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Vorshlag Gen2 Coyote Swap in "S197" 2010 Mustang

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  • Vorshlag Gen2 Coyote Swap in "S197" 2010 Mustang

    Project Kickoff, August 1st, 2019: We are working on a swap in our shop and felt it was a good idea to share what we have learned. This is also posted in these locations:

    We have worked on a lot of Coyote powered cars over the past 9 years since the engine debuted in the 2011 Mustang, but have only worked on two Coyote swaps - and both were initially done by other shops. Both the E92 BMW (above) and Fox (below) swaps needed a LOT of clean up work and durability upgrades, which we tackled. The E92 became a proper track car after the work we did and the Fox became a much nicer, more functional street car.



    We have done dozens of LS swaps in-house and sold hundreds of LS swap kits. Why LS swap vs Coyote swap? Two reasons: COST and SIZE. A built Coyote is pretty damned expensive and for a road race car might make 500 whp, but they are usually short lived. You get it past 5.2L and you spent some SERIOUS money. A Built LS is common and can go to 8.0L inside an OEM block (and 8.7L in tall deck). I'm not guessing, we've done this, a lot, at my engine shop Horsepower Research. This image shows the size thing...



    I'm not arguing for LS swaps, just have to always put that out there as a warning. Now we have a customer that asked us to upgrade his 2010 GT which had the lackluster 4.6L 3V engine. 300-315 hp, makes 260-280 whp in NA form with some headers, CAI and tune. Wee!



    He wants to move out of the class he was in (NASA Spec Iron) to a class that allows +100 whp (American Iron). Our suggestion was to over shoot the ~370 whp the class allows and go for a Gen 2 Coyote swap, make 450 whp, then use the electronic throttle to restrict the tune to make a "flat power" 370 whp across the board. Old trick, really works. Uncork it for fun events and let it fly!



    He went with a Tremec T56 Magnum XL, ARH long tubes, Gen 2 crate motor, and the Ford controls pack.



    We have found a lot of part numbers for Gen2 specific parts we need, made a lot of little brackets and doo-dads to make the Controls Pack bits fit, and have the swap mostly done. I will post more here as work progresses. We currently are looking for these solutions:

    1. Making the stock gauges work (doubtful - will likely use AiM digital dash)
    2. Get some ideas on making a 2011-14 EPAS electric rack (Boss302R rack) working



    The wiring and CAN comms are always the hardest part of any swap, and this looks no different. Except that there seems to be only ONE source for a wiring harness to work with the OEM computer (Ford). And there seems to be no way to make one street legal (which is what about half of our LS swaps end up doing).

    More soon!
    Last edited by Fair!; 08-01-2019, 03:18 PM.
    Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
    2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
    EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

  • #2
    Project update for Jan 6th, 2020: After I first posted this new build thread we had a few hiccups with the Vorshlag forum that kept me locked out of this and other threads for a couple of months. The server change happened, a big forum update was performed, and we were back up in the fall. I have been spending the last few months catching up on a lot of these build threads, and pushed out several big posts in December, including this one on our S550 development thread December 31st. I started writing this one on January 2nd in an effort to "do better this year" with our tech posts.


    I posted this pic above in a recent #LS550 post showing this 2010 Mustang Coyote and our 2015 GT with an LS V8. Don't get triggered, just a relevant "crossover" between this build thread and another I wrote. I want to point out here again that while we have worked on a lot of Coyote powered cars, and have developed and performed a LOT of engine swaps, we are no experts on Coyote engine swaps. We have worked on a few Coyote swapped cars, but this is really our first one done "front to back". We have also learned a lot - it is not as easy as an LS swap - but there are several tips we can share.



    This was our pic for the annual GRM "Wear your helmet to work day", above. The "Coyote swap" was only a small part of the overall upgrades being done to this 2010 GT to transition from NASA Spec Iron up to the American Iron class. We completed most of the swap work to this 2010 GT since I first posted this thread in August. In this post I will show some of the major tasks, how we got there, what we have learned. There were a few long lead time parts that have kept us from completing this build and getting it on track already, but we're really close.

    DE-CRATE ENGINE, SORT & ORDER PARTS, ASSEMBLE

    The first task had to do with inventorying the parts, de-crating the engine, and do some research. Normally we do not allow our customers to "bring us parts", especially big items like the engine or transmission. But this customer was in a unique position as both a transmission supplier to us as well as a local racer we wanted to help move forward. He brought a lot of parts that were the right parts, too. We made sure of this before we started.



