The Fastest and Furious Windstars :)

[wiswind]

The babcox site that I posted a link to indicates that the FWD and RWD versions of the 3.8L engine are indeed different blocks.
Much of the stuff used will be the same, but the coolant passages and such are indeed different.
They mention it when they talk about head gaskets.

Also, the 1996 and newer units have the spark plugs mounted into the head, and the head has the duel ported intakes.
They also made the exhaust ports smaller, more round, and removed some of the bends in the exhaust in '96.

What I was saying about the final upshift into 4th gear was at Wide Open Throttle.......not normal driving.
It will shift into 4th at a very low speed (I don't remember right off the exact speed) with your foot very slightly on the accellerator.

I would guess if one were ambitious about the exhaust, one could replace the cat's with high flow units, and keep the exhaust dual all the way back, with individual mufflers.
Even Walker has higher flow individual catalytic converters.

That, along with opening up the air intake, would boost the power.
Much more would get expensive in a hurry.

[searcherrr]

The unfortunate sad truth about all Windstars using the AX4S.
Well, I know we've covered that its a problem before, but after looking into this further the AX4S apparently is a problem in any Ford application that uses in excess of 155-160HP. It just cannot take the horsepower and thus its life is pretty short. ALL of the Ford's that use an AX4? family tranny that have over that amount of horsepower used AX4N transmission EXCEPT the Windstar until 2001 when Ford finally gained enough sense to put it in the Windstar cause of all the failing AX4S.

The sad truth here is that if I wanted to put more power into my engine bay I am going to NEED to get another tranny or I'll more certainly blow the one I have in an instant o just much faster over time than I'd want to. If I had the AX4N tranny it would probably be a lil different of a story.

Decisions decisions.

[tblacksten]

i am having trouble with my 96 windstar, i took it to the shop because it wasn't shifting into high gear. of course when the shop finaly looked at it, it did not have any problems. they said it could be bad gas, spark plug, or ox senor, has any one had this prob?