62 SlabSide Diesel Swap

[TonyC]

It looks like O.P. is making the same mistakes that nearly all newbies make: Lincoln is a Ford Division; ergo, these cars are Fords. NOT the case!! These cars, especially of O.P.'s year, are 94% exclusive; that means that no other Ford is like it, and it cannot be swapped or souped or modded or rat-rodded like a Falcon or Mustang, if you want a for-instance...or a Galaxie or Marauder as another for-instance. Contrary to popular delusion, there is nothing "normal" about any swap that is not a MEL engine.

The size of the engine bay, though a valid issue, is not the only issue. The car's structure was designed around its drivetrain, meaning that you cannot just plug-'n'-play any engine in there...and I do mean that in deeper context. No other engine except a 462 will fit in that bay or bolt up to the rest of the train, not without serious structural compromising. To put in a different design of engine, you'll dump a lot of kilos of expensive "merchandise" to afford the swap-outs of the entire drivetrain and the chopping up of the structure to get an incompatible engine to fit. As these cars are unibodies, any body mods will compromise its integrity, meaning your fancy new engine will never get you to outrun cops without the car breaking up around it. Besides, why diesel? That fad of diesels in cars is so 40 years ago; diesel prices are ridiculous now; and diesels are more designed for low-end load-bearing, not race performance. If it's a just-because whim, then that's your choice. However, I'm just saying that, however possible it may be, it will be at least a five-figure conversion with the first figure being higher than "1." Plus, any dreams of windfalling on selling it down the road are uncertain at best, pipe-dreams at worst.

Just consider all the factoids before jumping into the deep end on a whim, because the deep end is deeper than it looks. You need to be able to swim it before going into it. And I'm not telling you all this as a purist; I'm telling you because I know a lot of these cars still wound up in scrap heaps when newbies found out their mod aspirations were far beyond them.

Now, a quick devil's-advocacy here: You are right about the original 430 being a bit of a stone. That's because that high-performance engine was detuned for (relative) economy, with a mere 2-barrel carburetor. Earlier and later 430s gave out more power. If you can acquire the upper-end parts, the '61/2 430 can be boosted...not 21st-Century-Hellcat boosted, but who needs that much power anyway, beyond track-racers and thugs?

---Tony

[Mike]

Mustangs were also uni-body. The main difference is that these cars already started with big engines where in reality most Mustangs didn't. Plus they don't need as much power to get the same performance out of them since they're smaller (altho that makes it all the more fun). What makes Mustangs easier for engine swaps is that people have been doing them since day one so there's tons of information and parts to do it out there whereas with these cars you're mostly on your own. Also Mustangs have a pretty big transmission hump but that can be modified in the Lincoln without affecting body integrity.

This is something that you definitely don't want to spend tons of time and money on a drivetrain or modifications to the car before its test fitted to see what all would need to be done first. I'd hate to get to that point of no return where you can't finish the project on your own and can't easily go backwards.

[1Bad55Chevy]

Mustangs were also uni-body. The main difference is that these cars already started with big engines where in reality most Mustangs didn't. Plus they don't need as much power to get the same performance out of them since they're smaller (altho that makes it all the more fun). What makes Mustangs easier for engine swaps is that people have been doing them since day one so there's tons of information and parts to do it out there whereas with these cars you're mostly on your own. Also Mustangs have a pretty big transmission hump but that can be modified in the Lincoln without affecting body integrity.

This is something that you definitely don't want to spend tons of time and money on a drivetrain or modifications to the car before its test fitted to see what all would need to be done first. I'd hate to get to that point of no return where you can't finish the project on your own and can't easily go backwards.

I would bet the wheelbase on a mid 60s mustang is 18" shorter then that Lincoln. The longer the wheelbase the more leverage the engine has on twisting the living hell out of the chassis. Especially with a diesel swap.

People don't realize how much pressure a big hp engine puts on chassis when a vehicle is really hooking. A guy I know up here had a 598ci BBC in a 72 chevy short bed, he invested well over $150k in this build and in less than 6 months it needed to be completely re done. He was doing rolling full throttle pulls on the interstate because it can't hook on the street with that big motor and messed up all the body work on the truck. The truck was flexing so much under full power that it broke/cracked the body filler on all the replacement panels that he had installed at the body shop. He ended up selling the truck for $28k.... moral of the story... don't smoke crack when planning your build....

[Lee]

Chevy, it might not be as bad as you think. The factory engineers were targeting chassis stiffness in 1961 to minimize squeaks and unwanted panel movements. It was THE impetus to go unibody. The press releases of the time claimed 10,000 lb-ft (13,560 Nm) torsional rigidity per degree of frame twist, and that was claimed as 20% better than any competitor of the day.

Surprisingly, that number is not so bad, even when compared to the most modern cars designed with the latest computer modeling. Here’s a comparative list (all in newton-meters). For fun, skip to Viper, McLaren and Corvette.
https://motorfrontier.com/car-body-tors ... sive-list/

[Dan Szwarc]

I’d love to see a diesel 62.

[Mike]

Mustangs were also uni-body. The main difference is that these cars already started with big engines where in reality most Mustangs didn't. Plus they don't need as much power to get the same performance out of them since they're smaller (altho that makes it all the more fun). What makes Mustangs easier for engine swaps is that people have been doing them since day one so there's tons of information and parts to do it out there whereas with these cars you're mostly on your own. Also Mustangs have a pretty big transmission hump but that can be modified in the Lincoln without affecting body integrity.

