Track prepared LS

[fasmust]

I have a '00 V8 sport pkg ls, which after 125,000 miles has not had any problems. It's all original and runs great, transmission is great...not a single problem. I hope I didn't just jinks myself, doah! I've had the car for 3.5 years now, and it's by far the best and one of the most fun cars I've owned yet (and I've had over 30 now). It's also one of the longest I've ever kept a car. Moving on.........

I have recently been turned on to track driving with my other car and I'm seriously thinking about making the LS a dedicated track car, for road course events. If I don't build up the LS, I will go out and get something else. I really like it's fairly low weight, even weight distribution and of course multi-link suspension. I understand that this would involve removing the interior, all of the extra stuff, replacing seats, installing a cage, different wheels/brakes and possibly putting a more stout and powerful 4.6l with a manual tranny. I've got the money and the ambition so I'm not just a person blowing smoke!

I've never modified this car except for EBC brakes, and as I've learned from this forum there is not much aftermarket support for our cars. My question is, has anyone here made a purpose built LS? How light can we get these cars? How difficult is a 4.6L swap?

Also, I'm wondering what the value is of some of the removed parts:

Transmission
Engine
Control Modules
Interior pcs
Wheels

Any help in making this decision would be greatly appreciated.

 

[kudisbetta]

I have a '00 V8 sport pkg ls, which after 125,000 miles has not had any problems. It's all original and runs great, transmission is great...not a single problem. I hope I didn't just jinks myself, doah! I've had the car for 3.5 years now, and it's by far the best and one of the most fun cars I've owned yet (and I've had over 30 now). It's also one of the longest I've ever kept a car. Moving on.........

I have recently been turned on to track driving with my other car and I'm seriously thinking about making the LS a dedicated track car, for road course events. If I don't build up the LS, I will go out and get something else. I really like it's fairly low weight, even weight distribution and of course multi-link suspension. I understand that this would involve removing the interior, all of the extra stuff, replacing seats, installing a cage, different wheels/brakes and possibly putting a more stout and powerful 4.6l with a manual tranny. I've got the money and the ambition so I'm not just a person blowing smoke!

I've never modified this car except for EBC brakes, and as I've learned from this forum there is not much aftermarket support for our cars. My question is, has anyone here made a purpose built LS? How light can we get these cars? How difficult is a 4.6L swap?

Also, I'm wondering what the value is of some of the removed parts:

Transmission
Engine
Control Modules
Interior pcs
Wheels

Any help in making this decision would be greatly appreciated.

Please, Please Dont turn your LS to a race car. There are better cars for that.
The LS if done right, Is a car, for the open minded high class lincoln enthusiast. Kepp it clean and sleek. Ride down the street composed, but let it rip once in a while/

 

[SEALboytv4]

Please, Please Dont turn your LS to a race car. There are better cars for that.
The LS if done right, Is a car, for the open minded high class lincoln enthusiast. Kepp it clean and sleek. Ride down the street composed, but let it rip once in a while/

And this just goes to show the wide appeal the LS has and the difference in opinion all of the forum members have. I say go for it man, I love the idea of the LS as a race car. Granted, it was designed to give you a luxurious ride so taking out all of the accoutrements will seriously hamper your cruising style, but making it into a high-performance automobile is a sweet idea! I would love to see pics and encourage you to do it.

 

[HyeLifeLS]

I know some LSs look great and all, but they are really far from being a real luxury or high class, especially with the prices so low for the first gen cars. It's a good idea to keep it clean and sleek, but hey if you want to try different thing on it go ahead man, more power to you.

