Anyone have the 3L swap with a ATX???

[Sinister]

how's your ATX holding up and what have you done besides the 3L swap to the engine (estimated hp)....I'm "planning" on the 3L swap late next year but wanna make sure my cd4e is solid enough first to handle the added power...I plan on modding out the 3L a lil bit, making it strong enough to handle 75-100hp shot of nitrous eventually.

[Ripple]

I'm in the process but the way it's been going I won't have it done and installed until the end of the year. The cd4e is the same that's in the Escape should it should hold up just fine. Nitrous is also in the plan for mine. Make sure that when you have the engine built that you let the engine builder know that you plan on Nitrous.

[Sinister]

Hey Ripple, where at in Cali are you? I'm in San Diego...where are you getting your swap done at???

[Ripple]

I'm in Ventura county but I'm doing the swap myself at my father-in-laws shop in Fullerton. PM me if you want details on what I'm doing.

[NorCalCoug]

Originally posted by: Sinister
how's your ATX holding up and what have you done besides the 3L swap to the engine (estimated hp)....I'm "planning" on the 3L swap late next year but wanna make sure my cd4e is solid enough first to handle the added power...I plan on modding out the 3L a lil bit, making it strong enough to handle 75-100hp shot of nitrous eventually.

The Escape ATX has the same tranny (CD4E) and a 3L motor, so I don't see any problems with a stock swap for swap. :)

[Sinister]

Originally posted by: NorCalCoug

Originally posted by: Sinister
how's your ATX holding up and what have you done besides the 3L swap to the engine (estimated hp)....I'm "planning" on the 3L swap late next year but wanna make sure my cd4e is solid enough first to handle the added power...I plan on modding out the 3L a lil bit, making it strong enough to handle 75-100hp shot of nitrous eventually.

The Escape ATX has the same tranny (CD4E) and a 3L motor, so I don't see any problems with a stock swap for swap. :)



works for me....hopefully it'll be able to handle a extra 75-100hp shot of nitrous every now and then too.....of course the nitrous will only be used on the dragstrip!

[sonza68]

Kenne-Bell did not perform any mods to the CD4E when they built their 288 hp supercharged Escape. When I contacted them they said Ford assured them that trans should be able to handle it.

[bzcat]

CD4E actaully performs much better with 3.0... I don't have any of the hasitation problem on the Escape as I do on the Cougar. The shift point is more ideally matched with the 3.0 than 2.5 so I think you don't have to worry about the tranny holding up.

[exigent]

It will work.. but the question begs WHY? You are adding 30hp and 30ft/lbs of toruqe to the crank.... Now... you may go about as fast as a Taurus :) YEHHHHH SPPEEEED. IF you are going to go to the great lenghts of swaping a new engine into the car... why not spend the extra money and make it REALLY fast.

Just so you know, by the numbers, and by my estimates and experience. You still wont be as fast as an mtx cougar. Yep thats right... i bet you $10 right now that an mtx cougar will be faster then you with your 3.0 atx.

Seriously, consider waiting for the extra money to come in to put an mtx in the car. If you dont think you want to.... just at least do this for me. Go to the dealer and test drive a mtx cougar. Please... do it... or get a neco member to let you take thiers for a ride... do SOMTHING to get in an mtx. Now go drive a 3.0 taurus... which one felt faster? Yes i know the taurus has a diffrent tranny and weighs more... but you will still see my point.

Wait till the end of the week... im on page 12 of my atx-mtx swap howto... at least give that a look before you go ahead with the engine.

[exigent]

Holy crap... i just noticed you said you plan on adding NOS.... the atx will NOT take a 100 shot... maybe not even the 75. If the diff survives... and the tranny does too... you will blow trans mounts right off the subframe... Its happend to other people a 75 shot on a 2.5 with an atx... it will happen to you too. He broke things so bad it tore the power steering lines from the pump/rack.... think this through... for the price of that nos plus say another $1000 you can have an mtx in there.... The tranny is cripleing you big time...