    This big ticket item here is the Gen II Coyote 5.0L crate motor. At the time we started this build the Ford "Controls Pack" wiring harness Gen III Coyote did not exist yet, so the Gen II was the best way to get the most power into this swap.



    Since that time the Gen III pack exists, but it is still brand new and might have some teething issues. We'll talk about this with the Gen II controls pack install later. The OEM power ratings and a few specs for the GEN I, II and III Coyote engines is shown above. The Gen III had the biggest jump in power, due to a full point of compression ratio increase, and a switch to direct injection. Both later generations have changes to the cylinder heads from the Gen I



    The customer had already removed the 4.6L 3V from this car but left the engine bay harness intact. The only real downside to not having the original drivetrain in the car means we would not be able to get any relevant initial weight. So the weight below is everything minus the engine + trans + driveshaft.



    We spent some time removing this engine from the crate and sorting through all of the parts that comes with the crate motor kit plus the controls pack.



    The engine comes with the water pump installed as well as ONE factory exhaust header, shown below left. Just the passenger side, which was weird. We didn't want to use the super restrictive stock manifolds in any case. The controls pack comes with an equally as restrictive OEM air filter box and inlet tube, which was also worthless to us.



    The stock steel flywheel was removed, as it was going to be replaced. Then this Ford Performance TI-VCT High RPM Competition Pulse Ring was installed, which was sent by the customer.



    This Ford Performance unit is supposedly "better" for high rpm use, but it looked exactly the same as the one that came off the crate motor. We looked at it with many eye balls and just did not see what was so special about this version. Maybe it is some invisible change we need to take on faith, hehe.



    The Ford Racing Mustang BOSS 302 Alternator Kit (M-8600-M50BALT) was a better deal in kit form so that was ordered. We did some research and found that a kit from Ford Performance for the 2011-17 Coyote includes the engine side brackets, the rubber motor mounts, and all of the mounting hardware (M-6038-M50) and was cheaper than buying just the brackets from the dealer.



    To be able to run a proper external oil cooler, the entire oil filter housing has to come off the engine block (bulky unit shown above left), including the oil pre-heater block. We ordered the Ford Racing 2015-17 Gen II Coyote 5.0L Oil Line Adapter Kit (M-6881-M50A), which is the best option on the market and not too costly.



    This oil filter will replace the oil filter housing and "heater" on the block side completely, which normally uses a teenie tiny little oil filter. The M-6881-M50A adapter is a well made piece and will allow for a remote oil filter / thermostatic bypass that can then feed the oil cooler. More of those details are in another section below.



    The oil filter bypass was mounted and fit perfectly, then the stock oil sensor that came with the crate motor was moved over to this unit. The alternator kit was then installed, as shown.



    Last but not least the block-side engine mounts that came in the M-6038-M50 kit were bolted on. Why Ford doesn't include these with a crate motor is anyone's guess. That kit comes with the proper hardware, too.



    Before the transmission went on we took this weight using two of our Intercomp car scales. This 463 pound number included the SFI bellhousing (31.5 pounds) and McLeod flywheel and pressure plate 22 pounds), so we removed those weights. This was before the back-ordered block-side engine mount and alternator kits, so we then added the alternator weight (16.6 lbs) when it arrived. This gives us a dressed engine weight of 426 pounds, without fluids, which is an easy to compare number. Now it is time to tackle the transmission and clutch prep.

    PREP T56 MAGNUM XL FOR INSTALL

    The customer brought this close-ratio T56 Magnum XL made for the Coyote engine. This is 128 pounds of badass right here. 6 speeds, modern synchro/carbon blocker rings, rated to 700 ft-lbs of torque, and most importantly - a direct mounted shifter. No body mounted remote shifter garbage like the MT82. And it is not made of glass.



    Instead of trying to find a cast aluminum bellhousing to mount this to the Coyote engine, we went straight to QuickTime for this SFI rated steel bellhousing. These are bomb proof and worth the extra few pounds.



    We took weights of this QT RM-8080 bellhousing (26.5 pounds) and the included motor plate (5 pounds). It is a chunk, to be sure.



    Those pounds were more than offset by the McLeod Mag Force twin disc clutch and flywheel combo shown above. 22 pounds and we have used these in many race car builds with good success. Not too big, not too small.



    The new McLeod flywheel was installed with new ARP bolts. Remember - the motor plate for the SFI bellhousing has to go behind the flywheel. This then bolts to the bellhousing to make a "container" in case any flywheel or clutch parts decide they want to try to go into orbit, or through your foot.



    Brad reinstalled the McLeod flywheel and clutch assembly with the Quik Time front plate installed in front of the flywheel.




