Tommy Morana Twin Throttle Body HELP

[TexasDuck66]

Hi there, I bought a all original and very well kept Extended Cab 88' XLT 4x4 2.9L '5 Speed with 106k miles last year in August. Truck runs great without any issues and still does now.

I've been in the Ranger game for a while now and know the 2.9 Cologne is not very popular and aftermarket performance stuff is pretty limited. Plus it has it's issues regarding the dreaded lifter tick. Tommy Morana is one of the few if not the only company that I have found that even makes 2.9 stuff.

I was pretty interested in their bolt on Twin Throttle Body Intake that they sell and I had talked to Tommy himself earlier today about it. He had explained that the Upper Intake is bolt on with some minor modifications to the throttle cable and a custom air intake. But it would not require any ECU tuning due to the system being Speed Density ran.

It advertises that it adds over 20hp/30lb-ft of torque and considering that these engines came factory with 140hp, it would help getting it up to speed quicker. I don't want to turn it into a race truck, just make it where it can get out of its own way.

Has anyone here bought and used this on their 2.9? What was their experience like and did they have any issues? Would it be a easy bolt on power adder and be viable for my application? Would I need any ECU tuning?

 

[Curious Hound]

I would trust that if Morana says no tuning necessary, that is solid info. He definitely knows his stuff. Those parts should be bolt-on easy with maybe a little bit of adjusting or tweaking to mount stuff to the outside. I would recommend new gaskets.

 

[Josh P]

The 2.9 in the Merkur Scorpio has a twin tb, short runners on the intake and makes 4 hp more than the Ranger intake.

 

[kodogtwh]

Leave the factory truck intake on, it matches the cam. The 'easy' trick is to get a scorpio Upper plenum and a scorpio cam. They work well and the powerband is widened upwards significantly. and the scorpio uses mechanical lifters. Morana's intake doesnt flow as good as the scorpio's up top, but it still retains the truck-like torque. I ended up ordering a cam, lifter, and valve spring set from Piper in the UK. Along with the upper plenum and headers you can easily make near 200 without pulling the engine. Heads need to come off to swap the lifters.

Just do a valve adjustment procedure to shut the lifters up. 2 Full turns of preload like the TSB says. That and an oil pump is all it took to get my '87 into top shape before I boosted it. Pro tip: Pull the engine to do the oil pump. It took me 12 hours of labor to do it in the truck, compared to the 10 casual, bullshitting hours it took to pull the engine and do one AND do a complete reseal on my buddie's.

Get a standalone ecu so you have the ability to tune it. Tuning EEC-iV is old news. the ecu and a solid tune in itself will also help.j

 

[TexasDuck66]

Leave the factory truck intake on, it matches the cam. The 'easy' trick is to get a scorpio Upper plenum and a scorpio cam. They work well and the powerband is widened upwards significantly. and the scorpio uses mechanical lifters. Morana's intake doesnt flow as good as the scorpio's up top, but it still retains the truck-like torque. I ended up ordering a cam, lifter, and valve spring set from Piper in the UK. Along with the upper plenum and headers you can easily make near 200 without pulling the engine. Heads need to come off to swap the lifters.

Just do a valve adjustment procedure to shut the lifters up. 2 Full turns of preload like the TSB says. That and an oil pump is all it took to get my '87 into top shape before I boosted it. Pro tip: Pull the engine to do the oil pump. It took me 12 hours of labor to do it in the truck, compared to the 10 casual, bullshitting hours it took to pull the engine and do one AND do a complete reseal on my buddie's.

Get a standalone ecu so you have the ability to tune it. Tuning EEC-iV is old news. the ecu and a solid tune in itself will also help.j

Gotcha, I've looked into the Scorpio stuff. Not sure if you're familiar with the Tuneport engines in the 3rd Gen F-Body's but the long runner design gave those engines a shit ton of torque in the low end/mid range. Not saying the Ranger 2.9 has Tuneport Injection but the long runner design that it has is the same principle. Just from visual looking at it but I could be totally incorrect.

Anyways, I don't think a Scorpio intake/cam would be a bad idea but not ideal for the application I'm using it for. I rarely ever push the engine past 4,000rpm if not never. I primarily want more low/mid range power and torque. That's why the Morana Intake is appealing to me.

 

[kodogtwh]

Gotcha, I've looked into the Scorpio stuff. Not sure if you're familiar with the Tuneport engines in the 3rd Gen F-Body's but the long runner design gave those engines a shit ton of torque in the low end/mid range. Not saying the Ranger 2.9 has Tuneport Injection but the long runner design that it has is the same principle. Just from visual looking at it but I could be totally incorrect.

Anyways, I don't think a Scorpio intake/cam would be a bad idea but not ideal for the application I'm using it for. I rarely ever push the engine past 4,000rpm if not never. I primarily want more low/mid range power and torque. That's why the Morana Intake is appealing to me.

