The AU block is a sweet peice of machinery. You can do the mods, and then sell sumps and make good money helping your amazed mates out. No one will copy it because Kiwis are invariably too busy shooting others down to bother doing it themselves.
The best option is to grab an overheated or crashed AU junker, and do a trail fit to an old engine-less XF body. Find an old junk yard XF, axe the front off from the back of the cross member, through the sills and windscreen, place it in the back of your ute tray, and place it in you back yard and trial fit the AU donk. If yopu don't have a back yeard, pop the seals of you bedroom mindow, and shove it in there and sleep on the couch. Tell the misses your making sure she has enough iron in her diet, and that if she really cared, she'd understand.
These AU engines were fitted to EA's by Brad and Anita in Auckland. There is a web site if you look in the Aussie forum. It was a long time ago, by a Kiwi no less. And, I might add, they did it on there own without a lot of input from so-called experts.
The rack and pinion steering gear on the AU and the old recirulating ball steering box won't get in the way. It is the profile of the cross member which needs to fit the sump, so you may have to look at cutting the some alloy out of the sump first, and then look at getting a certified weld of the XF crossmember if something gets in the way as a last resort.
The engine mounts should be similar to the XG Ute items. There were some running changes betwen the utes and the later AU's, so it pays to go to a Ford dealer, and oggle over the used 92 to 2004 Falcons utes, and check available mounts and make the XH ones fit the AU block. I got all part numbers for the dual runner intakes, all details of the EFI fuel tanks, and all the changes in the mounts are as simple as looking with your eyes. I spend a lot of time looking at Dunedin City Ford, and you learn more with a car on stands on a quiet Sunday than a busy service technicain in the middle of the week.
The starter is mounted up high in the block on all Cammers, designed to clear a turbo. The so called structural alloy sump is easy to die grind with an air grinder. Do a minimum cut up with a hacksaw, and as long as any modifications are done with the sump mounted to the engine by a low heat TIG weld, then you'll have a heck of a job to compromise the strength. Use 5 mm free machining or tool plate from Alcon Aluminimum to fix the sump up. The basic shape of the old XG suimp is what you are aiming for. Alloy is very easy to work with.
The aftermarket industry in New Zealand is full of very sad individuals who cant tell the difference between camel dung and dirt. Like some of our builders who just want a quick buck, and think that we are too stupid to check the facts. This nation was built on a mixture of native cunning and hard work, and I know you can do this without having to go without food for a week.
Deano
