S197 CaptKaos' 2011 S197 LS Swap Build Thread Profile - S197 Mustangs

[Captkaos]

Saturday July 22nd 2023: My brother came by to help knock a bunch of items out. I was REALLY hoping to get it ready to crank on this weekend, so I put the hood back on the car.



He was working on the underhood wiring (no progress pictures while I was working under the dash. I started bundling the wiring up and changing up the routing and mapping out the required wiring for power, switched power and ground. Since I plan on making a better permanent mount I just zip tied the ECM down for now.



I wanted to be able to at least see the lighting (for some reason) without dropping the whole thing down so I positioned it for that purpose.



After some adjustments I got the glovebox to close without issues.

 

[Captkaos]

Sunday July 23rd 2023: Didn't get much noticeable work done as it was a reading wiring diagram day, plus I was up til midnight the previous night. I did find the SBJ (inside power distribution) slots I could use along with the brake wiring.
I also got the Current Performance DBW pedal connector re-pinned to match the Ford diagrams (posted earlier)

 

[Captkaos]

Monday July 24th 2023: Located the Brake switch wiring and made mental reference of the wire colors/locations to review wiring diagrams for the brake tap on the Transmission harness and the DBW harness and of course obsessed over wiring harness diagrams. Previous day I dropped off the Intake tubing with a buddy to weld in the MAT sensor and cut it to fit the car better. I got the intake put in place (not rigid mounted yet.

 

[Captkaos]

Sunday July 30th 2023: I made it my mission to complete all the wiring inside the car and get everything ready. Power, switched power, were tapped into unused locations of the SBJ. Ground was ran to the grounding location used on the passenger side. Brake wiring for the Trans harness and the DBW harness were ran to the brake switch. I plan to run a switch for the DBW harness to remove it when/if this goes to the track and plan to mount the switch along with the EPAS select switch. I also talked to Casey at https://wireeverything.com/ (he was at RacecarServices) about making an extension for the EPAS as I wanted it mount it inside the console if possible. Now the glovebox is in and can open/close without issue.



I also got the Holley 12.3 mounted and the dash 95% done along with running the harness and the GPS module to the center of the dash.

 

[Captkaos]

Monday July 31st 2023: Removed the AC lines from the car after measuring and making note of the orientation. I purchased LS adapters previously so I started looking for those. I also started researching (reading) the AC model and trying to figure out what I need for the AC.
I also started labelling the wiring for the AC add on module wring along with locating where I can connect them (more diagram reading) I am hoping I can tap the ECM harness for the hi and low fan function and one of the connectors for the AC request.

 

[Captkaos]

Wednesday August 2nd, 2023: Called a local shop Estes Automotive who came recommended about remaking my AC hoses. I dropped them off and he said they would be ready the following day.

 

[Captkaos]

Thursday August 3rd, 2023: Kelly at Estes called and said the hoses were ready for pickup, so I headed that way to pick them up. I spent most of the day trying to find an AC binary pressure switch and connector for the AC module, I found a switch that I thought would work but the harness had to be ordered along with a Seal kit for the AC. Once I got home I installed the AC lines to test the fit and found the AC adapter fittings I had previously ordered. Unfortunately the fittings didn't fit and the company isn't in business. I settled on how I plan to route the AC add-on module and committed to adding all the fluids.



Oil and filter was added and checked for leaks.
Trans fluid was filled with about 8 quarts (total takes roughly 12 empty) prior to crankup, and I checked for leaks.
Antifreeze was added about 1/2 gallon at a time to check for leaks. About 2 gallons in, the upper radiator started dripping. Easy fix as I apparently forgot to tighten it. At 2.5 gallons in, (I was waiting about 15 minutes prior to adding to check) when I went to check, water was on the floor which I traced to the steam vent ( it was a slow leak). I didn't have an different hose, so I temporarily capped it. At this point all the leaks were resolved.

 

[Captkaos]

Friday August 4th, 2023: My morning was spent cleaning up a small leak of antifreeze on the floor that apparently show up after sitting overnight. It appeared that it was coming from the radiator tank, but this didn't have any leaks prior, but after checking it out, I ruled everything else out and then ended up ordering a Mishimoto replacement radiator and a steam vent kit that moves the opening to the passenger side along with new AC compressor fittings . My brother is coming over again tomorrow and hope to finish up all the wiring tomorrow and get the front of the car reassembled and maybe crank it for the first time. But we shall see...

 

[Captkaos]

Saturday August 5th, 2023: While I was waiting on the new radiator to show up I decided to try and make some progress on completing the wiring and getting the Holley setup and ready.. I had the AC module and the Terminator outputs to sort out.


