Another Andys '96 Bronco build

[Agilt]

There seems to be a bunch of Andys here

Anyways, I'll chronicle the progress of working on my 96. I'm not looking to build a ultimate hardcore truck but something that is a good all around performer.

A bit of history:
Was given the truck as a HS graduation gift in January of 2000. Had 83K on it. Took me through college and the first year of work. I grenaded a driveshaft at 70 on the freeway and took the t-case adapter with it in October 07. Parked it and bought a 06 Charger R/T (love that car too) Finally got around to fixing he truck in January 08 then decided in April at 197K to pull the motor to do add some more go.

Some pics:





I started at a bit different point than most in that I wanted to build the engine first (what can I say, I like horsepower ) Truck had 197K on it and still ran fine, but had the typical leaks for a older truck. So I pulled the motor and broke it down to take to the machine shop. (I've got pics of the teardown on my comp at home, I'm out of town on my laptop right now)

List of stuff done in the motor rebuild (initially):

smooth block casting inside and out
chamfer oil drain holes in block
check deck, crank and cam bores (all perfect)
hone cylinders (stock bore)
all new bearings and plugs
smooth crank and rods
balance rotating assembly (stock hyper pistons)
World Roush 200 iron heads (64cc chamber, 2.02 and 1.6 valves)
Edelbrock Performer Truck intake
BBK 61mm TB
crane cams 444211 cam
crane 1.6 roller rockers
comp cams pushrods
Milodon windage tray
ARP oil pump drive
MSD billet distributor
MSD coil
Taylor spiro pro wires
bassani headers, y-pipe and magnaflow muffler
some ford racing valve covers to top it off
various ARP bolts and such for various things
autofab motor mounts

The milodon windage tray and where it needed to be cut to work with the stock oil pickup


All put together


getting ready to go in


in the truck


soon after it was running (the squealing was a bent crank pulley corrected by a aluminum march power&amp set)

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=a8Ay8K3 ... re=channel

well got it all in and proceeded to put 5K miles on it. truck did great. Then a valvespring popped and droppd a exhaust valve in #5. I'm not sure if it was a spring failure(bought the heads used with supposedly only 3K miles) or if the heads were equipped with less than required valves, but what happened happened. Goes to show do not take anything for granted.

oops





So I decided to go ahead and get some proper aluminum heads and a bit healthier cam

Enter some AFR 185's with 58cc chambers and a trick flow stage 1 cam along with some ARP head studs. Talked to my machinist and showed him the pics and he said since it only nicked up the piston smoothing it out should be no issue and it wasn't.



Going back together


It's definitely got a healthy lope to it now

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=AxzRUWE ... re=channel
(for some reason the camera really seems to pick out the valves and makes them seem way way louder than they are)

Truck runs well overall, no torque hole down low like other people preach that anything more aggressive than a stock cam will have , but now it's noticeable that it's at the end of the capacity of the stock fuel setup. So I've gotta start learning what to do with a '96 OBDII and how to get it tuned. Probably go with some 36lbers

That's where it stands currently, I'll be updating as everything progresses

[Jasonj105]

Which roller rockers did you use? I have a brand new set of magnum steel roller rockers and those same valve covers. Did you have any clearencing issues with the baffling?

[SteveG]

Nice build, Andy!

By the way, your pictures are WAY too big and need to be re-sized.

[Agilt]

Which roller rockers did you use? I have a brand new set of magnum steel roller rockers and those same valve covers. Did you have any clearencing issues with the baffling?

I have crane roller rockers, mine are aluminum. I had to remove the baffles to clear the rockers. I have a oil catch can coming from billettech to put between the PCV and intake to catch any extra oil from the valvecover. I have one on my charger and it works well. Also used the fel-pro steel/rubber gasket which gives a bit of clearance too(and also won't leak like the cork)

With the steel rockers you might be able to clear the baffles since the bodies aren't quite as big.

Nice build, Andy!

