Barra 220

[06TXR]

hey all

Relieving my turbo from towing duty and have taken delivery of a 04 BA ute with the barra 220 5.4 engine with 68k on the clock.

Love the instant grunt from stand still, but is over quickly and really lacks top end. I have some pacemaker extractors and xforce dual exhuast on the way to hopefully liven it up a little - Understanding it will never ever compete with the turbo. Has anyone here done any mods to the 5.4 3 valve? (ie capa flash, increasing rpm from factoy limit of 5250) Not sure I wanna spend large amounts of money (camshafts s/c etc) on it though as I would rather spend it on the turbo...

The sensor in the sump on the RHS - oil temp??

Thanks in advance everyone for input

[tab]

Supercharger an option?

Don't know of anyone on here that's done any work to them to be honest.

[xrt]

theres a bloke in perth whos supercharged one, 450 something hp and 900 odd nm of torque from the word go.

I believe he nearly wrote it off at powercruise and its in the process of getting fixed up.

if you youtube xt3valve that's his white one on the dyno before it was supercharged.

I had a 3valve fairmont ghia that had really bad bottom end grinding/rattle, it ruined my life trying to figure it out haha no mechanic could pick what it was, I bought it from a stolen and recovered auction though so it had been given a hard life. so I cut my losses and sold it and bought a turbo :D, apart from my old one those motors seem to be bulletproof.

once the exhaust is free'd up they are the meanest sounding car ever! puts the boss to shame, mine had the rear muffler replaced with a hotdog and twin tips and even that sounded good when you got up it.

they apparently resond very well to mods also, much better than the boss. cai exhaust and tune will see something like 240rwkw but a sh*tload of torque and all starting around 1500rpm .

good luck with it

[ebxmple]

Just out of curiousity...Did your engine rattle mainly at idle upto about 1400rpm?

[xrt]

yeah well the story goes

it was always abit rattly due to timing chain tensioners but at about 1200 rpm under light throttle it would start rattling really bad from somewhere more towards the rear of the motor, and yeah it would seem to stop around 1400 or so but after that was when the exhaust got louder and you could still hear abit of timing rattle so it was very hard to tell, it spent countless days in different mechanic shops with them trying to figure where it was coming from.

so the day I test drove it and the first few weeks spent with a heavy foot, the exhaust note covered it up.

whys that mate?

[xrt]

quick vid I took of it one day

06txr dont let my comments get you down haha yours will be fine

[Dillz]

What they hell is a barra 220 5.4?? Is that like half arse 260 or what??

I don't understand.

Oh wait like the non xr 8 8's I get it now.

Edited 16/10/09 08:40 AM by Dillz

[06TXR]

quick vid I took of it one day

06txr dont let my comments get you down haha yours will be fine

Hey xrt

funny you should say that, mine makes the same noise at idle... I am not too fussed, remember my 351 making a simular noise at idle. Took it to Denmac Ford today as it is still on the tail end of the 5 year extended warranty for the carrier bearings in the differential and LHS door lock modulator. To be honest, I was going to have to whinge and whine about the diff noise. Nope. Both approved by Ford :)Hopefully the get it right as my EL XR6 had 2 replacement diffs and was on the way out again when I sold it to buy the Turbo. Anyway, goes back Monday for the diff Will ask about the engine noise then.

How long have you had yours & how long with the noise? Getting any worse?

Cheers!

[xrt]

yeah man ive sold my car now, I bought it with it I just didnt notice it on the test drive because I was abit to excited with the throttle and just thought the idle was timing chain so it didnt bother me.

theres a few documents on the net by ford america stating that they are very ticky motors, the right oil plays a big part, many say that the 5w20 ford recomend is much to thin and should use 10w40 or similar. I was recomended to use some oil stabilizer aswell

I snapped the bonnet release on mine about 5 mimutes after I bought it so I couldnt check the oil for about a week, when I got the bonnet open I drained 3 litres of oil out of it before it came down to the full line! that could have played a part.

many lessons learnt, needless to say I inspected and drove my new xr6t 3 seperate times before I bought it .

a 3valve ute drove past me today with a loud exhaust and I must say it made me wish I still had the ghia they really do sound unbelievable.

if you do some research there are some people with a few mods and diff gears running 12s in street trim, pretty bloody impressive

[ebxmple]

The 3 valve 5.4 v8s are very common for having cam gear phaser rattle. The rattle is their at idle and once you slowly bring the revs up to bout 1500rpm the rattle stops like a switch has been pushed. Ford bought out revised cam gear units to stop the rattle. You could watch the cam advance pids change when the rattle stopped. Bit hard to compare to your vid but is a very common fault for engine rattle that sounds worse than what it really is. Did you have your driveplate inspected for cracks or loose bolts?