    We looked at hydraulic TOB options, and of course went to our GM unit we use with almost all of our LS swaps. The advantage there would be lower cost and a remote bleed hose option. As you can see the 2005-17 TOB is fully 0.5" taller, so that was out - the bleeding procedure with these is wacky (just pump the pedal a lot) but it usually works. We ordered the taller Ford specific hydraulic TOB then measured and installed 2 of the shims to make the stack-up height meet the measurements we were given. Those were all installed and the transmission was ready to go on.



    With the bellhousing installed and aligned, and the TOB shimmed and installed, the T56 Magnum was stabbed... and part of the trans casting interfered with the Quik Time bellhousing. Brad removed the bellhousing and ground it for clearance (see above right) to gain some room.



    We have a jig which allows us to better align the steel QuikTime bellhousing to make the transmission input shaft fit into the centerline of the crank perfectly. This is done using offset dowels and hardware for mounting the bellhousing to the block. A dial indicator and some black magic is used. With the slight interference correct, Brad reinstalled the bellhousing and then the transmission was stabbed and bolted up.

    Time to stick the drivetrain into the car...

    INSTALL HEADERS & DRIVETRAIN

    Since the stock motor hooks don't come with the crate engine, I had Myles design, CNC plasma cut, and installed a new "Coyote hanger kit", shown above. We'll use this when installing the engine and might start selling these to shops some time in the future.



    These hooks allow us to pick up the engine safely with the intake manifold installed - and not damage the plastic cam covers or intake. Next it was time to prep the engine bay for the drivetrain install. Brad evacuated the brake fluid, radiator, and power steering fluids from the car before anything was disconnected or removed.



    The old ECU, battery, battery tray and engine harness bits were also carefully removed. The steering shaft was de-coupled in preparation for the engine install.



    Brad removed the decade old and tired engine mounts, then installed the new ones from the M-6038-M50 engine mount kit.



    We had ordered 1-7/8" primary stainless long tube headers from American Racing for the 2011-4 Coyote S197 Mustang GT, which makes this part of the "swap" pretty easy. Also ordered some multi-layer exhaust gaskets.



    Since this will be a dedicated road race car we ordered the X-pipe kit without cats (the image above was the same setup for a street car). The header install was a breeze since it was done outside of the car. The trick would be - can the drivetrain go into this chassis with the headers installed? If so it could be a huge time saver. We normally take 8 hours to remove stock manifolds and install the headers on a Coyote Mustang.



    With the transmission and headers installed we took this weight above. There are no more qualifiers for this weight - it is the entire drivetrain with the dressed engine, flywheel, clutch kit, SFI bellhousing, and T56 Magnum XL trans. Only thing missing is fluids and it is 653 pounds.



    Now was the tricky bit. With moving blankets in the engine bay to protect the parts and paint, Brad and Evan slid the drivetrain down into place. The front subframe had to be down about a foot, but that is normal.



    It took a bit of time to fit the engine and trans and headers in all at once, but was still radically shorter than just the header install alone normally. All of 2.4 hours to prep the engine bay, drop the subframe, install the drivetrain with headers, raise the subframe, connect the steering shaft, and bolt everything into place.

    CONFIGURING GEN II MANIFOLD & FIRE SYSTEM

    With the engine in the car it was apparent that the vacuum diaphragm on the back of the Coyote manifold was interfering with the firewall. We had to elevate the back of the transmission to make it work, and that's no way to "fix" interference (by screwing up driveline angles).



    The Gen II manifold was removed and weighed in at 18 pounds, with TB but without fuel rails or injectors. The rear view shows the two diaphragms that are in the way. We looked at this and determined we could relocate one solenoid at the back with a little bracket, then massage the firewall to fit the top most canister. Some folks just "delete" these and use cam phaser lockouts, but that is defeating one of the nicer aspects of the variable valve timing on these Coyote engines - which makes for a wider power band.



    The spot on the firewall was marked, and the intake manifold out of the way it was time to make a little room. Brad used a drift and hammer to do some early work on this "outer" firewall. There is another "inner" firewall several inches further back.



    Eventually the air hammer proved an easier (but louder) way to make the room we needed. Several trial fits and more firewall work of the intake were done to get the room. A bit of hammer/dolly work plus work with a pneumatic hammer moved that outer section enough to clear. The pic above shows the solenoid bracket Brad built. Total time: 0.82 hours.

    continued below
    Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
    2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
    EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

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    • #3
      continued from above

      We ordered 12oz aerosol can of touch up Paint for the Mustang "CI" (Grabber Blue) paint color, the intake was set in place one more time while we waited for the paint to arrive. The firewall clearance looked good.



