum.

69MUSTANGCOUPE393CID said:
Also 3V... no way. 2V or 4V; the tuning of a 3V will be a bitch because it's a different generation. I'm running TFS heads with custom TFS cams. If you do in fact come to the dark side and go 2V and run the Trickflow heads, make sure you have specific cams made. Regular PI cam's won't run as well. Oh and BTW Trickflows own cams are PI cam's, they don't even offer cams for their own heads. They say they work but really they're not the best. Learned that the hard way...

This isn't mere speculation. It's gonna happen. Once I bought the manifold I was pretty much committed. Lol. I already have 38cc TFS heads on my 4.6, my cams just arent TFS specific grind cams. I even spoke to TrickFlow about it in the past. What I got from them was that they had no intentions on changing the cams they include in the top end package, nor did they seem to have any intentions on promoting the information that the geometry is off from PI cam grinds. It seems they don't want to stir the pot basically. I plan on speaking to Jim at CMS or na_svt about a set of TFS cams tailored to my setup.

69MUSTANGCOUPE393CID said:
Far as big cams in a 5.4, if you're going built put a huge cam in. If you're not, as stated above the usable power band of a stock rodded 5.4 is 5-5500 tops if you want the engine to stay together.

I keep hearing from people that an internally stock 5.4 isnt safe above 5500 rpm, but at the same time I keep seeing internally stock 5.4s (mostly lightnings) spinning 6000+ rpm while putting down 450-500+ whp. I'm still on the fence about building the bottom end. It really doesn't help that I just spent $17K on another car.

07gtS197 said:
If I did a 3v swap Id do it with the frpp control pack, otherwise imo it isnt worth it. With the 3v ecu tuning shouldnt be an issue.

That's an expensive path. I'd have to acquire 3v heads, figure out what to do about the intake manifold, the headers, and buy a control pack. That's just a lot of unnecessary expense for what would probably be little gain. It's also not a very well documented swap. I can still count on one hand how many 5.4 3v swaps I've seen in s197s, and I've never seen any in a new edge. Hell I can count on one hand how many 3v 4.6 swaps I've seen in new edges . Lol. In any instance, a 2v ECU should have no issues running a 3v if you swap to a cable throttle body and lock the cams out. This is how it was done in the few 3v new edge swaps I've seen. You're losing cam phasing though, and that's just giving up usable powerband.

----

I pondering using a navi shortblock. The flat top pistons with my 38cc heads would put static compression ratio at 11.5:1. I'd need some decent sized cams to get the dynamic CR down to a nice pump gas number, but I don't want to over-cam the usable powerband of the intake either.

CalBoy101 · Jan 20, 2016

StangAddiction said:
I even spoke to TrickFlow about it in the past. What I got from them was that they had no intentions on changing the cams they include in the top end package, nor did they seem to have any intentions on promoting the information that the geometry is off from PI cam grinds. It seems they don't want to stir the pot basically.

That's the exact same conversation I had with them a couple of months ago, they told me they didn't want to upset all the current TFS head and cam owners.

Pretty lame, they make good products, they should bring the manner they choose to treat their customers up to that same quality level.

Personally I know now 4 guys that wasted time and money putting the wrong cams in their heads and then had to swap them out to get their motors to run right.

07gtS197 · Jan 20, 2016

Im not trying to push you to swap a different motor in your stang op. I meant that I want to do a 3v swap myself. I like the idea since it isnt common and imo the 3v is a potent motor it just needs a lighter platform than the s197. And with the aluminum block it should perform pretty well, and lighten up the front end, in the sn95. It might not be the best motor but itll make decent power with full bolt ons and cams, its no coyote swap but itll definitly hurt some feelings.

And I dont think the cost would be too bad as long as the motor, ecu and engine harness is sourced from a donor car. Even if you couldnt buy an ecu or wiring harness, you could get the motor and the frpp control pack for around 2 grand for everything. Plus the 3v is old news with the coyote being out now so Id bet getting a motor for cheap wouldnt be hard to do.

sneaky98gt · Jan 20, 2016

StangAddiction said:
My current hurdle right now is to take some measurements on the HPS intake to figure out on paper what RPM it will run out of breath at. My guess is ~6000ish rpm from dynos I've seen. That one I posted earlier seems to flat line there. I'm thinking na_svt would be able to shed some light on that topic.

Just FYI, but "flat-lining" doesn't mean it's running out of breath. Flat lining is actually exactly what you want. It's not until the horsepower at the shift point becomes less than the horsepower after the shift point (i.e. 2500 rpm sooner on a 1-2 shift, or whatever the numbers workout to) that it has officially run out of breath. If it's maintaining horsepower as the rpm climb, it will be faster if you stretch the shift point on out to match.

It's really a peeve of mine to see a dyno operator / tuner stop a pull either right at or just after the peak horsepower number, assuming the motor will hold together at a higher rpm. If it peaks and then stays flat, the pull doesn't need to stop once it goes flat, but instead needs to continue until the horsepower falls off quite a good bit.

With that dyno graph you posted earlier, I bet the ideal shift point is actually pretty close to 7000 rpm, definitely over 6500. It is completely flat at about 375 rwhp at 6000 rpm, leading me to think it's not going to fall off more than maybe 50 horsepower over the next 1000 rpm. A 7000 rpm 1-2 shift on a T-45 would drop it back to about 4200 rpm, where it's making roughly 310 rwhp. So if it's still making 310 rwhp at 7000 rpm, then the shift point would be there or even higher. Less than 310 means it would be sooner. Etc. And based on how flat it is at 6k, I'd bet it's making very close to 310 at 7k.