[Sinister]

Originally posted by: exigent
Holy crap... i just noticed you said you plan on adding NOS.... the atx will NOT take a 100 shot... maybe not even the 75. If the diff survives... and the tranny does too... you will blow trans mounts right off the subframe... Its happend to other people a 75 shot on a 2.5 with an atx... it will happen to you too. He broke things so bad it tore the power steering lines from the pump/rack.... think this through... for the price of that nos plus say another $1000 you can have an mtx in there.... The tranny is cripleing you big time...


work on the cd4e to strengthen it's internals will happen before nitrous is added, and as far as using nitrous, it'll only be at the track, which won't be more then 2 nights a month if that. I'm not that ignorant to run 100+ shot of nitrous on our stock atx trannys ;)

[Mtang4life]

NOS is a brand name, not to be confused with the gas nitrous. If someone wants to keep the ATX let them, its a personal choice. With drag racing ATX is the way to go in MY opinion. With the improvements offered by Level 10 Strength should not be an issue at all. If kenne-bell didnt have any problems with the escape with an ATX, a properly tuned nitrous system used properly should do no more harm than the blower.

[Sinister]

Originally posted by: Mtang4life
NOS is a brand name, not to be confused with the gas nitrous. If someone wants to keep the ATX let them, its a personal choice. With drag racing ATX is the way to go in MY opinion. With the improvements offered by Level 10 Strength should not be an issue at all. If kenne-bell didnt have any problems with the escape with an ATX, a properly tuned nitrous system used properly should do no more harm than the blower.

I'm sure he meant nitrous when he said NOS...eh, more and more people are saying nos instead of proper nitrous terminology now due to F&TF....either way, I knew what he meant ;)

[exigent]

Well.. after reading that post I went and got a KLEEN-X.... then i decided to clean my ears so I used some Q-tip's. My girlfriend just put some Downey in the wash... and we had stove top for dinner. Grab an evian and chill man! Give me a break... I can draw you the atomic structure of N2O if you want... Jesus... before you go slaming people next time check to see who you are slaming. I was generalizing. NOS is in fact a brand name but it has entered speech as a general term for N2O and is perfectly acceptable as long as you understand that it is N2O.... anyways....

I never actually said the tranny couldnt handle it... but I DID say the mounts can not. It doesnt matter how many times you do it, steel doesnt really have a fatigue life like aluminum. If the mounts break at 10,000lbs they will break there... it doesnt take 100 times at 10,000 to break them. All that power will tear that atx happily from the roll restrictors and bounce the hole shebang off the firewall or fan houseing while ripping out every line running between the engine and car. Its happened to people... im not just guessing here.

Sure.. if he wants an atx thats one point... but if he wants to go fast that is another. For all the money he would have level 10 put in that tranny he can get one hell of a mtx75 that will spank that cd4e all around. Its gearing alone will ALWAYS be its downfall. 80 somthing mph in second gear? 115 or so in 3rd? You dont even see 4th in a race.... Its a HUGE crippleing factor. It sounds like he wants to go fast.. and I promise you will understand better once you ride in both an atx and an mtx. Its like night and day. The bottom line is that no matter what your opionion is on mtx vs. atx the mtx will ALWAYS be faster in every kind of racing. Yes thats right ALWAYS... I dont care what you do to it short of sinking $10,000 into it.... it will ALWAYS be slower then the same setup with an mtx. Not by a little either BY A LOT! All these people who are sinking $3000 or more into a level 10 are going to be awfully supprised when they go to the track... I dont care if they are putting more power to the ground... the gearing plus the extra 100lbs of the atx will cause it to loose every time. Ill bet in fact that if you took two 100% stock cougars... one mtx and one atx and let level 10 do thier thing to the atx.... the atx would STILL not be as fast as the mtx in the 1/4. I watched a bone stock atx cougar run 18's on the same track at the same time as a bone stock mtx ran low low 16's and high 15's. Im sorry but you are NOT going to get 2 seconds out of that atx no matter what you do to it. Even if you freed up power so much that it put 100% of crank hp to the ground... lets see that would mean youd be putting about 30 more hp to the ground then a stock mtx... I guarantee 30hp would NOT make the diffrence of 1.5 seconds or more. Hell... look at a contour svt... they run VERY high 14's stock... more or less low 15's. There is 30 hp diffrence.... much less then 1.5 seconds.