This is the first time powering the car up to make sure everything comes on as expected.



Sadly I couldn't get the DBW to work so I had to figure out how Current wired the DBW plug differently than the factory pinout and then translate that to the Mustang. After a few swaps I got it to pass the DBW checks



This is the video for the first keyon:

 

[Captkaos]

Sunday August 6th, 2023: Read through more wiring but I did get to updating the Software on the Terminator X Max, handheld and the 12.3 Display, and I also uploaded the new background and modified the parameters from the file I got from https://debossgarage.com/

 

[Captkaos]

Monday August 7th, 2023: Mishimoto Radiator showed up and I proceeded to get it mounted in the car. There were several tweaks I had to do to get this in. A couple of bolt stands were WAY off so I had to go after the AC condenser with a dremel, unibit and file and the bolts from the factory radiator were too long to use. After getting all of this back in the car, you can definitely tell that this is significantly bigger.

 

[Captkaos]

Tuesday August 8th, 2023: Put all the radiator related pieces back in the car and realized this ate up some space that I didn't realize would happen for a direct replacement. since my new LS coolant stem kit didn't show up I couldn't fill the radiator as this time. I also took some time to reroute and shorten the Transmissions lines.

As show the upper radiator tube I created is mighty close to the tank

 

[Captkaos]

Friday August 11th, 2023: Steam kit showed up the previous day but I dropped off the expansion tank with a friend who modified it so I would hopefully not have any clearance issues anymore.

 

[Captkaos]

Saturday August 12th, 2023: Made it my plan to have all the wiring completed under the hood to hopefully crank this up. I got the new AC lines connected, all the wiring routed the best I could. I only have the starting circuit and the AC request wiring left at the end of the day.

 

[Captkaos]

Sunday August 13th, 2023: Made a plan to push the car out of the garage for the first time since this all started. The previous night I filled the coolant with water (didn't want to risk more leaks). It sat overnight without issues. My brother and I started investigating the AC request trigger wire and after checking some wiring we moved on to trying to crank the car with the intention of going back to the AC later.
Once we got the car outside I attempted to crank it, and found that nothing worked. It was 117 Heat Index in Alabama that day so I am not sure if the heat was getting to us or what but after checking everything we decided it was too hot to continue so we pushed the car back in the garage and he went home and I started pouring over the wiring diagrams again.

 

[Captkaos]

Monday August 14th, 2023: After looking at the diagrams I finally realized that the Starter Circuit is controlled by the factory ECM.. Key switch sends power to the ECM on wire 16, ECM commands power to Wire 37 and wire 7 is grounded. All of this goes to the starter relay.

 

[Captkaos]

Thurday August 17th, 2023: I had a few days at work that caused me delays but I alligator clipped the wires I needed to verify that I had everything correct. After some hesitation from my daughter on getting it crank we finally got it fired up for the first time is a year.
Plan is to roll it outside and make everything permanent tomorrow.

 

[Hookburn63]

It would never cross my mind to LS swap a Mustang, I did put a SBC into a 70 Cuda though. I helped a guy put a 510 big block Chevy into a Mustang, he used a Summers front drive for the distributor
( no longer made) And it sort of looked like a Cleveland Ford, if you didn't look too closely. Painted it Ford blue, with aluminum heads. Enough Fords are running HEI dizzys so it all worked out pretty well.

BBC in a S197 Mustang? I’m so glad I finally got involved in this site and all the smart dude that are present!!!

 

[Captkaos]

Friday August 18th, 2023: Daughter and I assembled the front of the car (minus the upper radiator cover) with the intention of getting it out of the garage and cranking it. And hoping to give her some motivation that we were close.

 

[Captkaos]

Saturday August 20th, 2023: My brother came over, we got the car outside again and when we went to crank it I found that the factory electronics (specifically the Fuel Pump Module) was responsible for priming the system and when it ran, it would run out of fuel pressure and die. This was after an hour of diagnostics. Once I found this it was back to studying the wiring again.. We pushed the car back in the garage this time tail out so I can hopefully roll it out far enough to crank after I sort the wiring out.

Several things I read along with other people sharing their experience with these (I am NOT a Ford owner, this is my first) stated that the only way to use the factory system was to setup the system with a return line as the system used and electronic system. I contacted my old tuner friend that knew a lot about these Mustangs and had setup several as drag cars and he told me that these are mechanical returns and they are just like the GM systems and have a return in the tank.
I looked on foreinnovations.com blog and found the following which confirmed that on non-GT500's the Fuel Pump Driver Module FPDM only reduces voltage for low loads and it does operate in a mechanical return style.