By the way, your pictures are WAY too big and need to be re-sized.

thanks

What size do yall like? They resize down for me

[SteveG]

they resize for everyone, but it doesn't happen until the full size image is loaded. I usually upload pics around 600 pixel width.

You can also upload the images directly to the board instead of hosting them elsewhere.

[Drilim]

Ive got a few motor questions for you. Ill be sending you a PM in the next day or 2.

Looks real good.

[Agilt]

Updated some of the pics with smaller ones

From back when I first rebuilt the motor, I also added -6an transmission lines to the cooler I have, which is the 11x11 B&M cooler





Only issue I've had with this is that I removed a check valve that was in the return line to install the adapter. This allows the cooler to backflow and empty, creating a bit of a lag in transmission engagement on cold starts since it's got to fill up the lines and cooler. Kinda similar to how the old mopar 727's are. I have a check valve for it now that I haven't installed yet, but that should fix the issue.

Also a look from behind the cat all the way to the end of the exhaust through the muffler

[95_Bronco]

I think a proper video is in place lol

[Agilt]

Hasn't been much going on since I've been at the end of the world a lot cleaning up the damn redcoats messes and on vacation, but I finally got the truck back together and running after having to pull the drivers side head because of a stripped intake bolt

Anyways, got it running, charged the A/C and have semi cool air(comp is going out/weak, that's a project for later though but it makes the truck drivable in the heat) and the thing overheats at idle

So progression of fighting overheat...
timing set to 13* BTDC
replaced the fan clutch with severe duty one
changed tstat to 180*
new water neck (chrome one was slightly undersized for the hose)
went back to factory pullies and belt

Stays fairly cool now idling with the A/C on, though still wants to heat up if it sits for a long time. Picking it up off idle to 1-1,500 rpms cools it down so I just don't think it's getting enough airflow now. I suppose the added compression and aluminum heads added enough heat to max out the cooling system. And I have the heavy duty towing radiator too(2 row aluminum).

Thinking of changing the stat back to the stock 190 to see if there's a difference there.

Will probably end up putting a puller electric inside the shroud in front of the mech fan with a temp sensor and A/C override to move some air at idle. It might have had this problem with the first setup but I never recharged the A/C and didn't really drive it in any real hot time of year, so it might have masked it.


The truck runs good aside from the heat issue and is very strong overall. Second gear is a lot of fun . Have a small header leak I still need to fix though. Bit of a oil leak too from the rear of the pan, probably gasket got slightly off putting the new pan on. I hate having a leaky vehicle but I don't feel like pulling the motor to reseal the pan right now so I can live with it for a while. Trying to wrestle the pan in the truck is such a huge pain.

If I was to go back I think I would have stuck with the iron heads and maybe just put the cam in. I think I gained a bit from the AFRs but I don't think it was worth the cost overall for the heads.

[philofab]

I have two Nissan Titan electric fans on the front of my condenser to help with airflow for the A/C and radiator. Make sure all your cooling components are reverse rotation pieces. Even with higher compression and aluminum heads your truck should cool fine. Mine does below 90 degrees without a fan at all.

As far as the oil leak. Wipe it off and put some Toyota Seal Packaging on it (I'll get the part number for you tomorrow) where it leaks and let it setup for about 8 hours. It will stop the leak. The stuff is like $12 a tube but nothing leaks with it! It stopped a 200K 351M oil pan leak on a customers car.

[Agilt]

All parts the are reverse rotation, I did check that. I've seen standard parts get put on before. We've been having some exceptionally hot days here recently too (98*+ and 70%+ humidity), so I know it's stressing a cooling system to the max. I'm sure adding about 2K cfm from a auxiliary electric will give it the buffer I need down low since as soon as it's off idle and starts to move it cools down.

The toy sealer sounds interesting, never heard of it.

I've read mixed reviews of the cooler t-stat, some say they're good, others say since they open sooner they don't allow coolant in the radiator to be completely cooled.

