The Detail Zone custom harness package includes the Telorvik system that includes a custom
Ford Motor Swap
John Spiess via CarCraft.com: I have a complete wrecked '05 P71 Crown Vic. I want to swap the front suspension, engine, trans, and rearend into a '75 Ford F-100 pickup. The fabrication work on the suspension is no problem, but what difficulties will I run into with the wiring and PCM? I have the complete car. Does anyone make a stand-alone harness that will work? I want to use the factory stuff for reliability and economy. Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Jeff Smith: We did a little searching and came across custom wiring harness conversions for two-valve Ford mod motors at Ron Francis Wiring. The company makes conversions for all the Ford mod motors up until 2004-of course, right? In '05, Ford converted to electronic throttle. We spoke to Scott Bowers, owner of Ron Francis Wire Works and the Detail Zone, who told us that they've been working on '05-and-later aftermarket harnesses, but the complexity of Ford's new system has made this a time-consuming effort. For the '04-and-older two-valve Ford mod motors, Bowers' system is a little different from most. He creates a box that allows you to individually wire in each separate sensor or control wire for the engine. The box also incorporates necessary fuses, relays, and other connectors and then the stock Ford computer plugs in to that box. This makes wiring the individual sensors much easier, and then you can route and bundle the wires in a way that best fits your vehicle.
I asked Bowers about retrofitting the '05-and-newer two-valve mod motors with an '04-or-earlier computer and running the engine with a cable-operated throttle. Bowers says he has successfully accomplished that conversion for a manual transmission-equipped system, but, again unfortunately for you, the '05-and-later automatic applications are far more complex because the new automatic transmission does not play nicely with the older electronics. So that idea is also not going to work. This leaves one of two choices for your truck, John. The first is to use the existing Ford OE wiring harness and computer. Bowers says the Detail Zone can work with you to do any necessary tuning and also disable the OE Passive Anti-Theft System (PATS) that is integrated into all the later-model computers. The other option is to sell the '05 engine and find an '04-or-earlier version, but frankly that's probably not going to happen. So it appears you may be stuck with the stock factory harness. It's tedious work, but you can extend the length of the harness if necessary to allow you to place the computer where you desire. If this is the plan, work slowly, do one wire at a time, and remember that each connection will need to be crimped using non-insulated butt connectors and then protected with shrink-wrap. You might also consider alternating the position of where you make these connections so as not to create a large bulge in the harness from all the butt connectors.
For others who may consider swapping a mod motor, Bowers suggests knowing exactly which engine you have (or are about to buy) so that ordering the correct harness will be less stressful. According to Bowers, Ford used two types of fuel injectors on the mod motors. The early EV-1 injector uses a rectangular wire harness plug, while the subsequent EV-2 injector employs a smaller, oval wire plug. The next biggest issue is deciding upon the fuel delivery system you want to use. The factory mod motors employed a single fuel line from the tank to the engine. While this can be retained, Bowers says the factory pump is difficult to adapt to earlier fuel tanks, and that can easily drive up the cost of the conversion. The alternative is to build a return-style fuel system using a vacuum-modulated mechanical fuel pressure regulator that can alter the fuel pressure based on engine load. The Detail Zone instructions call for an idle fuel pressure slightly lower than the 43 psi needed at WOT.
More Info
Ron Francis/Detail Zone
Chester, PA
800/292-1940
RonFrancis.com