Mercury tracer BP swap questions

[REPTILE]

My car, a 1995 mercury tracer/escort recently blew a head gasket. Ive been wanting to do the 1.8L BP swap for some time now, and now I have an excuse to swap out the old 1.9 Ford single jingle for something with a bit extra power.

I've been doing research into the swap and I found a few engines online that would work, my main problem is finding a transmission online, the only ones I can seem to find are the 5-speed transmissions for the AWD Protege GTR.

I found 2 transmissions in a junkyard today as well as an engine, I don't know if the engine would fit as it's from a 96 protege but I thought i'd ask anyway to see if it's compatible with the BG platform without requiring fabrication

The transmissions I found is what I assume is a 5 speed G-series from a mid 90s escort LX 1.9 wagon, and a 5 speed, again what I assume is a G-series from a v6 MX-3.

I'm rather unfamiliar with the trannies in these cars, and wether or not they would fit a 1.8 BP or even the BP I found in the 96 protege.
I'll most likely buy a JDM BP crate engine and find a transmission stateside.
So for the sake of simplicity, Let's say I get a BP crate engine. what cars would have the proper drivetrain needed to make this swap happen/what transmission do I need?

I know the Escort GT would have the right one, but I have yet to find one anywhere near me.
(Im also not experienced enough to do the fab work for an E153 swap, just to get that out of the way)

I have pics of not only my car, but the ones in the junkyard, and links to the engines I found for sale if anymore details are needed.
Help and advice or links to where my question might be answered would be GREATLY appreciated

[me109]

I think the 1.9 got the F-series box most of the time... Anything with a transverse BP should have a G-series box, except some later Sephias that had an H-series which was superior. Wait for others to chime in, I'm not an expert on the 2wd drivetrains.

Let me know if you end up with a working 4wd tranny to get rid of!

[atomicEGT]

car-part.com yo

90-94 protege
91-92 escort lx-e
91-96 tracer lts
91-96 escort gt

some of the BHA proteges do too but i don't know the years because they're pieces of **** ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

all have the transmission you want. car-part is usually pretty good about the interchange thing so you should be good to go

[atomicEGT]

I think the 1.9 got the F-series box most of the time... Anything with a transverse BP should have a G-series box, except some later Sephias that had an H-series which was superior. Wait for others to chime in, I'm not an expert on the 2wd drivetrains.

Let me know if you end up with a working 4wd tranny to get rid of!

99% sure the wagon had a g-series box with the 1.9 bellhousing, because wagon

[me109]

99% sure the wagon had a g-series box with the 1.9 bellhousing, because wagon

That's good to know. Thanks.

Wagons are just better...

[REPTILE]

car-part.com yo

90-94 protege
91-92 escort lx-e
91-96 tracer lts
91-96 escort gt

some of the BHA proteges do too but i don't know the years because they're pieces of **** ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

all have the transmission you want. car-part is usually pretty good about the interchange thing so you should be good to go

Thanks for the list m8
this will most certainly come in handy.
Is there a website like this that lists full cars for sale, I ask since I realized that it would be way cheaper in the long run to have a whole car to do the swap from a whole car

[me109]

I know the 1.6 and 1.8 SOHC will have F-boxes too.

Whole cars are becoming hard to find. Keep an eye on the classifieds here, and watch your local craigslists.

If you see a junkyard on car-part.com that seems to have a lot of parts, talk to them about taking the whole carcass. Some will, some won't.

[atomicEGT]

is your car a manual or auto?

auto is more wiring and some other bull****. i went from a 1.9 auto in my wagon to a gtr motor with a big turbo and a manual, which was... fun.

[REPTILE]

is your car a manual or auto?

auto is more wiring and some other bull****. i went from a 1.9 auto in my wagon to a gtr motor with a big turbo and a manual, which was... fun.

Its an auto sadly, but hopefully not for much longer
Also forgot to mention this, but I found an engine this morning. gonna try and pick it up next week

[atomicEGT]

oh yikes

so, you can do the swap with your stock body harness but it's not a good time. if you can find a parts car to use for the swap (maybe something that's rotted out or crashed in the rear) i'd recommend it. i have a build thread for my wagon in the build thread section that should have a lot of the information you need- unfortunately my factory service manual is 1400 miles away (and actually may have gone with the car when i sold it) but if you have questions about the swap i'll help if i can.

off the top of my head, the stuff that was tricky:

-temp gauge didn't work; 1.9 uses an actual gauge with a variable resistance temp sensor and the 1.8 is basically a dummy switch. i was lucky and had a tach cluster to start with and iirc i just swapped to a 1.8 gauge and used the stock sensor in the BPD. if you don't have a tach cluster, have fun- it's a bunch of wiring to do the swap and it sucks (i've done that too)

-reverse lights/neutral safety switch- this was a pain in the dick and i don't remember how we did it. it's part of the 1.9 body harness and requires jumpering some wiring, it's in my build thread.

