To say we’re a little obsessed with the YouTube channel Build It Yourself‘s V10-swapped Lincoln Continental would be accurate but also one serious understatement. I mean, we’re talking about the largely unloved 10th-generation Continental here. With a naturally aspirated V10 engine. And a manual transmission. It shouldn’t exist. No one has any real reason to build a car like that. But they’re doing it, and it’s glorious. It also looks like an absolute nightmare to finally get it running properly.
Of course, it’s not like anyone went into this project expecting it to be easy to V10-swap and rear-wheel-drive-convert the front-wheel-drive-based Continental. Among other things, they had to replace the front subframe with one from a Mustang GT500. But if you’ve been following the build recently, you probably know that after a minor “had to rebuild the entire engine because of a little oopsie” situation, they were actually able to take the V10 Continental to SEMA. It had all of its bodywork. It was painted. It started (mostly) and drove. Heck, it was even part of the show.
Unfortunately, making a car good enough for SEMA and making a car good enough to drive regularly are two different things, and as you can see in the video below, the V10 Continental still had a ways to go when it returned home after the show.
Just a few minor issues
Now, before we get too far here, you do need to know this is a 50-minute video. Well, technically 49 minutes and 50 seconds, but I’m allowed to round, and I don’t think that missing 10 seconds is going to change your decision to watch the video one way or another. I’m just saying it won’t be a quick watch, even if you’re like me and prefer to watch your videos at 2x speed. When you have several major problems to fix, it’s hard to fit it all into a short video you can squeeze in before your next meeting.
So what was wrong with the car? Well, among other things, the exhaust no longer sounded nearly as good as it did in some of their earlier pulls. Initially, it sounded incredible, but they had to make a few tweaks to stop it from vibrating at lower RPMs, and that changed the top-end sound. Also, there was a good bit of vibration from the engine itself that showed up after they were forced to rebuild the engine. Oh, and as the engine revved, the oil pressure would keep dropping. You know, just a couple of minor annoyances.
But hey, that’s just the reality of building a car that was never supposed to exist. It’s hard, it takes time, everything costs money, and nothing is ever as simple as the guys on any iteration of Yelling Goatee Man Garage make it seem. They’re getting closer, though, and before you know it, the V10 Continental will finally be finished. Probably. Hopefully. Fingers crossed?
