I have a friend that has a 96 cobra and recently he messed up his motor. They quoted him around $4000 to fix it, and I was wondering if he can swap in a mark viii engine and just change the intake. What are the differences between the 96-98 cobra motors and the mark viii motor besides the intakes?

 

Just spend some coin and get it fixed. Used 4 valve motors are a bad investment.

 

im gonna go the other way, if you have the mechnical ability to do a swap, (btw i think the difference is just the intake manifold and possibly cams?) You might as well build the existing motor while fixing whatever the hells wrong with it, build it for boost in the future, or whatever he plans to do with it. If you don't have the ability to swap a motor, you should be able to figure out how to rebuild one. If you're paying someone its not gonna be much cheaper to swap the motor and then the intake, even though the intake shouldn't be hard at all, i've done it on the car, off should be a breeze.