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The other side of the engine on the stand. Most note-worthy item in this picture is the
oil cooler. This hooks into the coolant system and serves the purpose of heating the oil quicker (cold oil doesn't flow as well warm oil) as well as cooling it - basically it helps to regulate the temperature of the oil. This is especially important on a turbocharged engine since the turbo relies on the engine's oil
supply for cooling as well as lubrication. This is the same unit that Ford installed on the Police-spec
engines and on the 93 Mustang Cobras. The fitting in the oil pan is for the oil-level sensor. |
| The engine was then bolted to a M5ROD-R1 transmission from a 1988 Ranger with the lightened flywheel and a Centerforce Dual Friction clutch between them, and the entire assembly bolted into the truck. There is some debate about whether or not this transmission will be able to withstand the power, but I could find no actual stories of one failing and several of them lasting 20,000+ miles, and since it did not involve the modifications that the T5 would, I chose to give it a try. Having since done more research, I have become more and more convinced that unless I were to take advantage of the aftermarket support of the T5, the R1 makes more sense because it does bolt right up. Of course, in this case I did have to move the transmission crossmember rearward a couple inches and trim the floorboard, but the later trucks would not require this. |
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 | You can see how much room is left in this engine bay. It will hold a 5.0 or even a 351, and with enough work people have even gotten 460s into Rangers, but I like the uniqueness that the turbo 2.3 offers. It also bolted in using the original motor mounts off of the 2.0 that came out, and you can't say that about any of the V8s. And yes, seeing the freshly painted and polished engine in the nasty old engine bay has brought many comments, but I'll deal with the truck itself later. All the wiring related to the engine and it's control had been removed, and would be replaced by the EEC-IV EFI wiring, which would come through the firewall underneath the hole for the fan motor. I ended up doing this by removing all the wires from the EEC-IV connector and passing them through separately - leaving the connector on would require a much larger hole in the firewall. |
| ...And with the intakes and fuel rail (including the 35# injectors) in place. The 89 Ranger fuel lines that I got from a junkyard matched the fuel rail on both feed and return. The intakes were merely cleaned with a
wire brush, but they turned out pretty nice. When I'm bored one of these days I may take them and smooth
them out to polish up like the valve cover, but at this point I think this is enough. These are the stock
intakes from the 88 Turbo Coupe, and they are the same as the ones used on the naturally aspirated Ranger
and Mustang 2.3s from 87-on. It is common to "gut" the upper intake and "knife-edge" the lower to increase
the flow capacity, but I'm leaving that for later too. |
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