How do i turbocharge a ford ranger?

[krugford]

Actually, in the engineering world, it's referred to as BSFC. Specifying it merely as SFC is vague. Most of the time, you are talking about BSFC, but what about FSFC, PSFC, ISFC, etc. (friction, pumping, indicated) If you are dealing with combustion related material, then those become very important numbers to pay attention to. If you're simply running an engine in the lab to determine general operating characteristics, then BSFC is the number you'll pay the most attention to when dealing with fuel consumption.

0.6 is rather poor for a modern EFI engine running at WOT. As stated earlier, BSFC is dependent on load. At light load levels, BSFC gets much worse than 0.6. What do you think your BSFC is running down the road? The commonly advertised number for BSFC is determine from peak torque, however, it is not a constant across an engine's operating range.

 

[anupaum]

did a little research, i was wrong about the 14lb injectors (though, thats the stock size used on the non-ffv 3.0). the 2.3 uses 19lb injectors.

What??? You mean I've done all that work only to have the SAME sized injectors on my engine? That doesn't make sense! Even my sweetheart can tell that the engine is MUCH more reponsive with the orange colored, 19 pound / hour injectors I pulled out of an Aerostar.

I'm really confused now!

the stock injectors are good for 144HP of n/a power. not a lot of slop built into the system and definitely not enough for a power adder like a turbo.

I don't think I'm pushing 144 horsepower. I'm pretty sure that it's more like 130 at best, especially because I watched the readings when my truck was on the emissions dyno. (It never even hit 100 horses, though there were no long, hard pulls!) The stock rating for my engine is 100 horsepower at 4 500 rpm. I've based my horsepower estimations on the level of boost I run with the blower attached.

Am I out to lunch, here?

 

[Bill G]

What??? You mean I've done all that work only to have the SAME sized injectors on my engine? That doesn't make sense! Even my sweetheart can tell that the engine is MUCH more reponsive with the orange colored, 19 pound / hour injectors I pulled out of an Aerostar.

The Ranger 2.3 comes factory with 14lb injectors (tan top). I have a couple sets here. Orange or yellow top injectors are 19lb.

And to answer the original thread question again. You can run a low boost system (5psi) with factory 14lb injectors. You can run up to 15-18 psi wih 19lb injectors. I really wish george were still around as he has done it both ways.

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

from what i can tell, the duratec 2.3 comes with 19's. perhaps the earlier SOHC 2.3's used 14's (makes sense, 14's will produce about 106 HP and the pre-OBDII 2.3's made no more then 100HP).

wait, shouldnt his 2000 be a 2.5 lima?

as a side note, it appears the turbo 2.3's (190HP) used 35lb injectors stock. according to a thread over at RPS, guys have gotten between 250-300HP out of these.

 

[Dave R]

0.6 is rather poor for a modern EFI engine running at WOT. As stated earlier, BSFC is dependent on load. At light load levels, BSFC gets much worse than 0.6. What do you think your BSFC is running down the road? The commonly advertised number for BSFC is determine from peak torque, however, it is not a constant across an engine's operating range.

Christ, this is getting OLD.

SFC doesn't change much from WOT to fully throttled. A carbed engine can normally be gotten into the .5 range with ease. If you think an EFI engine can't get below that then your really not paying attention. It is a measure of an engine's EFFICIENCY, PERIOD. If your SFC rises dramaticly at part throttle cruise then you must be getting 10mpg, at best. Why the F**K do you think that the injector pulse rate is reduced at lower power loads? Because less fuel is needed to go with the reduced air charge due to the throttle being partly closed. Otherwise you are not at stochiometric and you are just DUMPING fuel needlessly into the engine.

Let me put it another way, any engine design takes X amount of fuel to produce Y amount of horsepower. More efficient engines have lower SFC numbers, less efficient engines have higher numbers, regardless of the way air gets into the combustion chamber. So an engine at idle is only producing, say 15hp, to tick over, to remain at a chemical ideal it has to inject X amount of fuel to go with the air ingested to produce that power. If it ingests more air and fuel, then the RPM rises and the IAC clamps down, reducing the air ingested, to drop it to the proper level. The computer then reduces the fuel load. So the formula is STILL X amount of fuel to produce Y amount of horsepower. NOTHING can change that.

If you can't understand that then I suggest you spend some time with an actual dyno and it's operator. BTDT, no wait, I was the operator, for a short time.

I'm done with this, you all can believe what you want.

Yes, the OP, whom we seem to have scared off, has a 2.5.

 

[krugford]

You're an operator huh? Then you should know about a standard 8-mode test right? Does constant speed, variable load sound familiar? Since you added "for a short time" on there, is it possible that you didn't see all there was to see about engine testing?

I do work with operators, Dave. My job is to take the data collected in the lab, process it, and build cycle simulation models so that I can run tests on my "virtual" dyno. I do this because it's a lot easier for me to run 5 different intake and exhaust valve profiles than it is to machine them and swap them into the engine one at a time. Most of my time is spent calibrating my virtual model to accurately predict how the engine runs in the lab.
Because I had a slow day at work, I decided to build a simple four cylinder naturally aspirated gas engine on my computer and run a couple tests. This engine was running at a fixed air fuel ratio of 14.7:1, used a standard heat release shape, and was running at 5000 rpm. Here are the results of a throttle sweep (variable load) at a constant speed: Red line is torque output, blue line is bsfc. Simple model yes, but enough to show the basic relationship.



