Cant keep the car around the house for long as my neighbors suck........ I will be removing the obvious motor/trans/harness but would like some input/suggestions on what other items are essential when doing the swap into a 79 Mustang. I'm sure there are some odd ball things that I wont be considering at the time and will regret not taking them when the body is long gone down the road....

 

I would take everything that you could possibly sell on there if I were you.

THe obvious drivetrain parts (engine/trans/rear). If you have the room to store things while sale is pending you should take it all.. suspension components, wheels and tires, interior, misc interior and exterior peices (such as door panels, window switches, seatbelts, radio, turn signals, headlights, etc), doors, fenders. Take EVERYTHING you can sell to keep your out of pocket spendings down as low as you can. It all adds up

 

I plan on taking the entire harness and everything that is associated with with it. Here is a short list that will be going from the 98 into the 79:

-Motor Incl all accessories
-Trans (automatic)
-harness
-radiator and fans

I will probably also keep the trans cross member and drive shaft just in case I need parts from them to convert/adapt to my Fox body.

I guess my concern is that I will find out the hard way that there are electrical parts through out the car that will be needed. I know my fords inside and out but am new to the LSX scene. It's been a long time dream of mine to do this swap and the opportunity has finally presented itself.

I am going to try an sell the 98 as a roller before I part her. All depends if I can find the rite buyer in a small amount of time....

 

Gotcha, well if you are selling it as a roller I would say, only take what you need for stang (better more than you need than not enough) and leave the rest complete so you get a good sale price on the roller.

I'm not experienced with actually doing engine swaps, so I guess I dont know any specific key things that you would need to know. I dont believe you need much else. I would definitely keep the trans crossmember/engine mounts/driveshaft and rear end so you have something to modify to fit the 79

 

the f-body trans crossmember & driveshaft won't do you a bit of good. sell them with the roller. Keep the engine/trans/wiring harness/ecm/radiator/fans.

 

Interior wiring harness and OBD2 port!

 

Had not thought of that, Thanks

I would like the fuel injection and all the engine electronics to be functional. I am hoping this is not a night mare of a task since I will have the donor car to offer up all the parts. Not that I believe this will be a walk in the park...

 

Interior wiring harness, why?

 

Yeah, why?

Engine/trans/wiring/rad/fans are all you'll use in the fox. Leave as much as you can with the roller to sell whole. Might want to sell the 98 harness/PCM too and get a 99+ set

 

Whats the benefit of a 99+ set Sorry, I have been hiding under Fords lately

 

I would grab the interior harness in case there might be anything you want to salvage...OBD2 wiring is the main reason. Depending on how he wants to wire his gauges, fuel pump, reverse lock out, etc. he may or may not need it. But i'm the kind of person that would rather have it and not need it than leave it and have to dick around trying to find one later. Hell..these rollers arent worth barely anything anyways. Might as well take what you need!

 

The 98 PCM's were the first ls1 pcm and were less tunable and harder to tune than the newer ones

 

There wont be anything to use from the dash harness unless he's using the whole dash. Even cluster retrofits are easier to just use the one connector instead of splitting it free of the whole harness

 

Not necessarily true...I would definitely grab the interior harness pigtail and repin it to his dash harness. Much cleaner that way and he wont have to hack into the ls1 harness. The OBD2 port will be needed for the pcm. If he wanted to save some coin, he could snag the fuel pump relay and wiring. For the most part you are right, but I'm just giving my $.02

 

Ok, have the motor out, I am now seeing that the rad fan harness is tied into the headlight harness..... Should I yank the whole headlight harness?

 

Buy some stack-able totes and strip it all out. It takes less room than you think and you would be surprised how much you can part out to recoup your costs. Check the for sale / wanted section here.

I think I stripped my donor down within a half day using an impact wrench to quickly unscrew the bolts. It was actually fun.

Find all the connector plugs and grounds for the harness and disconnect them. You can separate the harness from the fan later.

 

The harness is in 3 pieces. You will have the engine harness, the engine bay harness and the interior harness. The engine harness hooks to the engine bay harness with the 3 connectors on the fender. The engine harness hooks to the interior harness with connectors that go through the firewall on the passenger side. The engine bay harness hooks into the interior harness on the drivers side. This is what the interior wiring looks like