Please, Please Dont turn your LS to a race car. There are better cars for that.
The LS if done right, Is a car, for the open minded high class lincoln enthusiast. Kepp it clean and sleek. Ride down the street composed, but let it rip once in a while/

 

[fasmust]

Please, Please Dont turn your LS to a race car. There are better cars for that.
The LS if done right, Is a car, for the open minded high class lincoln enthusiast. Kepp it clean and sleek. Ride down the street composed, but let it rip once in a while/

Thanks, I agree that it is a great street/daily car the way it is. As I mentioned, this is one of the best cars I've had. If I do make it a track car, it would likely only see Sunday street drives at the most. Here's my thinking: either I sell it for $6-7,000 (not really sure what it's worth) and buy another project car for the track, or I keep this and dump another $10,000 and have my track car (and I get to keep my favorite car, and have a track car). I was hoping to find someone else who has done similar to get a feel for the feasibility. I'd hate to get it all done and find out that the car is terribly prone to oversteer once stripped, or something like that.

 

[thoraxe]

I have recently been turned on to track driving with my other car and I'm seriously thinking about making the LS a dedicated track car, for road course events. If I don't build up the LS, I will go out and get something else. I really like it's fairly low weight, even weight distribution and of course multi-link suspension. I understand that this would involve removing the interior, all of the extra stuff, replacing seats, installing a cage, different wheels/brakes and possibly putting a more stout and powerful 4.6l with a manual tranny. I've got the money and the ambition so I'm not just a person blowing smoke!

I hope it's a lot of money! The book says the LS weigh ~3400#. I figure if you were to gut the car you could easily get it below 3000# WITH a cage.

I've never modified this car except for EBC brakes, and as I've learned from this forum there is not much aftermarket support for our cars. My question is, has anyone here made a purpose built LS? How light can we get these cars? How difficult is a 4.6L swap?

See above. No one *HERE* has made a purpose-built LS. The only one, to my knowledge, was the works effort put forth by Ford/Lincoln to prepare a car for One Lap of America. I believe that they used a Vortech-blown Cobra 4.6 4V motor. If you search on teh internets you can likely find more information about it.

It was definitely not an easy project, even for a factory-backed effort. It didn't have as much support as it could have (basically Lincoln-employed enginerds working on it and raiding Ford's parts bin), but, for what it did, they didn't get very far, in my opinion, into race-car land.

That being said, I'm headed down the same road that you are right now. To do a 4.6 swap you are looking at a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of completely custom work and fabrication.

A 4.6 will *fit* in the bay just fine, with a blower, as evidenced by the Cobra swap done for OLOA. A 5spd should also fit just fine. Here is where you are going to run into trouble -- some has been figured out, some not:

1) Engine management - the LS is a "canbus" style car -- all of the components of the electricals talk to eachother via a bus. You will basically have to trash this, lose everything from your LS, and go with a stand-alone engine management system. You could probably make the car run using whatever 4.6 engine management came with the motor, but it might be easier and quicker to just go straight stand-alone.

2) Pedals - the Lincoln, IIRC, has Ford's electric movable pedals. I don't know what the manual car had. You will have to either retrofit the manual pedal box (which may or may not even work), or go full custom pedal box, which is more expensive (maybe not! 5spd Lincolns were rare), but could be easier.

3) Rear-end - the LS uses a weird rear end. Someone on here says you can make a Mark VIII (?) rear differential carrier fit, which opens you up to use the IRS Mustang Cobra differential internals, for which there are many many many cheap options. Unfortunately this means you will have to get a custom driveshaft, but, since you're changing the transmission anyway as part of your 4.6 swap, it's not a huge deal. Fabrication is required here.

Those are really the three major hurdles. The other little fab work like mounting the engine and transmission, mounting the rear end, roll cage, etc, is all standard "race car" build stuff.

You are probably looking at between $20,000 - $30,000 or more if you outsource the labor. If you scrounge and scrimp and save and can do the labor yourself, you might be able to get down under $20,000 but it is unlikely.

As for brakes, I believe that Jaguar Type-S R brakes will work, and you can always fabricate mounting tabs and get custom rotors to use whatever caliper you like.

