3.5L ecoboost or bust

[retep88]

Intercooler piping is done. I never want to put a bead on a tube again...

Things I need to do before I can start the truck

Wiring - mostly in the engine compartment
Coolant lines
exhaust - just the y-pipe crossover for the O2 sensors
oil change - since it has none in it at the moment in both engine and transmission
fill with coolant
hook up and bleed clutch
Mount Cooling fans - Probably option for the first start up

That seems pretty doable now that I have written it down, but the wiring job is going to be a huge pain.

 

[retep88]

DAH! the curse of school aged children...

between the practices, clubs, wife working late, and all the other family stuff, my evening are gone now that school has started again...

I still think I might be able to start it soon, maybe even drive it around the block before the snow flies? NO way I am going to drive that thing in the snow. Not until I know how it's going to behave when things get sideways (literally)

 

[fastpakr]

Had any time to continue the project lately? Would love to see how it's coming along.

 

[PetroleumJunkie412]

Had any time to continue the project lately? Would love to see how it's coming along.

Second

 

[retep88]

Huzzah! I am back! sort of!

My wife is a college professor, so my free time is broken up into semesters with summers being the best since she is home all day. As soon as school started, life happened and I couldn't get out to the garage, not really. It didn't help that I wasn't happy with the plumbing I had done for the intercooler. Yes, technically it was all connected, but I didn't have a solution for putting an air filters on the truck because the stock air box I had gotten from Ford (with the ECU) wasn't going to fit. So it put me off the project, I had to go through the five stages of automotive grief:

1) Denial: I can make this work, if I just moves these parts around it will all be fine, it probably won't rub.
2) Anger: Screw this truck, maybe I can just sell it and get some of my money back (we all know that was a bluff though, it would probably just sit and rot for years)
3) Depression: I never want to see that stupid truck again (also leads to a project sitting for years)
4) Bargaining: Please Let me think of a way to fix this, I don't want to take an angle grinder to the truck again, let me find more space. Should I just suck it up and buy a TIG welder?
5) Acceptance: Screw it! I am buying a TIG welder. (this is normally how the five stages end, the purchase of new tools)

So that's what I did, I bought myself a new AC/DC TIG welder so I can weld aluminum. It's also a new semester and I have free time again. So between those two things I have a renewed interest in the truck. I also have goals for getting it running (notice I didn't say done ). This year the Hot Rod Power Tour and Hot Rod Drag week are coming within a couple hours drive of my house. Closest it's been in maybe three years? So I want to be able to drive the truck to those events.

I was naive to think I would have been able to do the swap with off the shelf parts. If I had the TIG welder from the beginning, it would have changed how I solved a lot of the problems that I had with making the engine fit. Mostly it would have let me move the turbos so that I could have gotten the engine lower, avoid the steering column, and not needed the elaborate steering setup I have now. Oh well, I have it now. I am not going to redo everything, but I am going to fix the Intercooler plumbing so it fits better and doesn't need two dozen couplers.

And while I haven't been working on the truck, I have been buying parts. Just tonight I bought a used factory f150 exhaust pretty much for the three inch exhaust tube. It also came with the muffler and the resonator, so I get to decide if I want to run just the resonator (basically a glass pack muffler), the muffler, or both. I also bought a bunch of parts off my buddy who was scrapping out an 01 ranger including the bed because mine is rotted out and a fiberglass hood. Sadly he had a 7.5 inch rear, other wise I might have taken that as well (I want to swap it to an 8.8 some day).

So what I am working on right now is getting 220 power out to my garage. The welder I bought is a dual power set up (there is a link to the welder above), but I want the full 220 power when I try out AC welding. Getting that power out to the garage requires some home improvements. My hold up might be that it's winter in Iowa and I need to dig a trench to lay the new wire down but we'll see, I have an electrician friend who is helping me and his trencher might not care about the frozen ground.

Part of the deal to buy the welder was that I wasn't out in the garage ALL the time, that I need to spend time with the family as well. So progress will be slow, but I will try to be better about checking in more often

 

[tomryan31]

I made an account to follow this. Ecoboost Ranger is the dream!

 

[retep88]

I HAVE POWER!!!!

I now have 220 power out to the garage. I get to use the full 200 amp of my tig welder. Plus we did some improvements like putting the light switch by the door and splitting up some of the outlets onto separate circuits. It is so nice to be able to use the horizontal band saw and the angle grinder at the same time. I was to worried about tripping the breaker before, or worse, starting a fire in the house because the circuit was overloaded.

I made an account to follow this. Ecoboost Ranger is the dream!

Thanks man! When I started looking into this swap so many years ago. I could only find one other person who had tried the swap; it was two videos then ghost town... I wasn't even confident that the mustang 6 speed would even work with the ecoboost. It's just the details that I am left with at the moment.

I have been SUPER fortunate that I am able to work from home during this pandemic, but it has been eating up my free time. I would work 'days', my wife would work 'nights' swapping off who watched the kids. So I get maybe an hour or two after they go to bed? Progress has been slow, but I have been buying parts (and tools).

List of stuff I have bought since the last post:

Ranger universal seat adapters
New Seats
AC compressor
Belt tensioner
non-aerosol spray cans (Like These)
3 in 1 break, sheer, roller <= this is the one I am most excited for

So again, very fortunate I can work from home, but we got word this week from uncle John we are going to have a two week shutdown and forcing EVERYONE, salary included, to take time off. I am annoyed I am being forced to burn my vacation days, but it's better than not getting paid during that time. The positive side; Garage time.

