Haro...thanks man

Game.. you said it. To sweeten the pot a bit when I said I didn't want to replace the bad 97 motor with a 96 motor that had been at the yard more time than that 97, I brought up the 2001 and they knocked 25% off the price. Got it home and found a fresh remanufactured motor. No idea what a Jasper costs for an L67 longblock, I paid $600

This motor sounds like a solid base. So, is this motor providing the block, Bottom end, heads, and oil pan, only, or are other parts being retained?

Since everything on this motor was for the 01 and unbelievably new, I only changed the cam, timing gears/chain, springs and intake manifold.

Tonight..I'm aiming for a little more clean up on it and the garage. The garage is packed with 3 motors worth of parts. Any one that needs anything please PM me. (Want to keep the topic on topic )

Going to paint and keep the 01 balancer to gain a couple years of wear and tear.

did you look at the pistons? how clean where they?

I Dont think Bill wants to take off the heads to look at the Pistons. Im sure they look as new as the rest of the engine. NICE SCORE BILL!!!

The heads didn't come off because then I'd be buying gaskets and bolts. Matt from Advance stopped in and helped out. Motor is in..done as far as possible without making th valve covers inaccessible.

To follow up now that I'm a little more awake. Last night was great, I left the ICM and EGR brackets off. This made all four corners accessible for the engine leveler which has 4 points to connect. The motor was lifted over the radiator support and dropped right into place w/o moving the hoist, bolted up finger tight in a flash.

Converter bolts, starter, ground to block, battery to starter, exhaust, PS pump, accessory bracket were put on quickly afterwards.

it'* feeling very positive (if it weren't..I'd be buying a couple gallons of gas for a bonfire)

Great progress Bill. And Uh dont you mean Bonne Fire?? lmao

When does this guy sleep???

Good one Tony, although Doug beat you to it. We are planning to burn his Ford to the ground.

All this work has made me quite tired and I find it'* good to have a helper on hand for the various items that need to be watched.

Springs are about an hour to swap (out of car)
Timing gears/chain and balancer line up no longer requires any brain power at all.
Flywheel is still be approached carefully...lol
Heck I even knew exactly where the small starter bolt was when I couldn't find it in the parts bin. (Motor mount ate it.)

Like most mechanics...I'm pretty sure I could torque something to the right spec w/o a torque wrench and have it be within a small margin of error.

After thought.

I still have the same basic "finish" up list that I did a week ago. Dejavu sets in again. Need to look up the voltage etc going to the air temp sensor in my intake manifold and run wiring to the Aeroforce for it. Like Silverbullet...I'm sure I'll see a correlation between my foot and the temps. I'm interested in the correlation between the data for possible future timing based directly off the actual temp of the intake. Imagine where it could be programmed to never have knock and max timing.