Also, I'm wondering what the value is of some of the removed parts:

Transmission
Engine
Control Modules
Interior pcs
Wheels

Check ebay. Interior parts may begin to rise a little in value as people start looking for them to fix up cars they have bought or repair cars they own. The transmissions on the v8s are sometimes problematic so you could possibly score a few hundred dollars for that. Same with the engine. I don't think there is a humongous used parts market for the LS as most of them, if they need serious repair, are getting discarded and end up junkers.

Good luck. Maybe we can share research together, ha!

 

[NYC LS8]

Do it!!!

 

[ILLS]

Hey thoraxe just FYI the OLOA car did not have a Vortech blown 4V Cobra motor. It had the Eaton M90 blown 2v 4.6 Mustang GT motor offered by Roush Racing.

 

[thoraxe]

Hey thoraxe just FYI the OLOA car did not have a Vortech blown 4V Cobra motor. It had the Eaton M90 blown 2v 4.6 Mustang GT motor offered by Roush Racing.

Oops! I read the article long ago, thanks for correcting me. Either way, it was a 4.6 with a blower, so you can definitely fit something more gratuitous in the bay without issue.

IIRC they did use an automatic, though?

 

[n8bachelor]

check it out.

http://media.ford.com/newsroom/feature_display.cfm?release=20598

 

[fasmust]

Thanks allot for the info Thoraxe. I honestly never thought of the differential as an issue. I've got to weight the options I guess and come up with a plan. I was hoping to do all of the work myself and spend 15K + whatever I can get from sale of parts.

I think I'm going to start by pricing the engine and transmission parts, and looking around ebay to see what I can get for my old ones.

This is a great forum, I'm really glad I found it. The more I search the more good stuff I find.

 

[thoraxe]

Thanks allot for the info Thoraxe. I honestly never thought of the differential as an issue. I've got to weight the options I guess and come up with a plan. I was hoping to do all of the work myself and spend 15K + whatever I can get from sale of parts.

I think I'm going to start by pricing the engine and transmission parts, and looking around ebay to see what I can get for my old ones.

This is a great forum, I'm really glad I found it. The more I search the more good stuff I find.

NP fasmust. The differential is not really an issue if you don't mind an open diff, but for a full-on "race car" you would want limited slip. Right now the Mark VIII carrier with the Cobra IRS internals seems to be the best option requiring the least fabrication. There is someone that has a limited slip inside the Lincoln LS carrier but I think he will need to do some very annoying and/or expensive things to make that work out.

Ebay has some decent deals on motors and transmissions. ILLS is a huge fan of the 4V Cobra motors, and the price is decent. I think you should probably decide right now whether or not you will go with forced induction (supercharger, turbocharger) because it could help to sway your engine selection and, ultimately, the price of the build.

Do you have any horsepower goals in mind?

 

[fasmust]

I'd like to see at least 500 whp, and I definitely plan going to go forced induction. With the small displacement/horsepower ratio I think without a supercharger or turbo the power band would be pretty narrow.

I have a Subaru that puts down 370 to the wheels, and leaves a little to be desired on the track. I agree that the Ls would hopefully be under 3000 lbs compared to the 3300 lb the Subaru, which means that I wouldn't need a ton more power, but I also don't want to be disappointed! I'd rather overshoot and de-tune later.

 

[tepos]

do It!!!

 

[n8bachelor]

I recall seeing an orange/white LS with tubbed fenders, a roll cage, and all the interior removed except for the driver's seat.... I cant seem to find any pictures of it at the moment.

I don't recall what was under the hood but it was a serious race car!

Anyone know the LS I am speaking of? Maybe it will give these guys an idea or two.

 

[99 KOBRA]

If you are planning to road race with a blower, you need to do some more research. You are going to have numerous problems trying to road race a blown engine without blowing it up.

 

[thoraxe]

If you are planning to road race with a blower, you need to do some more research. You are going to have numerous problems trying to road race a blown engine without blowing it up.

Do you have any reasoning why tracking a car with a blower is going to be as bad as you say?

Is it the "road racing" part or the "blower" part?

