Afordable built motors

[Dennis Reinhart]

First of all I hope every one has a good Thanksgiving my BD is the 27th this year, Now Jin O'Niel is my friend and builds all my motors, I have bought two Marauder motors and he is rebuilding these, with Manly rods, Diamond forged racing pistons ARP fasteners, with the stock crank a good valve job, and a clean up with head studs, along with the Billet oil pump and trigger wheel, this motor will safely make 500 RWHP, With a S/C. I will sell these for around 4500, with a good core trade in, S/C not included LOL.

I have been busy lately I have not posted much so I will get started after this week with some dyno numbers on some of the stuff I have promised on. I have started on the 03 Cobra Motor in the 04 Marauder I have here with a Vortech JT Trim, this car should make 600 to the tires, so I hope every one has a good holiday.

[Petrograde]

WOW! 500 RWHP for $4500?! That's a great price!

[MarauderBoy]

I think the key element here is reliability/longevity.

$4500 will not buy 500rwhp.

[Dennis Reinhart]

Originally posted by MarauderBoy
I think the key element here is reliability/longevity.

$4500 will not buy 500rwhp.

There is only one way to insure reliability/longevity I just out lined this and that is good pistons and rods. Even with that if you dont have good tuning its all worth nothing.


Right now on a stock motor with marginal rods and hypertectic pistons I am making very close to 450 RWHP with a 3:61 pulley, thats about 8/9 PSI boost so with good rods and pistons I will probably say that with 13 to 15 PSI I can safely make over 500 to the tires on pump gas, give me 30 days I post the numbers for you.

[Constable]

WOW... sounds like a challenge!! I'm sure that MarauderBoy simply meant, "$4500 buys the motor only (which will not put out 500hp on it's own -- it requires a supercharger)."

[RCSignals]

my BD is the 27th this year

Happy birthday in advance Dennis


(What day was your BD on last year? ;) j/k)


That engine sounds good. Would a forged crank from an '03 Cobra help too?

[Ross]

I was wondering about the forged crank, too. As long as you are building up the insides, about how much more would it cost to put in a forged crank? How much benefit would it give?

[Dennis Reinhart]

well the Cobra steel crank can be a option but its another 800, the OEM crank can safely handle 500, what I am trying to do is have a afordable engine if you want a totaly built motor we now are talking 8K or more

[Papabear]

The 4500 price is this for a short or a long block?

[Dennis Reinhart]

I said close to 4500 this is a longblock with a good rebuildable core, I am not out to make a killing here. I am just trying to give the members a option to go to when, deciding how much safe power you want to make. Jim has two motors now so I have no firm price yet, but will in the next few weeks he is doing a big bore for my car with one of the motors, so I will have some thing to play with in the spring. He has started the o3 Cobra motor this week for me and we are using FRPP cams Ported heads, with a T Trim.

[RCSignals]

I guess if you are going to start thinking Cobra forged crank you might as well start considering a stroker set up

[BigMerc]

Well if everything goes right i should have my car back from Dennis next week. The motor option is a winner, $4500 for a motor that will hold together is right on the money. a bargain! If I can't keep my foot out of it when I finally get my car back I'll probably be back for the motor early next year.
Again another solid item from DR. I opted for the Billet gears, trigger wheel now along with the high volume pump, thats hoping to hold off the inevitable.
As a rule I trust DR with the information he provides, If he says 500 rwhp I'll put money on it is so.
I'm in for it if this motor does not hold up. If Dennis doesn't post pics of my engine I will. He put the black powdercoat with the silver vein in the valve covers, and blower pieces should be a very cool looking deal. (again a Dennis suggestion)

[Dennis Reinhart]

Originally posted by RCSignals
I guess if you are going to start thinking Cobra forged crank you might as well start considering a stroker set up

Well RC I love ya but a stroker kit is not the route I would go, you will make far more with a built 4.6 and good heads and cams than a stroker, but you can do as what ever you like.

