New V8 SHO Owner - Preparing For Cam Weld

[Brook24v]

Hello :wave:

After years of messing with the V6 SHOs I finally decided to give the V8 a try. I honestly know nothing about these cars. All I do know is that I picked up a white 1998 on Tuesday and I'm going to bust out the welder this Saturday, so I have a few questions.

I'm assuming most people just do 4 evenly spaced welds on each sprocket? The cam is hollow, so don't get too crazy? Any picture of your welds on each cam would help me greatly.

Also, does the V8 SHO have valve cover gaskets or is it silicone? I was looking on O'Reilly and they didn't list any valve cover gaskets or upper intake gasket.

Is there anything else most people do while having the engine torn down? The car is right at 100,000 miles. At the very least I'm planning on a new belt, Motorcraft plugs (whatever they require), and clean the intake manifold. Any other info would be greatly appreciated.

And no my search button is not broken.

Edit: Pictures

 

[Liquid_force]

Damn. I wish my engine compartment looked like that.

Whad'ja pay?

I bought mine at 91.5k and had them welded immediately.
I have pix, but can't access them at the moment. Mine aren't pretty, but the guy that did it has been building high performance engines for 30 yrs. He told me before he started they won't be pretty but they'll be effective.

The cams are hollow, but they're thick walled. It seems as long as you don't just dwell in an area for seconds upon seconds you shouldn't have any issues. Plus, I think it would be beneficial to weld a spot, roll it 180, weld the opposite side in an attempt to have opposing heat effected zones.

I'm not that well informed on post weld results, but I've never come across any evidence that warping to the point of effecting wear is common, or has happened at all.

There are vc gaskets - almost impossible to find replacements. Typically we clean and reuse them. Soak in lacquer thinner to clean, soak in rislone oil treatment to soften (I'm guessing about any good oil treatment would work).

I used Autolites for replacement plugs, I forget if I went with the double plats or irids. Whatever it was - 25k+ and running well.
Ignition coils tend to be an issue by now. Mine had a miss on at least one cyl when I bought it. I think it was two. I pulled all 8 and took various resistance measurements and two were giving me readings unlike the other 6. I ditched the 2, and pulled two others off for spares and I think I put the 4 new ones on back.
OEM MC replacements are ~$100 ea. I got a chinese set of 4 on ebay for ~125 (alanisdeals). I haven't had any problems. A few others here have them and there aren't any failures yet.

Cleaning the intake is a big part of the job. The IRCM and its moving parts are critical IMO. It can get time consuming if it's a mess. My IRCM was caked with goo. I spent at LEAST an hour on that. Seemed like half the day. Horns probably took me another hour total.
Berryman's B-12 fuel treatment makes a super solvent in its concentrated form. I ended up using almost a full can of it.
I used 2 or 3 cans of carb cleaner too. The spray pressure was helpful.
I also bought a brush kit from harbor freight (nylon, brass, steel -- the ones about the size of a tooth brush), as well as a large pair of alligator clips to hold pieces of scotch brite to get the tight spaces.

Another common bit of preventative maintenance is to wrap the rear wire bundle in thermal tape. It sits right above the rear manifold and can use all the protection you can give it.

I think that pretty much covers it. I can't think of anything else I did, or wish I would have done.

 

[calvin0325]

OK ....for those of you looking....there are a couple places I have found with valve cover gaskets, intake gaskets etc. If anyone needs them give me a shout as I try to refrain from posting links.

 

[Brook24v]

Dammit. I just said screw it and bought OEM valve cover gaskets and plug seals for about $100 total. I figured there was a cheaper route, but I wanted them here by Saturday. I'm also going to pass on the coils only because I can't get them here in time. I'll worry about those when they fail, which I'm sure will be soon enough.

A lot of awesome info here. Thanks a lot. As far as the car goes, I feel that I paid way too much ($3,100, 1.5 owners) but a lot of it I didn't notice until I was on the drive home. The paint just isn't as nice as I was told, and there are a couple little rust spots starting. Also could use a bunch of little interior pieces and probably some rear struts pretty soon. I'm still happy with the car though considering how poorly kept most of them are on Craigslist.