And here's a plot of bsfc against load for an actual engine running on a standard 8-mode test. (variable load, constant speed remember?)




The problem is that you're assuming a constant efficiency for an engine across is operating range. Your also assuming that low loads automatically correspond to low engine speeds. Try driving your truck down the road in first or second gear and see how your mileage turns out. If your engine is running 5000 revs, you're still only producing enough power to drive down the road. So your percent load is only a fraction of what the engine can produce at that speed. Since your running at lower percent load levels, your BSFC will be higher. At lower load levels, your BSFC increases because your engine is becoming less efficient. Your torque output is decreasing, but your fuel input isn't decreasing by as much.

Since this thread has gotten seriously off topic, my advice to the original poster remains the same as what I stated before. If you want to select a turbo that would probably work the best on your truck, find one on an engine that has roughly the same displacement and runs roughly in the same rpm range as the engine you are building and start there. You'll learn a lot in the process and may even decide you want a different turbo. It's all about the experience and the knowledge you'll gain.

Dave, if you have any questions, refer to Heywood. It's a real page turner.

http://www.amazon.com/Internal-Combustion-Engine-Fundamentals-Heywood/dp/007028637X

 

[Rocky Ranger]

My .02 Long but inciteful

There's something funky with that math . . .

Here's the formula I'm familiar with:

InjectorSize = (HorsePower * BSFC) / (#Injectors * DutyCycle)

BSFC should be around .55, and I wouldn't go higher than an 80% duty cycle. With this formula, I come out needing 19 pound / hour injectors for my 130 horse engine. Honestly though, I've never seen anywhere NEAR an 80% duty cycle on any of the datalogs I've done while tuning. (With my foot REALLY into the throttle while racing uphill, my injectors are humming along at 60% or so, and it's not running lean, either!) On one hand, that demonstrates how gentle I am with my truck--which, if it sees 4 000 rpm means that someone ELSE is driving--and on the other, how the math enables us to properly size injectors before we ever drive the machine!

Of course, all of this depends on fuel pressure, too. Once we boost an engine that has a rising rate regulator (like the factory fuel pressure regulator on my truck), one psi of boost = 1 psi of additional fuel pressure. This is why George is able to run 15 or so psi in his machine using the same injectors I'm using at 5 psi.

Also, weren't the stock injectors 15 pounds / hour?

It's easier to tune for a good idle with small injectors because there is more room to play with pulse widths when the need for fuel is small. The engineers at Ford are WAY smarter than I am. Since I've begun this journey into the realm of abnormal aspiration, I've developed healthy respect for those guys!

Ok, 8 (I'm a V-8 guy)19lb/hr fuel injectors at 38lbs of fuel pressure will support about 275 hp with an 80% duty cycle. 24lb/hr injectors will support about 350hp.
One thing to remember is, as boost goes up, more fuel pressure is needed to to maintain the same amount of fuel flow. If your fuel pressure is set to 38lbs with no boost, and you pressurize the intake system with 10 lbs of boost your injectors now act like they have 28lbs behind them trying to squirt fuel into the intake. This is where a FMU come in handy as it references the Vacuum/ pressure and adjusts the fuel pressure accordingly.
Here are a couple of resource links. Although they are not a Ranger site, they contain great information on EEC 3/4/5, turbo charging, Etc...
http://www.corral.net/forums/index.php
http://www.fordfuelinjection.com/
Best of luck with the turbo conversion

 

[Jesshwarren]

2000 is that a 2.3L DT I thought they where still 2.5L


Your best bet will be to keep whatever motor it has and plan on spending 2000$ on internal motor parts 1500$ for tuning and fuel and a large maf meter. SCT can help with tuning.

If you want to go easy you can boost stock motor to 5-8 PSI get a SCT tuner large MAF meter and some 24lb or larger injectors.

Size your injectors by how much power you plan to make. Inj size X 4= __ X 2 = __ HP they can support

42lb injectors X 4 = 168 X 2 = 336 HP

I run SCT in my 98 turbo 2.5L I can pull a 4sec 0-60MPH

 

[Mightyfordranger]

Man this thread has an insane amount of info on it I'm just a new guy to the world of turbos and have yet to learn all of the terms but just googleing around and finding this is sweet im looking to build a 2.3t out of my 2.5 block and I bought a couple books to read and my goal is to k ow absolutely everything about my engine, and turbo setup before I even turn a wrench also where r u guys getting your different injectors at???

 

[bobbywalter]

2007 kid....


things were a little more serious back then around here....a couple of guys here actually built shit and observed what actually happened...and some only work in theory...which is technically correct....but its FU--ING CALLED THEORY FOR A REASON. what you calculate and what really happens....not always on the same page.

and i wish i would have seen this then.

 

[donfordguy]

Wouldnt it be easier to swap in a turboed 2.3 and electronics from like a merkur??

yes it would but place like where I live there is any of them and one you do find one the motor is been taking out or there want like 4000