[Dennis Reinhart]

Originally posted by BigMerc

I'm in for it if this motor does not hold up. If Dennis doesn't post pics of my engine I will. He put the black powdercoat with the silver vein in the valve covers, and blower pieces should be a very cool looking deal. (again a Dennis suggestion)

I will post the pics when its ready I am in Indy wuth my sister fir T Day so call me next week the paint scheme is awsome

[MarauderBoy]

Dennis,

Let me clarify my response of

"I think the key element here is reliability/longevity.

$4500 will not buy 500rwhp."

Petrograde response to your post seemed to me that he thought you could provide a $4500 engine that makes 500 rwhp naturally asiprated.

Unless you say differently, I don't believe this is what you intended and that's the point I defended.

I have no doubt that the stock MM with your SC kit is capable of 500+ rwhp with a 15# pulley, I'm making 400+ with your kit at 8#. My point is based on previous discussions that suggest 450 rwhp is as far as you want to take a stock MM motor without making it a grenade. With that in mind, your built motor should safety and reliability handle SC and other mods at 500+ rwhp.

[Dennis Reinhart]

I understand as usual its very easy to misinterpret the Internet, I do not mean to sound argumentative, so as soon as Jim gives me a firm price I will post it.

Again what I am trying to do is get enough motors in stock to offer a cost effective engine upgrade, no matter who's Supercharger kit you buy there is always the chance of breaking a stock motor. all of us do our best to reduce the chance with good safe AF/tuning. There is no way the stock transmission is going to stay healthy, my goal is to have several modified components ready to ship, my idea is to take the stock Marauder motor put good rods and pistons in it good fasteners, up graded oil delivery system and sell it reasonably, you can always spend more for a steel crank and ported heads if you like. But as I said with just good slugs and rods and oil pump up grade with 12 PSI The car will be very close to 500 RWHP

I hope every one has a good holiday

[RCSignals]

Originally posted by Dennis Reinhart
Well RC I love ya but a stroker kit is not the route I would go, you will make far more with a built 4.6 and good heads and cams than a stroker, but you can do as what ever you like.

Probably so. I was more thinking aloud, that if one was considering a forged crank, seeing the cost of it, they might as well consider a stroker crank.

The amount of power that can be wrung from our little 4.6s is always amasing.

So much for big displacement ;)

[junehhan]

Dennis, out of curioity, do you have any future plans in terms of offering transmission upgrades, or even complete transmission kits that could safely cope with this much power with good durability?

[Dennis Reinhart]

Yes I am buying three re'buildable cores to sell as complete transmissions along with the transmission cooler with braided steel lines as a complete kit

[DONP1217]

The Trilogy cars seem to be coping just fine with the stock transmission making 390 and 400+ hp to the wheels. At what horsepower level do you recommend that we need an upgraded transmission?

[Dennis Reinhart]

Well Don All I will say here is that there very lucky, I have not talked to Jerry to so if they have had failures, since none of us advertise this, again as you stated there making less HP power than my kit, again its not a great difference. There are Marauder owners who have lost there transmissions in a completely stock Marauder so why would you risk the chance. If I was to invest in any ones kit from what I have learned and shown its better to invest in a transmission up grade, while the transmission is still healthy, than to take a chance and do nothing, and have for example the snap ring on the Mechanical Diode assembly pop off and take out the entire transmission. Its common sense here the stock 4R70W was designed for 233 RWHP and about the same torque, with either of the three leading kits sold you have doubled those numbers, so you can do as you want, I tell every customer who calls me they need to upgrade the transmission along with the installation of any ones Supercharger Kit, and that's why I have put together a cost effective improvement kit,

[BigMerc]

I got the transmission upgrade at the same time I am getting the supercharger, I think they should be a matched pair, Dennis reccomended this so I did it, I don't want to get home and have to bring it back, for smoking the trans in the first month.

I didn't ask, but maybe Dennis can answer, I believe it still operates like a normal transmission, I didnt get the torque converter because I really want it to be a smooth driver with some big punch when i want it.

