How to Rebuild 4.6-/5.4-Liter Ford Engines (S-a Design, Workbench Series) (Cartech) [Paperback]

George Reid (Author)

Book Description

Series: Cartech | Publication Date: April 15, 2009

Since 1991, the popular and highly modifiable Ford 4.6-liter has become a modern-day V-8 phenomenon, powering everything from Ford Mustangs to hand-built hot rods, and the 5.4-liter has powered trucks, SUVs, the Shelby GT500, and more. The wildly popular 4.6-liter has created an industry unto itself with a huge supply of aftermarket high-performance parts, machine services, and accessories. Its design delivers exceptional potential, flexibility, and reliability. The 4.6-liter can be built to produce 300 hp up to 2,000 hp, and in turn, it has become a favorite among rebuilders, racers, and high-performance enthusiasts.
How to Rebuild the 4.6-/5.4-Liter Ford expertly guides you through each step of rebuilding a 4.6-liter as well as a 5.4-liter engine, providing essential information and insightful detail. This volume delivers the complete nuts-and-bolts rebuild story, so the enthusiast can professionally rebuild an engine at home and achieve the desired performance goals. In addition, it contains a retrospective of the engine family, essential identification information, and component differences between engines made at Romeo and Windsor factories for identifying your engine and selecting the right parts. It also covers how to properly plan a
4.6-/5.4-liter build-up and choose the best equipment for your engine's particular application.
As with all Workbench Series books, How to Rebuild the
4.6-/5.4-Liter Ford is packed with detailed photos and comprehensive captions, that guide you step by step through the disassembly, machine work, assembly, start-up, break-in, and tuning procedures for all iterations of the 4.6-/5.4-liter engines, including 2-valve and 3-valve SOHC and the 4-valve DOHC versions. It also includes an easy-to-reference spec chart and suppliers guide so you find the right equipment for your particular build-up.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Very nicely done, hands-on book which brings you up-to speed on these two engines. ---Engine Professional, reviewed by Mike Caruso, July-Sept. 2009.

About the Author

George Reid has been a Ford enthusiast for 30 years. Now retired, he restores and builds Fords. He is also the author of the best-selling Ford Engine Parts Interchange (published by CarTech) and Ford V-8s on a Budget (CarTech). He lives in southern California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: S-A Design (April 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932494804
• ISBN-13: 978-1932494808
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #801,503 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth the Wait, April 28, 2009

By 

Jim Allen "Jim Allen" (NW Ohio) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: How to Rebuild 4.6-/5.4-Liter Ford Engines (S-a Design, Workbench Series) (Cartech) (Paperback)

I was eagerly awaiting this book, having pre-ordered it some time before it was available.

It was worth the wait.

It had most of what I needed and more than I expected. I learned a great deal about the Ford Modular V8s, though not everything I wanted to learn. Among the high spots of this book is that it's as much a basic "performance" manual as it is a "rebuild" manual. There are lots of useful upgrade tidbits contained within, which is really a bonus above the more practical primary purpose of the book. Fortunately, the author didn't supplant any rebuild material for the performance stuff. The other useful element is that the engine is thoroughly explained and dissected to give a new owner the basic foundation for understanding this unusual engine. If you are an "old time" gearhead like me, used to the big iron V8s of yesteryear, the reorientation is useful.

The book is well organized and well laid out and fairly easy to navigate- which is fortunate, because it is not indexed. That's my segue to the more critical part of this review. Any book of this type should have an index. I understand the reasons why books are not indexed, which are primarily financial in nature, but every technical book like this should have an index and I knock off "points" for any that aren't. The other area in which I deducted points for this particular book is in how the author discusses lubricants. This is a topic on which I have a bit of knowledge and I think the author was barely able to make the target, let along hit close to the center. I knocked a coupla points off for that. Personally, I wanted to see more on the Variable Valve Timing of the later model engines, a topic Reid barely touched upon. Is that an oversight or merely him focusing on more relevant topics? I don't know the modular engine community well enough to say, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I come at this from the truck end and this book is more geared to the car and performance car side. Anyway, the book did an admirable job of answering my many basic questions and moving my level of knowledge well up the ladder from a foundational point. It's well worth the financial investment and the time it takes to digest.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars How to Rebuild 4.6-/5.4-Liter Ford Engines (S-a Design, Workbench Series), November 4, 2009

By 

Dr-K "Dr -K" (Palm Harbor, FL) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: How to Rebuild 4.6-/5.4-Liter Ford Engines (S-a Design, Workbench Series) (Cartech) (Paperback)

this book is informative for anyone that has limited experience tearing down and rebuilding engines. It provides insight into tear down and rebuild.

Caution: this book is almost word for word, picture for picture identical to George Reid's "How to Rebuild the Small Block Ford-Color Edition (SA Design)". Purchase one or the other, but not both as I unfortunately did.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sufficiently explained, August 22, 2010

By 

Knife G "Knife G" (Saudi Arabia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: How to Rebuild 4.6-/5.4-Liter Ford Engines (S-a Design, Workbench Series) (Cartech) (Paperback)

The book is in formative and has many nice points about building the ford engine. I am used to Chevys and therefore this is a new experaince. The book is well layed out with many pictures illustrating what is being read. This is especially the case when it comes to indexing the dual camshafts.
Being a visual person, I would like to have seen more pictures since this is a "how to rebuild ..." book. Step by step pictures are very nice when you are doing the build with the book on the table next to you.
Otherwise, I thought it was worth the money spent.