Project started, need some advice

[Zmans]

88 turbocoupe engine 79k stock clean
I have the vam ecu and harness from the engine additional accessories as well. My initial thought is what all needs to be removed and replaced during the swap? I know I’ll be removing the dryer and lines corresponding. What else ? Notch the hood? Cowl? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks. Oh and I’ll be using the m5od.

 

[franklin2]

You need a scoop on the hood if you are going to use the intercooler. I would. I had a 1985.5 SVO mustang with that engine in it. That thing ran pretty good.
Did the turbo coupe have a fuel switch like my SVO had? If it did, you need the solenoid and the hoses and wires that go with it. And you need the air vane air intake also, is that what you meant by a "VAM"?

 

[Zmans]

You need a scoop on the hood if you are going to use the intercooler. I would. I had a 1985.5 SVO mustang with that engine in it. That thing ran pretty good.
Did the turbo coupe have a fuel switch like my SVO had? If it did, you need the solenoid and the hoses and wires that go with it. And you need the air vane air intake also, is that what you meant by a "VAM"?

Yes I snagged the vane air intake and harness wiring included. Think the turbocoupe functional scoop could be modified to work with the ranger hood in some capacity? I have a NOS Hx35 holset I would like to adapt to the motor eventually but not sure I’m ready for that jump yet I’ll need a front mount intercooler etc. i’m reading thru the forum for pinout info using the thunderbird harness and ecm. Guessing I’ll need to use the ranger motor mounts and a good idea to swap the oil pans?

 

[scotts90ranger]

ooh, an 88! Nice. Those turbos are less desirable but the rest of it is more desirable...

If it were me I would use the Ranger engine harness and add the thunderbird stuff to it but it matters on how stock you want it to look... Myself I would rather not run a distributor if I don't have to so I didn't... All you have to do is take the front seal housing off the Ranger engine, make a template for the crank sensor bolts (including the alignment pin) as accurate as possible (beer box cardboard accurate is fine, that's all I've done on two engines...), for the alignment pin I used a 6mm bolt with a long shoulder with the head cut off then drilled/tapped the block to thread it in with loctite. To get away with using just one coil pack you can just run the passenger side coil, if you have a tach and want to keep it working you have to splice the drivers side coil signal wires to that (the outer ones, cap off the center one...). If the Ranger block is in good shape you can put the turbo pistons and rods in there too assuming the bores are good on both and you use new rings and such... that's one of my regrets, I had 2 blocks I scrapped that would have been nice to have around...

If I were to start from scratch completely on mine I would do things differently like probably using a dual plug head and both coil packs and the wiring would be cleaner... considering I jumped in too soon last time around it worked out pretty good...

I would use the Ranger oil pan, it'll fit better, you will likely need to use the Ranger oil pump, I did...

I can walk you through more and I have some pictures of what I did which might help some but a '94 is different than a '90 under the hood...

 

[Zmans]

ooh, an 88! Nice. Those turbos are less desirable but the rest of it is more desirable...

If it were me I would use the Ranger engine harness and add the thunderbird stuff to it but it matters on how stock you want it to look... Myself I would rather not run a distributor if I don't have to so I didn't... All you have to do is take the front seal housing off the Ranger engine, make a template for the crank sensor bolts (including the alignment pin) as accurate as possible (beer box cardboard accurate is fine, that's all I've done on two engines...), for the alignment pin I used a 6mm bolt with a long shoulder with the head cut off then drilled/tapped the block to thread it in with loctite. To get away with using just one coil pack you can just run the passenger side coil, if you have a tach and want to keep it working you have to splice the drivers side coil signal wires to that (the outer ones, cap off the center one...). If the Ranger block is in good shape you can put the turbo pistons and rods in there too assuming the bores are good on both and you use new rings and such... that's one of my regrets, I had 2 blocks I scrapped that would have been nice to have around...

If I were to start from scratch completely on mine I would do things differently like probably using a dual plug head and both coil packs and the wiring would be cleaner... considering I jumped in too soon last time around it worked out pretty good...