 

[Liquid_force]

Pix look great.

Mine isn't (and wasn't) nearly that pretty. Clear coat on the hood was flaking, now it's almost gone.
There were/are some nicks and dings, a little worse than average, but nothing terrible.
And it looks like the previous owner used a trunk bike rack a lot - there is a lot of wear spots in the paint back there.
NO RUST!
There was a big tear in the driver's seat too, which I've had repaired.

Anyway - after bringing the engine miss to the owner's (car lot) attention I got him to drop from his asking price of 2500 to 1600.
In hind sight, I'm really glad I bought it.

 

[calvin0325]

Dont feel bad....paint can be buffed and cleaned up (clay bar and such) and there is plenty of interior stuff out there to be had. What year is the car??? I paid a little more than that for my 97 ebony car a few years ago, it also had a cpl rust spots starting but was an overall nice ride.

 

[Brook24v]

It's a '98 with the optional powered passenger seat. Luckily there is a silver SHO at the local yard, so I'll get the parts I need to fix this one back up to par. It needs a nicer steering wheel, possibly nicer driver's cushion, sunvisor clip, and a console lid latch. Oh, and the front door speakers are shot.

 

[calvin0325]

Get what you can from the parts car ....and I am sure there are other people on here that be able to help you out with the other parts you seek.

 

[fitefanSHO]

Nebraska's kinda far from Spencer, MA huh?

Nice car, looks like mine except white.

 

[zblackbeast]

Nice looking car Brook!! I'm jealous!

 

[toledogt]

Looking at the grey one in the yard. Unless there is accident damage to the drivers side i would guess cam failure.

 

[Brook24v]

Agreed. ^

Next question - Where do I get rear struts for this thing since it has Semi-Active Ride Control? I really don't feel like paying out the ass for suspension.

Oh, and what size are those muffler inlet/outlets so I can swap 'em out for something else?

Edit: Nevermind. I found that they are 2 1/4. I'll see if I can find some Bassani mufflers, then cut out the 3rd cat and resonator. Should sound pretty good.

 

[Mr95Gl]

People have been using the Gen 4 ('02) motorcraft struts in place of the SARCs. That's what I plan on using if I ever get around to removing my Sarc/Roush.

 

[newshofan]

Congrats. The car looks beautiful... as far as struts I have sensatracs from an 02 taurus on the front of mine may do the back eventually. I've heard the newer struts are the post sarc struts so are real similiar. If you want some pics of some welds you can head over to v8sho.com just about anything you need is on there. There's a few could threads on how to do the welds such as the type wire to use. NEsho even has a pic of what the weld should look like on their site.

Btw would you mind checking and seeing if that junk car has a working six disk changer on the trunk I'm in need of one.

 

[Brook24v]

So Generation 4 Taurus struts will work on the front and rear? Thanks for the info!

Cams are welded. Took longer than I originally guessed, but it turned out great.

 

[yamahaSHO]

So you got a gen3!? I want to drive it!

Looks good. You get my PM SCR?

 

[LJRuddy]

Brook, when it comes time to do coils, look into 2005 Mustang GT500 coils. Thats what i used and was able to buy 8 for 72 bucks shipped from Canada. All you gotta do is swap the boots and either cut the coils or swap the old coils if you can get the old ones off. The bolt holes wont line up but they sit very snug on the plug. I've had mine in since July-ish and have put around 12,000 miles on them without an issue. Hellova lot cheaper than stock SHO coils.

 

[Brook24v]

Nice. I would have never thought about GT coils.

I'll check my ***, Jason.

 

[My_Silver_SHO]

Nice. I would have never thought about GT coils.

I'll check my ***, Jason.

A lot of people including myself have bought coils from ebay, "alanisdeals". They fit perfect with no issues.

 

[Brook24v]

Update: I've put a couple thousand on it since the weld. Still runs great, although I did have a cam position sensor fail soon after. Cheap fix though.

I made a quick lame video of it running through the RPMs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22LH2LUuC1s&list=UU8Xdy6gipuJjDP9k3ymHlOw&index=1&feature=plcp