You said it though... if he wants an atx let him... But I still say its really silly to spend that much money to go fast in an atx when if you spent the same money on an mtx youd have a faster car...

[Frank]

Well, I can't speak for anyone, but I'm gonna build up the ATX because I've already paid extra for an ATX tranny, and it will be something different.

I figure that if I'm running 15.9 now, I could shave .1 or .2 with the SVT UIM that I still don't have, another .4-.6 if I can improve my 60' times from 2.5 to 2.2-2.3 with a torque converter, another .2 from the faster shifting, and maybe another .1 from the reduced drivetrain loss of the TC.

I should be looking at very high 14s to very low 15s in the 1/4 mile.

And if I can get Level Ten to do that 4.86 ring and pinion gear.... ohhhhh, then we'll be talkin!

[OverLamer]

never had a problem with my atx mounts and ive been using a 75 shot for a year now:shrug:

[exigent]

Hrm... svt upper with the bells and whilstles is about $500.... thats if you do the labor. Tourque converter is $500. Im going to go out on a limb and assume you cant do that yourself and say about $1000 in labor. Okay we are up to $2000...

Now... with that $2000 and the $2000 that it would cost you to put that final drive in that tranny... You can have ONE HELL of an mtx75...

Im not going to start a pissing contest here but from what ive seen.... I have a VERY hard time beleiveing you run 15's in your atx. I know... I know... I wasnt there and its a silly thing to argue about but I can list about 50 people here that will back me up on this one. Even with all my mods I could BARELY get into the 16's in my atx. Now im sorry but driving doesnt make THAT much diffrence in time ... track of course will make a diffrece to a point... but not a second... especially since a atx cougar basicly cant spin the tires. Your 60ft time will basicly never change.. its an auto... launch method is basicly irrelivent. Definaly not going to pick up .6 just from launching the car diffrent. Especialy with the unusually low et you already have.

Look at it this way. Strait up... an mtx is 1.5 seconds faster in the 1/4. You were talking about spending $500 on the svt upper to MAYBE get .2.... Im talking cost vs gains here.

Now... as you said... building an atx to be diffrent has its merrits... i dont deny that. But... You are already in a way crippled by building up a car that is very expensive and difficult to build up in comparison to some other cars. Now you are adding to that an even MORE expensive build by trying to do it with an auto. It obviously a personal opionion... I just hope you can see the light.... seriously... go take a ride in an mtx... better yet drive one.


never had a problem with my atx mounts and ive been using a 75 shot for a year now

as far as that goes i dont know what to say... I dont doubt you... the guy i was refrencing ran a 100shot... and he was dumb as bricks to boot so that may have had somthing to do with it. I dunno...

[Frank]

Originally posted by: exigent
Im not going to start a pissing contest here but from what ive seen.... I have a VERY hard time beleiveing you run 15's in your atx. I know... I know... I wasnt there and its a silly thing to argue about but I can list about 50 people here that will back me up on this one. Even with all my mods I could BARELY get into the 16's in my atx. Now im sorry but driving doesnt make THAT much diffrence in time ... track of course will make a diffrece to a point... but not a second... especially since a atx cougar basicly cant spin the tires. Your 60ft time will basicly never change.. its an auto... launch method is basicly irrelivent. Definaly not going to pick up .6 just from launching the car diffrent. Especialy with the unusually low et you already have.

I know it's not the launch... it's the horsepower! I can just put it in drive and stomp on the gas... and I'll run consistent 16.1-16.2's. If I bring the revs up slightly and shift higher manually... it's 15.9-16.0. What elevation did you run your car at? How much horsepower was it actually making? (or did you ever dyno it?) And what does it run now?