-clutch master cylinder reservoir: on the escorts that are manual from the factory, the clutch master is fed from the brake reservoir, so normally you'd either swap to a manual reservoir (no) or drill a hole in the boss of the auto reservoir (also no). both of those options means bleeding the brakes and that sucks. i used a civic reservoir that i found in the junkyard and mounted it on the driver's side strut tower

-fuel pump: something about the fuel pump wiring at the ecu on the 1.9 is wonky compared to the 1.8- like, there's two wires where there should be one, or vice versa. unfortunately i don't remember exactly what was going on with the harness here, just that i did a fair amount of rewiring at the white plug by the ecu to make the BPD ecu play nice with the factory body harness. should be in the wagon thread- the BPD ecu is a bit different, but the body harness side of things should be the same, as i was wiring it to match an EGT.

there was other stuff that was annoying (swapping in the clutch/brake pedal assembly and wiring in the clutch interlock switch, overheating the car like a dickhead because the fan switch wasn't working, etc) but I think that's the main stuff

[REPTILE]

oh yikes

so, you can do the swap with your stock body harness but it's not a good time. if you can find a parts car to use for the swap (maybe something that's rotted out or crashed in the rear) i'd recommend it. i have a build thread for my wagon in the build thread section that should have a lot of the information you need- unfortunately my factory service manual is 1400 miles away (and actually may have gone with the car when i sold it) but if you have questions about the swap i'll help if i can.

off the top of my head, the stuff that was tricky:

-temp gauge didn't work; 1.9 uses an actual gauge with a variable resistance temp sensor and the 1.8 is basically a dummy switch. i was lucky and had a tach cluster to start with and iirc i just swapped to a 1.8 gauge and used the stock sensor in the BPD. if you don't have a tach cluster, have fun- it's a bunch of wiring to do the swap and it sucks (i've done that too)

-reverse lights/neutral safety switch- this was a pain in the dick and i don't remember how we did it. it's part of the 1.9 body harness and requires jumpering some wiring, it's in my build thread.

-clutch master cylinder reservoir: on the escorts that are manual from the factory, the clutch master is fed from the brake reservoir, so normally you'd either swap to a manual reservoir (no) or drill a hole in the boss of the auto reservoir (also no). both of those options means bleeding the brakes and that sucks. i used a civic reservoir that i found in the junkyard and mounted it on the driver's side strut tower

-fuel pump: something about the fuel pump wiring at the ecu on the 1.9 is wonky compared to the 1.8- like, there's two wires where there should be one, or vice versa. unfortunately i don't remember exactly what was going on with the harness here, just that i did a fair amount of rewiring at the white plug by the ecu to make the BPD ecu play nice with the factory body harness. should be in the wagon thread- the BPD ecu is a bit different, but the body harness side of things should be the same, as i was wiring it to match an EGT.

there was other stuff that was annoying (swapping in the clutch/brake pedal assembly and wiring in the clutch interlock switch, overheating the car like a dickhead because the fan switch wasn't working, etc) but I think that's the main stuff

Well Damn, I mean when it comes to the temp sensor I can always just run an aftermarket gauge.....I guess?
Do you have a link to your wagon build?
I couldn't seem to find it, could be I just missed it.
But since it seems that using a stock wiring harness is gonna be a real pain in the ass, is there any other way I can wire it up, like with a megasquirt ECU?
I assume aftermarket wiring harnesses aren't a thing for this car

[atomicEGT]

i think we built that car 7 years ago so i have no idea how far back you'd have to go to find it, lemme take a look

it could be that i just made the temp gauge work with a wiring pin swap or something too, i honestly don't remember. you can use a megasquirt, but you're still going to run into the problem that the body harness is slightly incompatible with the engine/transmission

so yes using the stock harness is a pain in the dick but it's honestly not *that* much wiring and it's definitely doable if you can't find a BP parts car to rob one from

eta: my build thread is 61 pages of catfights and dumb bull****, but i went through about half of it and it looks like half of the annoying wiring stuff is because we did a partial wire tuck- if you do a straightforward swap i think it'll be easier. the main things will be the white connector under the dash (10-pin vs 12-pin) and the reverse lights, and the reverse lights are easy- you literally just jumper them at the connector by the transmission.

a couple other things I thought of:
- you're gonna need new heater hoses because of the oil cooler on the BP
- the upper transaxle mount bracket (on the driver's side) is different between the G-series and F-series
- charcoal canister/evap thingy is completely different and mounted in a different spot
- coolant and washer bottles are different and mounted in different locations
- G-series and F-series axles are different
- you'll need the shifter and shift rod / base assembly
- exhaust is different but you could probably make something work