I also got the transmission cooler too, no sense in going half way. I think i put Dennis in a higher tax bracket with all the shiny things I bought. hard to say no to all the products Dennis puts out.

I'll have some things to print when I get it back, when I finally decide to get out of the car and come inside long enough to log on.

[DONP1217]

So what is the answer?

At what horsepower do you need to upgrade your transmission?

[Dennis Reinhart]

Originally posted by DONP1217
So what is the answer?

At what horsepower do you need to upgrade your transmission?


Don I answered this I would not do a supercharger without the transmission up grade, again this is my opinion.

[Directedby]

Originally posted by Dennis Reinhart
Don I answered this I would not do a supercharger without the transmission up grade, again this is my opinion.

What about the '04 tranny? Does it need the same upgrade and if so, what exactly is the upgrade?

[Dennis Reinhart]

There is very littile difference between the 4R70W and the 4R75W
I have three 04's here now for superchargers the very first thing I do is pull the transmission and up grade it.

[TripleTransAm]

Can an '04 PCM successfully control an '03 4R70W? Better yet, can an '04 PCM with '04 calibrations control an '03 car with a 4R70W?

[Dennis Reinhart]

Yes we have disccused this, about using the 04 PCM in a 03 and add another knock sensor and Jerry said this could be done of course you will have to run wires to the PCM for the other knock sensor, I will let you all know last week a dealer here in Florida sent me a 04 EEC because every chip I sent would not work, and we found the service port was shut off from Mercury, so I flashed the EEC I could have put the jumpers in as well then he could have installed a chip, but it was just as easy to flash it.

[TripleTransAm]

I'm sure you can figure out why I am interested in this piece of info.

I already have the 2nd knock sensor and associated wiring completed (not connected to the '03 PCM, though). Since MAV2 would not load onto my '03 PCM, the only other option was to opt for an '04 PCM, however there was the question of how it would behave with the '03 transmission.

So essentially the consensus between you guys is that my plan should work, right? I'm trying to avoid spending money on an '04 PCM if it won't function or perform to 100%.

[Dennis Reinhart]

I see no reason why it will not work with the 4R70W and even if there is some issues I am sure we could corect this.

[TripleTransAm]

We were particularly worried about the new transmission's internals versus the '03, and whether the '04 PCM would somehow command the tranny in a particular way assuming that it WAS talking to the 4R75W, and this might somehow damage the 4R70W.

This is why I've paid very close attention to any thread mentioning differences between the 70 and 75 trannies. I understand gear ratios are different, but then the question was whether this was addressable via calibration mods (ie. chip, reflash, etc.) or whether the 70 tranny would misbehave when being commanded by an '04 PCM.

If you and Jerry feel this is not going to damage my 4R70W in any way, I'll start looking into assembling all the components necessary for the swap.

[RCSignals]

What is the difference in the '04 EEC? From the posts it's looking like there is a hardware difference, and not just programming.

[TripleTransAm]

Originally posted by RCSignals
What is the difference in the '04 EEC? From the posts it's looking like there is a hardware difference, and not just programming.


I think I posted the two hardware revisions back in the 'knock sensor' thread I started back then.
http://www.mercurymarauder.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=73055#post73055

My guess is that, at least, there is hardware for reading the new knock sensor input. We were hoping the hardware would be there but disabled on my '03, but we have no way of knowing without getting a hold of someone with some 'inside' info on the inner workings of the PCM.

I wish Jerry W was a member here... maybe someone who knows him can pass on the question?

[RCSignals]

Yes, it's confusing. From some discussions it looks like everything is in place, except the wiring and programming, in other discussions it looks like the hardware of the '03 EEC cannot read more than one knock sensor.