      There was a smashed fire system hard line that passed thru a jagged hole in the firewall, and it was badly bent before we got this car. Could have happened at any time, possibly when the car was built or maybe when the 4.6L 3V V8 was removed.



      We repaired this by cutting the hard line at the firewall and adding a bulkhead fitting, then built a new section of line to replace the smashed bit. This was then secured to the firewall. By then the Grabber Blue touch-up spray paint had arrived and Brad masked and painted this spot at the firewall. The fire system repair and paint work took 2.53 hours according to our MyShopAssist job system.



      With the firewall clearanced the rear of the transmission could be lowered into place. The shifter seal at the tunnel was then installed.



      The T56 Magnum XL requires a custom transmission crossmember which comes in a kit we use for these transmission upgrades. This was all buttoned up and other than the manifold vacuum canister, the Gen II Coyote 5.0L + Magnum XL drivetrain and ARH Coyote headers fit this 2010 chassis perfectly.

      ENGINE HARNESS INSTALL & BRACKETS

      Brad started the Ford Racing Gen 2 wiring harness layout, but there were a lot of little brackets to be built and things to be relocated to make all of this fit this 2010 chassis.



      The 2010 Mustang Engine Control Unit (ECU) mounted underneath the fuse box in a multi-piece bracket, shown below.



      The Gen II ECU is unique to the S550 Mustang chassis, and the small auxiliary fuse box that comes with the controls pack needs to be mounted also. An OEM S550 ECU bracket could not be used, nor the 2010 or the 2011-14 ECU bracket. The Gen II wiring harness is made so that the ECU needs to be in about the exact same location, so he went about designing a bracket to mount the new ECU to.



      We would want to keep part of the 2010 bracket to hold the original fuse box, then add a custom bracket to hold the ECU. Part of the 2010 bracket was removed and the upper shelf was kept to hold the main body fuse / relay / power distribution block to bolt to. It was pretty flimsy like this and would need to be braced.



      A pattern was laid out and cut in cardboard, then transferred to aluminum sheet, then cut and bent. Holes were added the the Gen II ECU was bolted on.



      Above you can see the hybrid bracket bolted to the ECU, then it was bolted into the chassis and to the fuse box. Packages it all nice and tight and allows the main harness connector from the "universal" Ford Gen II controls pack to fit. This bracket and ECU / Fuse box mounting will let the rest of the Ford Controls Pack harness to be routed and terminated in the engine bay. There wasn't a lot of leeway here.



      We needed to find a good place to mount the coolant reservoir, which was an aftermarket aluminum unit that normally mounted right at the radiator support. We want to make room for the "exhaust" side of the radiator ducting so I started looked at the passenger rear corner of the engine bay. This meant the battery needed to move, but there are other good reasons to do that too. We found that it could fit at the fender mounting flange with two rivnuts added to match the hole spacing, but it was too flimsy like this.



      Brad made this triangular lower support bracket, which bolts to two of the battery tray mounting holes and to the 3rd mounting hole on the reservoir. That fit perfectly and was now very rigidly mounted. The radiator cap was also higher in the engine bay than before, which is a plus for bleeding the system.



      The Ford wiring harness has its own relay/fuse box, which needed to be mounted. We still had the most room at the back of the engine bay so we decided to put it back there.



      This area between the coolant reservoir and your Peterson oil breather was perfect, so Brad made another aluminum bracket. This attaches to a pair of holes in the "second firewall" (easy to get to the back side with the plastic cowl panel removed) and one unused threaded mount on the strut tower, then the fuse box bolts to that.



      That made for a clean "grouping" of the coolant reservoir, Gen II fuse box, and the Peterson oil vent can at the back of the firewall. This will also leave us a clear path for radiator exhaust at the front of the engine bay.

      ROLLED RADIATOR INSTALL

      This mod was something we discussed with the customer at the beginning - as an improvement for both front downforce with the splitter, as well as increased cooling efficiency with the existing radiator. Normally when we are doing this work we would spec a new aluminum radiator, but this car had a quality aluminum unit that was mounted top and bottom with the OEM style rubber isolators around aluminum pins in the end tanks - which is an effective way to mount these and minimize vibration related issues.



      The factory S197 radiator mounts nearly "straight up" with no roll, as shown above left. With the Coyote in the car we looked at the room we had and sent some pics to the customer showing what we had hoped to do with the existing radiator and not cutting up the upper radiator support.