Since 2-3 and 3-4 are closer together, my guess is that the perfect shift point on those would be more in the 6500-6700 range with that dyno. Can't say for sure since it was pulled out far enough.

Just some food for thought.

StangAddiction · Feb 26, 2016

UPDATE:

I decided not to risk it on the stock rods and I acquired some Eagle 4340 H-Beams:

Also,
I could stand for a little advice on bearings and piston rings. I've been reading A LOT of conflicting information. To clear things up on my end, this build is intended mostly as a street car, and at absolute most an occasional visit to the strip with a possible 100-shot. It will likely never see boost as I'm looking to push over 11:1 static CR.

69MUSTANGCOUPE393CID · Feb 26, 2016

Good call on the upgraded rods. I don't know where you see lightning guys running 6k+ rpm on stock rods, but if they are those are going to be very short lived engines. Ever seen a stock 5.4 rod? It's a tooth pick haha.

Far as revving to 6 or 7k rpm, do you have any idea what intake that guy was running on that dyno run? From all my research the HPS is fairly restrictive up high and power will drop off pretty hard over 6-6500 rpm. When Mike used to still work at BDP there was a guy with a 5.4 with TFS heads etc. running the HPS. We couldn't figure out why the power kept dropping off and long story short Mike called out the intake and they swapped on I think an Edelbrock and picked up 20 whp up top.

That being said I'm personally still sticking with the HPS because I want to keep my factory hood, but I did do a little port match work on it. My trickflows are not ported either, so I do plan on seeing some restriction but I plan on boost in the future and that should overcome all of that so I'm not so worried.

Far as rings you probably want steel rings if you plan on using nitrous, but I don't have much experience with nitrous so I'll let some other guys chime in on that.

Scott2001GT · Feb 26, 2016

Stay 2v. Steel rings, high compression, e85, spray. Na_svt for cams.

StangAddiction · Feb 26, 2016

69MUSTANGCOUPE393CID said:
Good call on the upgraded rods. I don't know where you see lightning guys running 6k+ rpm on stock rods, but if they are those are going to be very short lived engines. Ever seen a stock 5.4 rod? It's a tooth pick haha.

Far as revving to 6 or 7k rpm, do you have any idea what intake that guy was running on that dyno run? From all my research the HPS is fairly restrictive up high and power will drop off pretty hard over 6-6500 rpm. When Mike used to still work at BDP there was a guy with a 5.4 with TFS heads etc. running the HPS. We couldn't figure out why the power kept dropping off and long story short Mike called out the intake and they swapped on I think an Edelbrock and picked up 20 whp up top.

That being said I'm personally still sticking with the HPS because I want to keep my factory hood, but I did do a little port match work on it. My trickflows are not ported either, so I do plan on seeing some restriction but I plan on boost in the future and that should overcome all of that so I'm not so worried.

Far as rings you probably want steel rings if you plan on using nitrous, but I don't have much experience with nitrous so I'll let some other guys chime in on that.

The dyno I posted was with an HPS intake, 44cc heads, 10.8:1 compression, MHS Stage 3 TFS cams, JBA shorty headers

I know there was a guy on Corral with a Crown Vic who swapped a 5.4 with TFS heads and an edelbrock intake that he had widened. I'm waiting to see how that turns out. He decked the block .120" to remove the massive deck clearance rather than getting 5.4 specific pistons. Seems like a lot to me, not sure how much that would affect the intake ports lining up. Doesn't make much of a difference though I suppose, as his manifold was modified specific to his setup. His build has slowed down significantly as of late. The edelbrock is definitely something to consider in the future, but I'm going to be using the HPS for the time being.

Also, apparently guys on are managing to fit Pacesetter or merely by using K-member spacers and bending the outlets to match up with the mid pipe. Apparently, the theory is that any long tubes that dont route the steeting shaft between pipes can work this way. Heard anything of this?

Scott2001GT said:
Stay 2v. Steel rings, high compression, e85, spray. Na_svt for cams.

Will definitely be going with some na_svt spec'd cams. He knows his stuff.

Scott2001GT · Feb 26, 2016

If you're utilizing TFS heads and e85 I'd go 11.5:1 or even 12.1:1. Run like a bat outta hell and that's without the juice. Don't be scared of compression. You can always get your poston tops ceramic coated. Diamond are doing mine for $36 or 39 a piston.

Scott2001GT · Feb 26, 2016

I bought Diamond flat tops which should yield 11.8:1 with my PI heads. Running e85. Getting them coated and stainless valves. Just gotta keep the heat down like anything. I'll be aiming for 20-22psi and 7k rpms with my 67mm.

TFS Headed 5.4 Swap

StangAddiction

CalBoy101

T-Lee. 30

07gtS197

StangAddiction

CalBoy101

Jgib4

69MUSTANGCOUPE393CID

sharkbait

07gtS197

StangAddiction

CalBoy101

07gtS197

sneaky98gt

StangAddiction

69MUSTANGCOUPE393CID

Scott2001GT

StangAddiction

Scott2001GT

Scott2001GT

Top Contributors this Month

Recommended Communities