This is something that you definitely don't want to spend tons of time and money on a drivetrain or modifications to the car before its test fitted to see what all would need to be done first. I'd hate to get to that point of no return where you can't finish the project on your own and can't easily go backwards.

I would bet the wheelbase on a mid 60s mustang is 18" shorter then that Lincoln. The longer the wheelbase the more leverage the engine has on twisting the living hell out of the chassis. Especially with a diesel swap.

People don't realize how much pressure a big hp engine puts on chassis when a vehicle is really hooking. A guy I know up here had a 598ci BBC in a 72 chevy short bed, he invested well over $150k in this build and in less than 6 months it needed to be completely re done. He was doing rolling full throttle pulls on the interstate because it can't hook on the street with that big motor and messed up all the body work on the truck. The truck was flexing so much under full power that it broke/cracked the body filler on all the replacement panels that he had installed at the body shop. He ended up selling the truck for $28k.... moral of the story... don't smoke crack when planning your build....

The quote I was referring to was about engine fitment, not power, and in short "No other engine except a 462 will fit in that bay or bolt up to the rest of the train, not without serious structural compromising."

The original poster mentioned something about running the exhaust out the top of the front fenders so i wont even comment on that lol Who knows maybe this car is in rough shape to begin with and this is the last horah or the start of major customizing. Worst case more spare parts become available for the rest of us!

[1Bad55Chevy]

Chevy, it might not be as bad as you think. The factory engineers were targeting chassis stiffness in 1961 to minimize squeaks and unwanted panel movements. It was THE impetus to go unibody. The press releases of the time claimed 10,000 lb-ft (13,560 Nm) torsional rigidity per degree of frame twist, and that was claimed as 20% better than any competitor of the day.IMG_1903.jpeg
Surprisingly, that number is not so bad, even when compared to the most modern cars designed with the latest computer modeling. Here’s a comparative list (all in newton-meters). For fun, skip to Viper, McLaren and Corvette.
https://motorfrontier.com/car-body-tors ... sive-list/
IMG_0704.jpeg

I don't get that rating. I know you use to drag race when you were younger so you have seen how much a car will twist coming off the line. Like if you could magically get that car to hook with a motor making 550+ HP leaving on the trans brake, the driver front would probably be 4" off the ground. You know a 550hp motor wouldn't be making anywhere near 10k ft lbs of torque. Maybe it's a rating of how much pressure to actually permanently bend it one degree? You know when you bend metal on a break you have to bend past the angle because the material has a flex back (not sure the actual term for that).

[1Bad55Chevy]

The quote I was referring to was about engine fitment, not power, and in short "No other engine except a 462 will fit in that bay or bolt up to the rest of the train, not without serious structural compromising."

The original poster mentioned something about running the exhaust out the top of the front fenders so i wont even comment on that lol Who knows maybe this car is in rough shape to begin with and this is the last horah or the start of major customizing. Worst case more spare parts become available for the rest of us!

I don't know a lot about these cars so I always ask stupid things.

What's the difference in the front frame section from the early models like the 62 to the later 460 versions of the car? They appear to be the same minus the slight notche on the frame rails on the 460 versions. From what I have seen with the LS swaps they do the same small frame notch to clear the headers.

Imo ls swaps are really over rated and you gain absolutely nothing. If you want modern fuel injection use holley EFI and the Holley EFI distributor so you can control the ignition timing curves through the ECM.

[Lee]

I don't get that rating. I know you use to drag race when you were younger so you have seen how much a car will twist coming off the line. Like if you could magically get that car to hook with a motor making 550+ HP leaving on the trans brake, the driver front would probably be 4" off the ground. You know a 550hp motor wouldn't be making anywhere near 10k ft lbs of torque. Maybe it's a rating of how much pressure to actually permanently bend it one degree? You know when you bend metal on a break you have to bend past the angle because the material has a flex back (not sure the actual term for that).

I don’t think it’s measured by permanent deformation. These guys explain how to do the test in your own backyard, I thought it was a good overview:
https://wilhelmraceworks.com/blog/measu ... -stiffness
You know, I was thinking the same thing, about how could 500 ft-lb of torque twist a chassis the way that we know it does? And I think the answer is that the torque at the end of the driveshaft, the torque that wants to twist the engine out of its mounts, is multiplied first by the torque converter (in the x2.1 neighborhood) and then by the 1st gear ratio (say 2.5). I don’t think the final gear ratio matters here…it just wants to further multiply that torque to lift the nose of the car, not twist it.

So 500 x 2.1 x 2.5 = 2625 lb-ft or 3560 Nm. And that makes a little more sense to me.

[1Bad55Chevy]

I totally agree with you on the equation and how it could be calculated. I don't agree with the 10k pound rating of the vehicle. Using your equation it could handle a engine making 2k ft-lbs of torque with only 1 degree of twist! That's like putting a pro mod motor in this thing without adding any bracing to the structure of the vehicle. If the Lincoln engineers made it that strong maybe this might be the perfect platform for a big power diesel swap and a goose neck ball in the trunk! It might be the ultimate tractor pull rig! Lol