[Dennis Reinhart]

Well I am not sure what is so confusing, I talk to Jerry every day or there just about, again I have already talked to him about this months ago, and from his explanation to is this, as far as the 03 and 04 Marauder goes there basically the same except for dual knock sensors and the upgraded transmission, now the 03 has only one knock sensor but there is a a boss in the block for a second Knock sensor but there is no second set of wiring to the EEC, so this will have to be added, even with this the 03 EEC is not configured nor wired for dual knock sensors, so a 04 EEC will have to be added, now the question is this type of upgrade worth the investment, With our tuning not much will be gained, but yes it does add a percentage of more sensitivity, but again Jerry can adjust the single knock sensor level of sensitivity, we also can set the knock sensor to pull what ever amount of timing we desire, when knocking is detected so I am not sure how much more this can be explained but I will try to answer as much as I can, and again I go over most of this with Jerry when we talk routinely.

[TripleTransAm]

Thanks for confirming the info about the '03 PCM internals, Dennis.

In your experience, would you feel confident in saying that the extra oomph that the '04 stock Marauders are experiencing (versus the stock '03) are attributable to the extra knock sensor (and more aggressive PCM calibrations)? Wouldn't this 2nd knock sensor allow you and Jerry to come up with some wilder tuning for the '04s versus what you could offer for the '03? It's this premise that's fueling my drive to implement this '04 PCM upgrade.

Am I wasting my time? (ie. is it unrealistic to expect a more aggressive tuning on the '04 PCM and hence better performance than what I could ever get on my '03 PCM?)

Your insights are, as always, greatly appreciated.

[Dennis Reinhart]

Well to tell you the truth I have not seen the extra oomph your describing, I have several 04's here now, and I have drove both cars and I actually feel there about the same, but its hard to tell and we just did a blower on a new 04 and it made 428 RWHP again this is with a 3.61 pulley and the car had only 500 miles on the clock, so we both feel these numbers will come up as the motor gets more miles on it, I don't think your idea is unrealistic but I don't feel your going to gain much more HP with it either, I will talk more with Jerry over this but I feel he will concur what we have discussed here. The extra knock sensor just adds another element of safety and refined tuning

[martyo]

Good to see that Dennis is on "vacation" and is away from his shop, isn't it?

You can take the man out of the shop, but you can't take the shop out of the man!

[RCSignals]

Dennis, what was confusing is the actually ability of the '03 EEC to recognise a second knock sensor.
Some discussions had indicated it could, with the correct wiring installed to the pin outs, (which might involve some soldering) and programming, others indicated that it did not have a correct chip on the board to recognise a second knock sensor, even with the wiring.

[Dennis Reinhart]

Originally posted by RCSignals
Dennis, what was confusing is the actually ability of the '03 EEC to recognise a second knock sensor.
Some discussions had indicated it could, with the correct wiring installed to the pin outs, (which might involve some soldering) and programming, others indicated that it did not have a correct chip on the board to recognise a second knock sensor, even with the wiring.

Well it does not work that way because the 03 EEC was never set up or configured for two knock sensors, so you can add the wiring and the knock sensor but the EEC reads only one channel, I guess one way of explaining this is its mono not stereo, so the 04 EEC is required, again there are several cars out there today that only have one knock sensor that's why they installed this type of EEC, I will say this the cars that have lost an oil pumps we feel may have been do the engine knocking. And this may be part of the reason to dual knock sensors.

Again we don't know the specific circumstances of these cars it could have simply been abuse or someone trying to run 87 octane in the car and then going out and hammering it

I also know of several cars that lost the oil pump was do to Harmonic Dampener missing because the instructions were not followed with the installation of Underdrive pulleys,

I have talked to Jerry about the dual knock sensor set up and again its a good idea, does every 03 Marauder owner need it, I would say no but I will make a kit if there is enough interest in it, again a spare EEC is about 250.00 plus another 175.00 core charge plus wiring and knock sensor, and I believe that's expensive as well, so its up to you to justify cost. And the need for it.

If we felt it was a requirement I would say so. As we have with the transmission upgrade.

[Bigdogjim]

Well Dennis....belated Happy Birthday.

[Stormin Norman]

Dennis, Happy Birthday... You have mentioned several times the need of upgrading the auto transmission. Is any one putting together a kit to install a 6-speed, similar to what Paul's Performance did with his?
Norm