Since 2007 I have been sitting on a used engine that I pulled from a rolled over 95 Mx6 V6 MTX, the car had over 200k miles on it but the engine ran strong. Over the years 2007-2019 I have scavenged and sold parts off this engine never having any intended purpose for the engine. I have always figured if I blown the engine in the Turbo Mx6, this engine could be a quick fix for it..but not a reliable fix with the high mileage. But in 2020 I still have the basics of a short block left of it making it a perfect candidate for a engine build.

When the opportunity to get in on a bulk buy for Forged Connecting rods came up during spring of 2020, I decided to join in on it and build an engine over the duration of of winter 2020-2021. 

The goal for this engine build is to reduce the compression a bit from stock, and have stronger internal parts. Everything else on the engine, such as valve-train, cams, oil pump, etc will remain stock. 

After receiving the forged KAI connecting rods,  I began buying all the parts needed to rebuild this spare engine.

 Initially I planned on re-using the cylinder heads from the spare engine, but I found damage on a cam journal on the front head.  I had also used this front head as a mock up for fabricating coil pack mount brackets. The mating surface of the head had suffered some deep gouges during all the handling of it when fabricating parts.  

Additionally I did not want to invest the time into cleaning all the valves and valve seats. So I opted for OEM ford cylinder heads that I found on eBay for a reasonable price. These heads didn’t come with valves, so I bought those separately. 

Below is my full parts build list and prices

First order of business was to disassemble the engine down to the bare block and get it to the machine shop. I decided to also bring the crank shaft into get inspected and possibly ground if needed. It turned out my crank was in perfect shape and I asked them to polish it while they had it.

A note for when bringing in your engine block to a machine shop, make sure to include the bottom girdle of the block and all the bolts that secure it to the block.  They need this to mount the block properly in their machines.  My machine shop also wouldn’t bore the block without the pistons physically in hand to test fit.

When I received my block back completed, it had  been chemically cleaned and turned out excellent.  They however didnt clean mating surfaces of any part of the block such as for the head, oil filter housing, oil pan, water pump or oil pump. 

Sine It was up to me to do this I used a air grinder set on low with buffer wheel using medium grit scotch brite quick lock disc. This cleaned up the surfaces perfectly.  I then washed the engine block with a non chlorinated brake cleaner, blew it off with compressed air, and repeated this cleaning process multiple times. 

While storing the block during the process of building, I lubed the cylinders with the redline assembly oil and covered the block with 2 industrial type plastic bags.