@fasmust - I don't understand your comment about displacement/horsepower. The 4.6 Ford motor is almost twice as big as whatever motor you have in your Subaru (EJ25, EJ20).

 

[fasmust]

True, but the Subaru runs 22 psi on 2.5 liters. What I meant was that to make 500 wheel horsepower (~550 flywheel) with only 4.6 liters it would have to be a really high revving engine, likely with a small power band.

 

[99 KOBRA]

When you road race you end up having the engine under boost for extended periods of time. This creates cooling problems that you have deal with. Check over at svtperformance.com. I really think you'll have a much more dependable engine if you have a NA engine.

 

[99 KOBRA]

True, but the Subaru runs 22 psi on 2.5 liters. What I meant was that to make 500 wheel horsepower (~550 flywheel) with only 4.6 liters it would have to be a really high revving engine, likely with a small power band.

I might not be understanding you, but 500 rwhp with a Terminator is child's play. 600 to 700 is common. Mine did 428 on a Dynojet with only a FIPK and JBA mufflers.

 

[Foz]

sorry, I really dig my LS, but just couldn't imagine making it into a track car. I actually just picked up an older BMW to do that with. A 92 3'series for 1,000... good runner, my mom's borrowing it for a few months. I plan on putting a lot less than 15k in it with new suspension, brakes, M3 drivetrain (auto-manual swap) rims and paint! and they are many other cars that are better suited for strick track duty. If the LS was such a decent track car, you would see more of them on the track!

 

[fasmust]

I might not be understanding you, but 500 rwhp with a Terminator is child's play. 600 to 700 is common. Mine did 428 on a Dynojet with only a FIPK and JBA mufflers.

Isn't the 'terminator' supercharged?

I plan on putting a lot less than 15k in it with new suspension, brakes, M3 drivetrain (auto-manual swap) rims and paint! and they are many other cars that are better suited for strick track duty. If the LS was such a decent track car, you would see more of them on the track!

Well, that's why I posted! I am hoping to see who else has done a project like this and if they think it was worth while. I don't know for sure, because I don't know of anyone yet who's done it, but I'm willing to bet that the chassy would be really good on the track. Independent rear suspension, good weight distribution, low center of gravity, light car, double wishbone all the way around, and if the drivetrain swap can be done with very common parts. I'm certianly leaning toward doing the project, but I'm still in the information gathering phaze.

 

[99 KOBRA]

Isn't the 'terminator' supercharged?

Yes

 

[funkcity]

There were 2 early-on in 2000 race cars out of Detroit that never saw the light of day.... Two chassis supplied by Lincoln that were never properly developed.

There was a 5.0 "cammer" LS with manual transmission shown at Mania 1 in Detroit.... This was a strong combination.

The LS weighs almost 4000 lbs... not 3000lbs!

The adjustable shocks on the OLOA LS worked well

I saw the racing CTSVs. They moved the LS7-based engine lower and further back in the chassis. These cars were fabulously engineered!
They also used different racing transmissions.

The OLOA SC 4.6 2v did run hot and the LS airflow was funky at best. This would need to be engineered for air flow... louvered hood etc...

But the biggies would be:
The rear end... Finding a stout independent differential that would directly replace the existing one.

I always wanted to see a Dart-based aluminum 427 small block with dry sump oiling etc...

Go for it !

 

[ILLS]

But the biggies would be:
The rear end... Finding a stout independent differential that would directly replace the existing one.

That rear diff would not be as large a problem as some may think. An 8.8" diff swap from either a Mark VIII or 99-01 Cobra, a set of custom CV shafts and you are set to handle some fairly serious power. Of course it will not be cheap which is a downfall for most. However, if a person wanted to build an LS into a racing vehicle then getting this taken care of would be a financial drop in the bucket. Realistically I do not think anyone will be building a truly trackable LS on this board anytime soon. Allot of people talk but not many follow through; especially when they realize just how difficult and expensive custom work is.