Pinto Car Club of America

I have my pinto and the engine is coming up on a rebuild here pretty soon, and I got to thinking. My best friend has a 1989 Ford Escort GT completely smashed from the doors back, but the motor and transmission were rebuilt by the Ford Senior Transmission guy from one of our biggest dealerships only about 2,000 miles before it was decimated by a Volvo. This may seem crazy but that 1.9L in the 'Scort GT has 125ish hp and gets around 40mpg, so since my pinto is just a driver if there is anyway to put the FWD 1.9L into easily? It seems to be beneficial.

Can I put the FWD 1.9L Escort GT motor in a Pinto fairly easily, and would it be worth it (The motor would be free) or is this idea just foolish lunacy?

To convert a Pinto to FWD (to me anyway) seems like it would be more of a hassle than it is worth. You would have to completely rebuild the front end, and possibly redesign it in the process.

I would say it would be far easier to do a fuel injection conversion and change out the wiring harness. MPG might not be as good as 40, but it will deffinitely beat a carburated 2.3. More acceleration too!

I didn't want to convert the Pinto to FWD so much as just turn the escort motor longitudinally and fit it in that way if possible, but it wasn't a very good idea anyway I just wanted to know if it was possible to do that (sideways motor). The EFI conversion is probably a much way to go.

There are extra mounting locations on a FWD motor, compared to a RWD one. you would have to make Mounts for them, and figue out how placement would work.