Hello gentlemen,

I recently bought a 2011 P71 with a bad timing chain noise for real cheap. Brought it into a performance shop to get the tensioners replaced, they discovered the motor had zero (!) oil pressure. Somehow I drove it 300 miles like that! The chain had eaten away at the timing cover and sent little shards of metal everywhere - that 2V motor is officially kaputt. It had 8,000 idle hours and dutifully served its purpose.

The shop happened to have a 3V 4.6L motor out of a 2010 F-150 laying around. They are throwing it in my P71 while swapping over the top end from my motor, so at the end of the day I will have a 3V 4.6L block with 2V heads and intake, fixed timing (no VVT), and a very high compression ratio. They are estimating the motor will make around 450 HP!

Does anyone here have a similar setup? Any hangups with using the 2V heads on a 3V block? Some Mustang guys have done similar things with much hand-wringing, but I found very little here in Crown Vic land about this particular setup. I have read that one timing cover hole will need to be filled with sealant, otherwise all the electronics just hook up like normal. Of course the high compression ratio is a little sketchy, I will have to treat it like a 60s hot rod and be careful about what gas I put in. ETA on the swap being completed will be a little over a week from now, assuming no major problems. Once the engine is sorted, I will move on to cosmetics like repainting the hood and such. Will keep you guys updated.

Some pics of the unit:

While I wish you all the best there is no way you are anywhere near 300 hp (let alone 450 hp) with stock 2v heads and cams.

Yeah I have reason to doubt what the shop is saying. It's a little curious because they build race motors all the time, they should know what a swap like this will put out, but oh well. Presumably the high compression and race gas will amount to something, but I'm just reporting what they estimated. At the very least this swap will be mildly interesting for you guys I hope

I second that .
the only way you can dream of having 350hp (flywheel ) on a naturally aspirated 2v engine would be with tricl=kflow heads wich cost around 2k alone .

sorry to say but they are talking about stuff they dont know or want to make an easy sale .

so if they are canceling the variable timing it will make less than 300 hp, the variable timing is the key to make 300 hp . Sorry 450 hp is modded coyote territory.

Well I'm interested in seeing what the swap does for you! See if they can dyno the car afterwards so we can see what kind of numbers you get. If you get 360 at the wheels, then yeah you're probably close-ish to 450 at the crank, as 360 is 80% of 450. I know that's a rough estimate for drivetrain power loss percentage, but short of dynoing the engine itself before installation it's as close as we can get to figuring out the crank number AFAIK

variable cam timming gives a broad power band but when you lock the phaser out you still get the top end power as the cam is locked in a retared position.

I just re read the OP post and he is actually only using a 3V block , nothing has to do with the heads or VCT as the stock 2v heads are going back. Basically this thread is only about a higher compression engine wich usually net a 15% gain for a full point of compression bump so we are even farther in hp gain than we expected with the 3v heads swap.

Yes I have a feeling it will be quite spicy. Unfortunately since this Vic will end up being a hot-rod by necessity I will have to buy another one in the future to get that nice stock beater experience. Can't say I am complaining though.

I give the transmission 6 months to live at best once more power is behind it. Maybe in the next year I'll have to use your manual swap topic as reference

Unless your trans is already going out ,you wont hurt much the trans unless you add way more power than the swap they are doing .

Just called the shop today, upon taking apart the F-150 4.6L 3V engine they discovered the owner had the engine built, it had flat top pistons (not stock). A welcome surprise except they are going to have to work some magic to keep the compression ratio from being ridiculously high.

They say the car will be a real sleeper when it's done, I am very excited, except the timeframe will be about 2 weeks from now when it's done. I don't mind waiting as the mechanic is working at a reduced pay rate to help me out. At the end of this I may have a Panther that blows the tires off every time I hit the gas, frankly that's exactly what I wanted

Sounds like he put 3V 5.4 pistons in it, which are flat-tops.

That comes out to around 12:1. You're going to have to pick your cam wisely.

No kidding. Like I said, spicy unit. If it's 12:1 I will have to run race gas (100 or 110 octane) in it. They swore up and down that I would be able to run 93 pump gas in it without pinging. Not sure how they will accomplish that, but these guys build race motors for a living and seem confident for what that's worth. They pushed the ETA to "2 weeks from now". I imagine that 2 weeks is including putting it together, discovering it pings, and then remedying that. We will see!

The pcm wont let the engine ping. The knock sensor will pull a [censored] load of timing before that happens.
Are they putting colder spark plugs and thermostat at least ?

Yes on the plugs, not sure on thermostat, most likely so in order to cope with the higher temperatures.