So my plan during my forced vacation:

1) Finish my weld cart for the TIG welder. I am tired of having my bottle strapped to my bench
2) New work bench to mount the Sheer too. It's a Very heavy thing and takes up a lot of space. I will also end up mounting a one inch and a 3 inch belt sander to it as well.
3) Clean and organize the garage. Don't know if you could tell in some of my pictures, but my garage is a pit. Now that I have decent power out; it's giving me motivation to step up the rest of the garage
4) Ranger work, focusing on trying to get rid of some couplers in the Charge pipes, and finishing the exhaust.

I have some other Honey-do projects in there as well which includes working on the Garden, but I am optimistic I can make progress on the ranger. I really want to hear that thing start up.


Side Note - not a ranger, but the Youtube channel The Fabrication Series started a mini-truck build based on the ecoboost. He is basing it on a Mitsubishi Truck, but he is making a Full tube chassis for it, so it's not going to have much Mitsubishi left.

 

[retep88]

Weld Cart Done!

I might need some counter weight on the front... but for now it seems okay. My goal was for someone to see it and say "well that seems a little over kill". It took my 300 lbs without any issue (I may have gone surfing across my driveway ). The welder is about 50 lb and the bottle another 70ish (didn't weight it, that is a guess from the internet), so it should be more than strong enough. I have added a piece of quarter inch plywood on the top and it's going to get a couple of Ikea bins for storage. Might end up adding some hooks for cable storage.

The new work bench is well underway, but I am going to wait till it's done to post pics. The weather around here has been cold and rainy, but it's supposed to improve later this week. I have to pretty much empty my garage to get the bench in place, so nice weather is a must.

All the Automotive videos I watch have me feeling guilty for not working on the truck, so I am looking forward to getting back to it... there is just to much clutter at the moment.

 

[retep88]

I have successfully joined two pieces of aluminum together... all I can say is that TIG welding is an art that takes practice and experience; spending a hour messing around in the garage doesn't yield pretty results.

The Garage Clean up and Organization went OK though. There is still work to do, but I am waiting on some stuff from amazon to clear up more space in the garage (the grill is getting kicked to the patio once a cover comes). Here is how the work bench turned out:

Finished welded: I ended up having to add more bracing then I had intended to straighten out a bad warp in the top. I was trying to build a 2x6 work bench on a 2x3 welding table. Should have built it on the drive way to start with. Oh well, I will know better for next time.

Painted with the top fastened down:

Finally in place with all the tools on top: I still need to bolt them down, but that will happen when I go to use them.

I was complaining about my organizational issues to my wife and how I just don't have a spot for everything. I have (had ) a roll around work bench made from two cabinets screwed together, but it didn't have enough shelves and storage to handle all my tools. Without prompting; this was her idea not mine; no influence by me; she says "do you just need to buy a new tool box, one of those big ones with all the drawers?". My response was "Probably, but they can be pricey." Their are many three word phrases that a wife can say that will make her husband excited, "Just buy it" has to be ranked pretty high on that list. so I did

Within 10 minutes of owning the toolbox, I learned the hard way that you can lock the box, then shut the draw that contains the key...

Fortunately I know how to pick locks, I am not great at it, but you basic masterlock I can get into. Tubular locks like the ones on the toolbox are stupid easy to open if you have the special tubular lock pick, but I didn't have one, and I wasn't going to go out and buy one. But you can still pick it the hard way if you can make a little tool to tension the lock. You can see it there in the tool box picture.

A couple little prongs ground into an old razor blade (I ground the edge off too) did the trick and I got the tool box open.

So in my two week "vacation" I manged to get three things off my list? Cleaning always takes longer than you think. But the weather is warm, my commute time is Awesome, and my wife is nearly done teaching this semester so hopefully ranger work picks up? Maybe next time I might show the blob that is my aluminum welding.

 

[pjtoledo]

"just buy it"


dude, she set you up big time

I hope you didn't tell her the real price

 

[retep88]

She knew what the price was before I bought it. We have had a struggle on what to do with the kid's bikes... They get in my way in the garage, so they end up in places the kids can't reach them, so she comes out to help. The kids leave them right inside the door blocking me off from the rest of the garage so I get mad and move them back to a spot they can't reach. In her eyes, if the kids end up with space for the bikes because I can get my tools picked up and organized, the toolbox is worth every penny.


Speaking of worth every penny. This my friends is what a $2000 intercooler pipe looks like:

That is about how much I spent on the welder, welding supplies, and the garage electric upgrade. The welder will get used again for the intake, but I haven't gotten that far yet. Everything else I have used the welder for could have been done with my MIG welder. Granted, it wouldn't have been as pretty, because I guaranty I would have burnt through the exhaust tubing I plan on using for the exhaust, but it could be done.

Still not showing my welds . There were a couple decent stack of dimes, but nothing photo worthy. It doesn't leak and that is what matters.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I have a friend that welded together fence posts for work. I got him to weld my exhaust on my ranger using my old Lincoln Weldpac 100 (flux core wire feed). Wow! He is good. You would be hard pressed to find the weld if you didn't know where to look, it kind of just blended in.

 

[retep88]

I am telling you... Welding is an art. An art that takes a LOT of practice.

 

[starblockset]

what happened to this thread?

 

[Ranger850]

what happened to this thread?

Nothing. OP kinda disappears for a while, then pops back up with progress pics. Be patient.