Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and bdagle
New Member
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2007
- Messages
- 11
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 0
- Age
- 79
How to ruin a 2.3 Duratec
I bought a very clean low mileage 2001 Ranger with the 2.3 Duratec motor. After driving this truck for about a month, I was returning home from a business trip on the freeway. Looking in the side mirror I noticed that it was blowing a lot of black smoke out the tail pipe. Since the truck was still running OK and not wanting to get stuck out in the boondocks, I drove it the rest of the way into the city. Over the next couple of days I spent a lot of time trying to troubleshoot this problem. There were no codes and everything seemed to be OK, but the black smoke continued. Finally I happened to notice in the shop manual that the intake manifold on this engine is equipped with what are called "Swirl Dampers". These vacuum operated dampers close off about 3/4 of manifold below 2,000 RPM and are supposed to create air turbulence to improve low speed operation and idle. You can't even see the operator, let alone see it's linkage the way it's positioned back at the firewall. So I removed the manifold. Sure enough, the plastic ball and socket had become separated and the dampers were in the closed position. This effectively limited the air flow, just like running with the choke closed on a carburetor. I drilled a hole in the center of the socket and snapped it back onto the ball, using a screw to hold it in place (This should be a permanent fix.). When I put the manifold back on the engine ran great and there was no more black smoke. However there was now a lot of blue smoke! The engine was now burning oil at the rate of about 1 quart to 100 miles. Obviously running that rich had destroyed the rings and possibly the cylinder walls. Finally I was able to locate a low millage 2.3 Duratec engine and installed it (after checking and making the modification to the damper linkage). This new engine is running well. I hope this helps someone else not to destroy their engine. B.D.
I bought a very clean low mileage 2001 Ranger with the 2.3 Duratec motor. After driving this truck for about a month, I was returning home from a business trip on the freeway. Looking in the side mirror I noticed that it was blowing a lot of black smoke out the tail pipe. Since the truck was still running OK and not wanting to get stuck out in the boondocks, I drove it the rest of the way into the city. Over the next couple of days I spent a lot of time trying to troubleshoot this problem. There were no codes and everything seemed to be OK, but the black smoke continued. Finally I happened to notice in the shop manual that the intake manifold on this engine is equipped with what are called "Swirl Dampers". These vacuum operated dampers close off about 3/4 of manifold below 2,000 RPM and are supposed to create air turbulence to improve low speed operation and idle. You can't even see the operator, let alone see it's linkage the way it's positioned back at the firewall. So I removed the manifold. Sure enough, the plastic ball and socket had become separated and the dampers were in the closed position. This effectively limited the air flow, just like running with the choke closed on a carburetor. I drilled a hole in the center of the socket and snapped it back onto the ball, using a screw to hold it in place (This should be a permanent fix.). When I put the manifold back on the engine ran great and there was no more black smoke. However there was now a lot of blue smoke! The engine was now burning oil at the rate of about 1 quart to 100 miles. Obviously running that rich had destroyed the rings and possibly the cylinder walls. Finally I was able to locate a low millage 2.3 Duratec engine and installed it (after checking and making the modification to the damper linkage). This new engine is running well. I hope this helps someone else not to destroy their engine. B.D.