I would use the Ranger oil pan, it'll fit better, you will likely need to use the Ranger oil pump, I did...

I can walk you through more and I have some pictures of what I did which might help some but a '94 is different than a '90 under the hood...

When you’re ready I’ll gladly take a walkthrough of your build so I can mimic the build. Especially since your experienced with this swap. Shoot me a message. Thanks

 

[scotts90ranger]

Here's a pic dump of my engine bay, hopefully something helps even though it's slightly different under the hood of a '90 than a '94 (battery on the other side for one, computer in a different location too...). I know it's a disaster oil mess wise, I've spot cleaned a fair amount but I've half assed it too much... the engine needs to come out for a deep clean at some point... I don't remember when any of these pictures were from so things have likely changed... one shows how I mounted the ignition module on a plate sandwiched between the two intake halves, it's still like that, works great... you can also see how I swapped to a V6 radiator on the upper radiator hose, whether it needs it or not I'm not sure I just did it thinking I did... Ok, most of those pics are fairly old, forgot how gross it was at times... it's been pressure washed under there a few times since then...

 

[Zmans]

Definitely is a great point of reference.
noticed you deleted the intercooler, any idea if the functional hood ducting can be easily modified to the ranger from the turbocoupe? The secondary dis ignition was wired to keep the coil pack did you ground out the first or second one or use a resistor in place to fool the ecu?

 

[scotts90ranger]

You could use a couple resistors, I just spliced the secondary into the primary which made the tach work fine, it ran fine with the secondary disconnected but the tach didn't work...

I didn't delete the intercooler (although I have one), I started off with a '85 engine and only the '87-88 had an intercooler, I decided in my application that that location for an intercooler wouldn't work, wouldn't get airflow while offroad (it would, just the wrong way...) and sand would run down the hood and plug it up... on your application the factory intercooler should do something, don't know how it lines up, I put mine up there once to look but don't remember... I have an air to water intercooler I want to throw in with a remote mounted radiator sometime in the future...

 

[scotts90ranger]

Oh, and after I did some of my ugly wiring some of the things I would have done differently is just use the Ranger throttle body and TPS for cleaner wiring and would route wires better... I'm way better at wiring now than I was a decade ago...

 

[Zmans]

I thankfully have the intact engine to swap parts from, on the fence about ditching the original dizzy for the packs. The dual plug head I have is original to the truck and it’s a iffy engine to begin with the original engine has over 200k on it vs my 79k turbo motor. Assuming if I do swap harnesses the thunder coupe harness will be missing a few things I had initially from the rangers system?

 

[scotts90ranger]

The plus about using the Ranger harness is it fits the Ranger engine bay, if you have the complete T bird harness you can harvest all you need to convert.

One of the main reasons I kept the DIS system instead of the distributor was getting away from the TFI distributor that I'd heard people having issues with, and the DIS coils have a little more spark energy... In 23 years having my '90 Ranger I've had one crank sensor go out on me and that's it, other than learning the hard way the DIS module needs to be grounded (that's how I rolled it... engine stalled at a bad time) and needs to only have the 3 bolts holding it down not the 4 like it has space for I have no complaints...

The only thing needed to convert on the block is the holes for the crank sensor and slotting a hole on the front seal housing, then you just gotta grab the oil pump drive out of the '94 and drop it in, might as well grab the roller cam out of the '94 too and all of the timing belt pulleys since the round tooth is more efficient and lasts longer than the square tooth.

 

[xsaylr]

What can be used for tuning, if you keep coils and the dual plug head?

 

[Shran]

forgot how gross it was at times... it's been pressure washed under there a few times since then...

Sure glad you added that line, I could feel the grease climbing up my arms from all the way over here

 

[Zmans]

What can be used for tuning, if you keep coils and the dual plug head?

Pimpx

 

[Zmans]

Quick update….
And some info assistance, does the ranger harness play well from the 94 with the turbocoupe ecu, when re pinned?