[hobbyturnedobsession]

I know this is a dumb question, but hows the water pump? I had one go on me, and it seemed like it worked perfect, but everytime itd sit and idle it'd heat up. Also too, I know mine is heavier but I dropped in the 4 row replacement, and it was 106 and humid and at an idle the highest it got was 200 - 205 on a side street with the a/c on and ive got 156,000.

[Agilt]

water pump is nearly new. It was replaced when I initially rebuilt the engine about 5K ago.

[hobbyturnedobsession]

Does it ping when you throttle down? Maybe with cam, etc you should be running 91. I know when I get through my engine I have to. Also, what about your heater core? Mine was plugged and that didnt help matters either. Also, I'm sure this is kind of stupid, but if you have a head gasket that was either put on wrong, or is leaking that can be a biig cause of it too.

[Agilt]

no ping that I've heard yet and I have the timing set pretty conservatively at 13* Though it'll be something I'll be listening for after I get the header leak fixed.

Heater core was replaced soon before initial rebuild as well. So it just a bit over a year old and has sat most of that time empty

Head gaskets are correct as well. The p9333 fel-pros have squared off ends that point forward to tell if they are on correct. Also no oil in coolant or vice versa. (trust me, I had the freak out moment of wondering if I flipped a gasket during the install)

[philofab]

Should be a head gasket problem... it would present itself faster under load.

I would think it's either a issue with the water pump no spinning fast enough or an airflow issue since it's only at idle.

[hobbyturnedobsession]

Hahah I hate those moments. Idk if this helps any either but when I changed my thermostat, I was always told to run it at the stock temp. I know if they open too soon, say at 160, the truck is harder to cool down. Idk the correct temp for your 96 but mine doesn't open until 198 and it works pretty well for me. Also, I've heard of head gaskets being wrong, and not having the oil in water or water in oil problem.

Looking at what Philo has to say does make sense too, though. On an add to that how about air to fuel ratio? I know running it lean wont help.

[Agilt]

Been driving the truck for a week to and from work and on errands and have made a decision as to the motor. I'm going to pull it out in a few months when its not 100 degrees outside and fix the oil leaks, replace the water pump for good measure and swap back to the Roush heads and crane cam.

I love how the truck sounds and runs under throttle with the trick flow cam and AFRs but even after the truck has learned the new parts it still wants to idle a bit too low with the AC on and feels like it is starving for fuel when it's wrapped out as well as having a hiccup around 40mph. It's fairly borderline IMO on being docile enough to be reliable on thousand plus mile trips ( my end result being that I want a truck that I can drive out west and back). It would need some dyno time and tuning to get full potential out of the setup and I want something a bit more KISS that runs well on the factory computer without any outside influence. Throw into the mix that it's kinda a oddball being a 96 windsor with OBDII makes it seem to fall between the cracks for tuning equipment. The truck ran very well with the other parts and made noticeably more power than stock so I won't be losing too much in performance but will be gaining some drivability back.

Also has been running fine with the factory pullies and 190 thermostat. The electric fan is installed but isn't running, even though it's hooked up properly with a thermo relay and runs with the override to 12v

[RyanDS650X]

where did you get the AN fittings and lines for your trans cooler. Ill be putting my B&M on soon and Id like to do the braided lines a like you did. Can you buy them by length with the fittings and everything or do you have to piece it together yourself?

[Agilt]

where did you get the AN fittings and lines for your trans cooler. Ill be putting my B&M on soon and Id like to do the braided lines a like you did. Can you buy them by length with the fittings and everything or do you have to piece it together yourself?

I bought all my stuff for the AN lines from summit. I just bought bulk line then cut to your length. I got 20ft of -6AN to do the cooler and used most all of it.

Only issue I've ran into is that on the return line the fitting into the trans housing is a small check valve and I removed it to replace with the AN fitting. This allows the cooler to drain back into the transmission, overfill it and leak out the of the dipstick tube/case hole(my dipstick tube was a bit bent, so I don't know if all would leak). I have a summit check valve to install in the return line to replicate the factory setup to keep the cooler from draining back and will be replacing the dipstick tube with a one piece tube when the motor gets pulled.