STROKER ENGINE

Beginning of 2005, I decided to change the engine as I was feeling the Ford 302 was lazy (for road runners....) and had no historical interest being a real mass production engine.

After long investigations and the support of members of the De Tomaso community, I finally decided to get a 302 block from Ford Racing prepared by Roush Performance (Livonia, Mi), the 342R, a 302 block stroked to 342 ci.

The 342R engine only uses very best quality parts : forged crank, connecting rods & pistons, alloy cylinder heads fully CNC ported, ...

But integrating such an engine in a Mangusta was not an easy thing as we had to make sure we’ll be able to put the engine in the bay (dimensionwise) and that it would match up with the gearbox, A/C and other systems.

Clearly, the Roush Team did a great job, taking care of any detail that could interfere the engine integration and getting any part that could improve upon the final result.

Of course, they reused or fabricated and restored specific original parts such as the pulleys, shafts needed. They were able to work off my original engine which I shipped to Roush with all the auxilliary parts included.

The “specially designed by the amazing Steven Liebenow” oil pan (manufactured by Aviaid) was installed which has a larger oil capacity and is lowered compared to the original item.

My engine runs a specially built aluminium flywheel built on special order. The lightened unit revs up like a dentist on nitrous in any gear !

To cope with the ZF gearbox and the power and torque increase, Roush decided to integrate a competition clutch both parts were manufactured by McLeod.

To avoid overheating, a high volume water pump has replaced the original one. Roush made some modifications to the water pump to help efficiency by replacing a new impeller having some cutting of the housing for tighter impeller clearances and by a reinforcement sleeve on the new impeller to assure the press of the shaft is adequate and never loosens over its life.

By 100 F° if the temperatures is high I just rev the engine to 3000/4000 rpm and the temperature is lowered.

Radiator and fan having been already largely improved by Jaeckel’s restoration just needed to be reused all the hoses have been changes for new ones capable to bear high temperatures.

A MSD Blaster iginition kit, a new engine starter have been added to the package to ensure perfect working conditions.

By mid april 2005, the engine was finished and it was time to dyno test it. Two runs were done, the first using the Roush tests headers, a second ones using mine. The final dyno test showed 430 HP and 410 lb/ft. After the tests, the engine was opened for a check to make sure the 48 hours non stop tests have made no hurt to the engine, everything was fine. Before shipping, I requested a coating of my headers and custom valve covers. I designed myself a De Tomaso logo with the mention Powered by Roush on black painted covers.