You're missing out on a lot of power by not revving it out to 6000ish. 2.9s don't make torque, that's what 4.0s are for. In order to make torque you gotta add boost, that's what I did.

 

[TexasDuck66]

You're missing out on a lot of power by not revving it out to 6000ish. 2.9s don't make torque, that's what 4.0s are for. In order to make torque you gotta add boost, that's what I did.

I see, to be frank with you, I haven't had much experience with the 2.9L and have only owned this truck since last August. I had a brand new paint job and some body work done and just got finished up back in December. The truck had 106k miles and I'm almost to 110k so haven't had a lot of seat time.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Really nice looking truck. Did you take pics while doing the work?

 

[TexasDuck66]

Really nice looking truck. Did you take pics while doing the work?

Yes sir I did although I did not do the work myself. I had friend of mine do it for me.

I bought this truck out of Fredericksburg, VA. Truck was a typical "Owned by a Grandpa" and was religiously maintained. The interior is immaculate and was preserved because of the window tint. Had right at 106k miles when I bought it and I have about 109,600ish right now. The underside is completely rust free and has had a full underbelly rust preventive coating.

I'd say the most difficult part of the paint job was the pinstripes. Nobody makes factory vinyl pinstripes for these trucks so I had my buddy hand paint them on and are 100% custom to the truck.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

I think his HP/TQ gains are a bit on the optimistic side from just a throttle body.

But that is a damn good looking truck.

As far as the earlier comment about revving to 6k....theres no reason for that. First off im not 100% sure itll get that high before the valves float, secondly redline is 5500, and thirdly max torque is 2600 and max HP is 4600. Much above that youre just making noise.

 

[odintj]

Hi there, I bought a all original and very well kept Extended Cab 88' XLT 4x4 2.9L '5 Speed with 106k miles last year in August. Truck runs great without any issues and still does now. View attachment 105701

I've been in the Ranger game for a while now and know the 2.9 Cologne is not very popular and aftermarket performance stuff is pretty limited. Plus it has it's issues regarding the dreaded lifter tick. Tommy Morana is one of the few if not the only company that I have found that even makes 2.9 stuff.

I was pretty interested in their bolt on Twin Throttle Body Intake that they sell and I had talked to Tommy himself earlier today about it. He had explained that the Upper Intake is bolt on with some minor modifications to the throttle cable and a custom air intake. But it would not require any ECU tuning due to the system being Speed Density ran.

It advertises that it adds over 20hp/30lb-ft of torque and considering that these engines came factory with 140hp, it would help getting it up to speed quicker. I don't want to turn it into a race truck, just make it where it can get out of its own way.

Has anyone here bought and used this on their 2.9? What was their experience like and did they have any issues? Would it be a easy bolt on power adder and be viable for my application? Would I need any ECU tuning?View attachment 105700

I bought this same intake for my ranger before I sold it . It bolted on no problem and I noticed a nice difference.. I bought the fuel rails with it aswell they looked so nice . I regret selling it

 

[kodogtwh]

I think his HP/TQ gains are a bit on the optimistic side from just a throttle body.

But that is a damn good looking truck.

As far as the earlier comment about revving to 6k....theres no reason for that. First off im not 100% sure itll get that high before the valves float, secondly redline is 5500, and thirdly max torque is 2600 and max HP is 4600. Much above that youre just making noise.

My truck made faster passes in the 1/8th mile revving it to 6 as opposed to 5500. Still not fast compared to walking, but definitely faster. Either way there's 2,000rpm of power on the table for OP

 

[rusty ol ranger]

My truck made faster passes in the 1/8th mile revving it to 6 as opposed to 5500. Still not fast compared to walking, but definitely faster. Either way there's 2,000rpm of power on the table for OP

Yours also has forced induction and from your previous post im assuming a scorpio intake which by your own admission "moves the powerband up".

Besides that cranking it to 6000 (or even 5500 for that matter) probably doesnt bode will with the health of the engine.

 

[kodogtwh]

Yours also has forced induction and from your previous post im assuming a scorpio intake which by your own admission "moves the powerband up".

Besides that cranking it to 6000 (or even 5500 for that matter) probably doesnt bode will with the health of the engine.

That was before I did any modification to the truck. I should have contextualized it, my bad. At the time all it had was a cone filter intake. On that same truck, again before I modified it, I drove it like I stole it for a year (30,000 miles) with no noticable affect on the engine's health. No oil consumption, no extra noises, nothing but the occasional leak that an old engine develops.

 

[gaz]

@TexasDuck66 ,
Not to bag on Mr. Morana or his products but for a no hassle installation and very little expense a 86-87 stock 2.9l T/B can be overbored and yield a consistent +3 hp bump across the RPM band with no other actions required (approximately 50% more yield than the HP increase from a +0.05" overbore rebuild).

I realise that +3 hp doesn't sound like a heck of a lot but that increase will be realized at every engine RPM and not effect the max HP/TQ RPM requirements