Gassan

Hello guys, I'm new to pickups and certainly new to F150forums. Have owned countless german vehicles before and just added the pickup to the lineup.

Basically, I have a 2011 F150 XLT very nicely loaded with a 3.7L engine, it is a supercrew and the truck looks very nice. Black on black cloth interior. I'm happy with the acceleration most of the time, it is crisp and very nice for being a regular V6, but sometimes it just feels that there's no low end torque in it.

But, I happen to have a totaled F150 3.5 EB (rear ended) that I can use as a donor, I have a shop, lift and a couple handy helpers to do the swap. Both are 4x2 and same year.

My questions are:

1. What it actually takes to swap an engine like this?
2. After swapping the ECU, what happens with the keys?
3. Do I need to swap the transmission too?
4. Engine wiring harness only, or I will be messing with in-cab wiring harnesses?

Any thoughts will be appreciated.

Manuellabour247

The key should stay with the truck, but it'll have to be updated I think by the dealer. The swap should be simple enough as both use the same transmission. When you swap the electronics over though, I'd swap them all so that the programming stays with the new engine.

Wannafbody

Good luck, I think this will prove more difficult than thought. Are the clusters and wiring harnesses the same?

Sweatmachine

If you're asking these questions you are probably in over your head.

Sell the wrecked truck for parts. Sell the running truck as-is. Buy the truck you want.

Gassan

I don't think I'm asking newbie questions, thanks for the encouragement though.

I will go ahead with the project IF I don't need to mess with the dash for any wiring modification, that's my main concern, since I have removing interior trim parts.

Gassan

Clusters are the same since I've got the XLT, wiring harnesses is my main concern though. I know obviously engine harness is not the same, but it will be swapped too. The harness that worries me is the one that goes from inside the cabin to the ECU

Manuellabour247

I think the wiring for the engine should be enough, but keep the parts truck until you know for sure. If you do have to replace the harness in the cab, then at least you'll have it on the spare one.

tanked_darren

Cool keep us updated

mk99

Anything is possible with enough time and money.
Swapping engines is not like it use to be back in a bad old days.

elfiero

If you do it, remember: pretty much everything must be changed, down to things like the fuel pick up the the fuel tank. this is the reason it's not really a practical idea to to swap drivetrains anymore. I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm just saying you would find yourself chasing down obscure sensors hidden in weird spots forever. I did this sort of thing back in the early nineties and, and quite honestly, I wouldn't attempt it again. I used to put 3.8s and 5.3 GM motors into Fieros as a side business. Through the nineties, each year, the drivetrains were becoming more sophisticated, and they were model Ts by today's "standards". Little things like, unless you want to subscribe to a service like ALLDATA, you can't even get reliable, up to the minute tech info about the current software versions and disassembly procedures. While the other poster was a bit gruff, he was right. Part out the smashed truck, make your's pretty and sell it. Take all that money, plus all you can garner from other sources and go buy yourself the truck you want. I'm afraid the days of taking our vehicles apart and frankensteining them has past.