One more note---
Some years ago I was doing a series on building an FE engine, for Mustang Illustrated Magazine. I needed some pieces that weren't readily available in normal channels and was directed to a guy who worked as liaison between Ford Performance and McLaren. He told me he could get me the parts and suggested I meet him at a nondescript location close by the Livonia Transmission Establishment. When I got there, it was immediately obvious that this place was where McLaren was doing some prototype work for FoMoCo. They had two projects in hand. One was a development of the Fiesta RS World Rally car. They had several of them there with strongly turbo'd engines and a heavily-developed all-wheel drive system. They were much faster around a road course than any 'vette available at the time. In essence, an all-wheel-drive roller skate weighing less that 2000 pounds and putting more than 600 HP to the ground.
The other project was doing what was necessary to put a form of 4.6 four cam engine in a Lincoln LS. Ultimately, they found it necessary to move some engine compartment items outboard to get necessary space and they also had to have cast several intake manifolds from magnesium. The magnesium was for weight savings and the manifold was much 'flatter' than the composite production piece. This enabled the use of a stock hood. The flow was at least as good as they had found with the composite version.
For their research, they were using a five litre variant of the 4.6 engine that was not yet in production. With other changes, it was supposedly putting 480 HP to the ground.
They found that it was not entirely feasible to load the engine/transmission into the engine compartment from the bottom,as a unit, as was the way things were done on the production line. I'm told that ultimately killed the idea for a production vehicle. If you used a dry-sump system you could make possible a lower engine placement in the chassis. This would obviate the use of the 'flat' intake manifold and remove the hood obstruction. I prevailed on them to drive one of their test mules around a couple of blocks and it certainly, in the test form, had brilliant performance. Too bad. It could have been a big seller.
As I said above, the most cost-effective swap would be to use a 'blower' Jag 4.2. Virtually everything would bolt up with little problem. It doesn't take much fabrication to use an 8.8 differential with limited slip in place of the production piece. And aluminum 8.8 'pigs' are readily available---used in both the Thunderbird and Mark-series Lincolns. Swap the roots-style blower for a turbo or two and have a thousand horsepower luxury daily driver.
KS
