pardegt

My parents have a 96 sable that has a 3.0 Duratec with a dropped #4 intake valve (broken spring). I am assuming it has done considerable damage due to fragments I found and the chewed up spark plug, therefore too expensive to repair. Please chime in if I am off on this.

My folks want me to look into a low budget engine swap as they prefer to keep the car (they invested in a tranny rebuild for it not too long ago).

I have done a lot of engine repair before but not a complete engine swap. While I am confident this is within my capability, I do have a few questions at this point and was hoping for some input...

- What years of duratec engines can I pick from? It does not appear from the reading I have done that there is a lot of differences in newer years but I don't want to have to do a bunch of wiring or major modifications for this swap. I'm in Nebraska, and so far my engine search on car-parts.com indicates this engine is more expensive locally. However, with the price of gas or adding shipping, it does not seem to make sense to expand my search too far.

- Is there a mileage limit that I should stay within on the donor (I was thinking < 125K). Also, comp #'s? It look like 190psi is good but a lot of vendors seem to give cold compression #'s. Is there a good way to convert this to a warm #?

- Depending on the year of motor, do I need to also get the ecm from the donor motor (more $)? If so, does the ecm and/or the keyfobs have to be reprogrammed?

- Is there anything in particular I should be aware of if I decided to go ahead with the swap? (Either checking, replacing, swapping, or firing up the donor motor)

Thank you for your replies.

Bert

Chipset will be on here soon and he knows these VERY good. Get his advice.

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Bert

chipset

96 - 97 only. 98 - 99 the intake manifold has to be changed and the ECM has to be reflashed. I'd pull your old engine apart and see what the damage is and rebuild it. A
used engine is " you pays your money and takes your chances ". If you rebuild your original engine you know what you have. You may get a low mileage engine but someone may have ran the piss out of it. It's in the wrecking yard for a reason. If there is no damage on the car you know the engine is toast or the transmission. Ford is BAD. They can make a production change 4 times in one year. 4 of the same engines will be
identical but every one will be different. If you are going to swap out your engine make
damn sure they are the same production dates and good luck on that one.