      We protected the front and back of the radiator with cardboard (so we don't bend any fins) then mocked it up in the engine bay rolled as far forward as possible. The stock lower mounts on the subframe were keeping us from rolling it further, but with those relocated we can really roll it even more.



      The top of the radiator rolls forward a good amount already, but with a bit of trimming on part of the front bumper cover where it interferes, we could get a bit more.



      This mockup was sitting at a 13.8° angle of tilt, but with a handful of changes I was confident we could get closer to 20 degrees (we got it to 18.9 degrees in the end). The lower radiator supports were holding us back, so those had to come off first.



      I asked Brad to cut the lower radiator mounting brackets off as close to the subframe as possible. With a piece of 2x2" tubing welded to the lower radiator support the old brackets were angle cut and tack welded in place at a down angle of about 20 degrees, to align with the radiator mounting pins at what we calculated would be the final radiator tilt.



      The first mock-up with these lower brackets and bushings looked very promising. A little trimming on the bumper cover (out of sight, behind the grill) allowed the front to tilt forward even more, putting the top of the radiator under and away from the upper grill completely. The radiator will be fed completed from the lower grill this way.



      We could block off the upper grill if we wanted, other than the airflow that we needed to feed the CAI filter. We did this for several seasons in our 2011 Mustang GT with a similar Coyote V8, shown above. With the vented hood the cooling improved on this car, and we didn't even roll the radiator on that one.



      Back to the blue 2010 GT - the stock upper radiator brackets were notched, bent 90 degrees, and tack welded back together. A mock up "extension" bracket was made from cardboard then transferred to aluminum.



      Then a pair of aluminum "extender" brackets were cut and bent and mounted to the stock upper bracket mounting holes. This was done to allow us to re-use the "pin into bushing" stock upper mount, but with the top of the radiator rolled forward about 6", now in front of the upper radiator support instead of behind it. Now everything was secure on all 4 stock mounting pins and brackets - just with those brackets relocated and rolled.



      We had already made sure the big factory electric fan would still fit with the rolled radiator position, and the top of the radiator and fan are both tucked under the upper radiator support structure. Part of this upper radiator support had already been modified when this chassis was turned into a race car - they cut off the part that held the hood latch bracket. The coolant reservoir normally blocks a lot of this open space here - which we will use to exhaust the hot air - but relocating this to the back of the engine bay opens up that room.



      With the radiator mounted and fan in place it was time to make some radiator hoses. The upper hose was flexible enough to work without changes, but the lower hose needed a bend in it.



      The stock hose was cut and a piece of aluminum tubing with about a 20 degree bend in it was spliced into place. We will top off the "exhaust" portion of this with some Trackspec hood vents, and the forward portion will be ducted to the radiator from the new grill opening - which will be shown in another section / post.

      COLD AIR INTAKE

      The engine needs a "cold air kit" to have an airbox, air inlet, and a tube to the throttle body with the MAF sensor mounting flange. We tried to use the OEM bits for the 2015-17 Mustang that came with the crate motor. Doesn't fit.



      Since the Coyote engine came in this chassis it was simply a matter of finding one to fit a 2011-14 GT. We looked at all of the options and the JLT kit shown below was chosen.



      This comes with a reusable high flow cone style filter and a smooth bore intake pipe. These are larger than stock diameter and do not have the "air flow killing" corrugations in the tube. The included air box helps the air filter get cold air from behind the headlights via a snorkel tube, like the stock airbox. Unlike the stock setup that has to be quiet, this one seals somewhat to the hood but can also get additional air from around the ABS brick, as shown above right.



      This is a good stopping point for this round of updates. There are a few more things completed in the image above but we will save that for the next post n this thread.

      WHAT'S NEXT?

      We have completed much more than what I am showing this time, such as a tubular bumper beam, oil cooler and remote filter mount, fitted the 3-bolt EPAS rack to the 2-bolt mount on the 2010 crossmember, new CS lower grill, front radiator ducting, heater bypass plumbing, remote clutch reservoir, trunk mounted battery, and more.



      There is a front splitter and rear wing planned, there's a driveshaft to install, fuel cell being built, "something special" going into the rear axle, the EPAS simulator needs to be wired in, an initial first fire and a custom dyno tune(s), plus a few more tasks. We will save all of that for next time.

      For now, thanks for reading!
      Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
      2018 GT / S550 Dev + 2013 FR-S / 86 Dev + 2011 GT / S197 Dev + C4 Corvette Dev
      EVO X Dev + 2007 Z06 / C6 Dev + BMW E46 Dev + C5 Corvette Dev

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