[caenus]

Well hopefully anyone that does a 3.0 swap will do some engine work before putting it in. Spending that kind of money to get a 200hp/200tq engine seems to be a waste. I've read people doing a svt 2.5 and 3.0 hybrid engine. Something along the lines of svt heads and compression with the 3.0 block.

[Sinister]

Exigent.....i agree with your statements...it would be much better to have a MTX...but being I have ATX and some exterior work done...I'd rather not get rid of it and lose what I've put into it...so my option is to keep it...other then that, my only option is to swap out tranny's which I have no idea what the cost on a ATX to MTX swap would be...so unless you can give me a decent guessimate, I'm SOL on that. :p Believe me, I'd like to swap out the ATX for MTX and do the 3.0 swap as well...but I don't have the tools, nor the proper place to do a tranny swap on my own, much less the know how...so I'd be pretty much stuck with paying someone else to do it...which is gonna add up.
And yes, I've test driven a MTX, and felt the power difference between the two...and now your asking, Why the fawk did someone in their right mind choose a atx over a mtx...well ask the old lady on that one...she doesn't know how to drive a mtx and at the time refused to learn on a new clutch...which now I should kill her cause she wants to learn to drive a mtx...grrr :mad: But hell, if i can find a reasonable price to get the tranny swap then I'll do that and the 3L swap afterwards ;)

[caenus]

Heh it was hard enough finding my 2000 green cougar at the end of 2000 when the 2001's were about to come out. They had a good rebate and I got a really good deal. In all of S. FL at that time, there were only 2 green cougars, both ATX. One dealership was a total "stereotype" dealership, the other one we bsaically called them, and they gave us a price about $1500 less then the other dealership, right off the bat. No haggling at all.

Edit: I also think the ATX to MTX swap costs around $1500 if you do the labor yourself. I don't think that price includes selling your ATX tranny back to a junkyard. If you have the tools and a place to work I think it is possible. Get a Chilton's book, it explains a lot. Also there are a few HOWTO's going around. I may do it one day, but by the time I want to do it, I'll probably just get a Nissan Z or something newer :) Definitely will get a manual Z though.

[OverLamer]

Originally posted by: exigent

Im not going to start a pissing contest here but from what ive seen.... I have a VERY hard time beleiveing you run 15's in your atx. I know... I know... I wasnt there and its a silly thing to argue about but I can list about 50 people here that will back me up on this one. Even with all my mods I could BARELY get into the 16's in my atx. Now im sorry but driving doesnt make THAT much diffrence in time ... track of course will make a diffrece to a point... but not a second... especially since a atx cougar basicly cant spin the tires. Your 60ft time will basicly never change.. its an auto... launch method is basicly irrelivent. Definaly not going to pick up .6 just from launching the car diffrent. Especialy with the unusually low et you already have.



Traction is definately an issue

For me the mtx swap just doesnt make sense, labor would be insane, and thats assuming i could even find a shop willing to attempt it. I could probably do it my self but even then cost would likly be more then a torque convertor and valve body upgrade (498[TC]+698[VB] = 1300 not including shipping and labor) valve body install wouldnt be that complicated as you can do it without removing the trans. I would assume if you could do a mtx swap you wouldnt have a hard time installing a torque convertor.

But you could always sell the atx and buy a mtx. I dont think that is worth it your going to loose several thousand from the trade in and buying a new car. The best way to do that is sell it in auto trader. But I allready have dumped 5k+ into this car (mostly suspension oriented).

[Mtang4life]

I didnt mean to imply that an ATX is better than a MTX. My point of view, was that with drag racing (the legal kind) that a consistant run that can be gained from an ATX is better (depending on the class) than a MTX in MY opinion. I honestly know hardly any drivers that are good enough with a stick to be that consistand down the 1/4 mile. the ATX will always be slower, heavier, not as much fun. The NOS thing is one thing that annoys me more than anything else in the world.. like calling concrete cement, and people chewing with their mouth open. Which is my problem that i get annoyed. I already realize that.