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-   -   engine swap equal problems for life of car? (

spacegravity4me 10-21-2012 07:24 PM

engine swap equal problems for life of car?
I spoke to a guy I know who has a lot of experience with cars. I told him I was thinking of taking my engine and putting into another focus. He said that if I did that I would NEVER stop having problems with the car and that it would NEVER be like it was when it was new. I've read some threads about people swapping duratecs into zetecs and such and I've never heard of anything horrible happening like that. Is he right or can it be done and have the car be a great, reliable, daily like my current rusty car is?

fakitol 10-21-2012 08:15 PM

Just start with Honda guys and u have the right answer :)

jmiller_1974 10-21-2012 08:25 PM

^^There is a certain amount of truth to that statement. People swap engines all the time, whether it be hondas, hot rods or anything in between. Granted, there can be problems if improperly installed, but that would be the installers fault and not(usually) the swapped engine.

spacegravity4me 10-22-2012 08:11 PM

there is a definite bias whenever i talk to any other "car" people about my focus.

amc49 10-25-2012 11:40 PM

There is absolutely no ultimate difference between one car and another, only the minor differences that make them different. Any problems that occur after a swap are the fault of person doing the swap, if done correctly there can be less trouble than with a new car. Attention to detail is the key, people who do it on a regular basis have very little trouble at all. I used to build custom RWD race cars and virtually no problems at all. A lot of detail work necessary though.

elsolo 11-07-2012 01:35 PM


poorly thought out and half assed execution of engine swaps like V8 conversions can be Bubba'd up

replacing one worn out factory engine with another identical engine from the same model of car, no problems

maybe he's just saying that by the time an engine needs replacing, lots of other parts are probably worn out too, so you can expect to have continued maintenance on the car unrelated to the actual engine change

HenHouseSurprise 11-07-2012 09:27 PM

i have done many 4 cylinder swaps, no big deal. just do it by the book.

amc49 11-09-2012 01:58 AM

LOL, there's no book for swapping different types......................what planet do you come from?

mikebontoft 11-09-2012 02:17 AM

someone should make one then. there's enough info on the Zetec swap at least. lol.

some people are complete jackasses. Any good tech won't shoot themselves in the foot with a matter-of-fact answer like that. He could have said that it might have a lifetime of trouble if you have no idea what you're doing and do it wrong or half-assed. There are plenty of people with reliable swaps out there.

amc49 11-10-2012 03:31 AM

Especially when the work is already done. There are both zetec and SPI cars, all one has to do is replace parts of one with the other, there pretty much IS a book on that. Done, it would be dead reliable or a totally incompetent person worked on it.
