Pulled the turbo ranger out of storage...

[Sevensecondsuv]

Pulled the turbo ranger out of storage... Now with Pictures!

I've had my ranger in storage for the past 3 months seeing as how I just painted it last summer. It warmed up the past few days and melted all the crap off the roads then it rained a 1/2" yesterday which really cleaned the roads up. Now it's back to about 15 and the next 3 days are supposed to be clear.

I got off work today and couldn't think of anything better to do so I decided to go get the ranger out. I filled it up with premium, turned the fuel pressure up a couple psi, and then took it for a few blasts! All I gotta say is....



WOW!!!!!! An intercooler works really well when the surroundings are at 10 degrees!!!!!!!

I was running 17 psi with no detonation. The truck was absolutely screaming. I couldn't shift through 1st or 2nd fast enough to keep up with the engine. The 3rd gear pull from 55 to 85 takes about 3 seconds.

Man I almost forgot how good a whistling turbo sounds....

 

[skyy_4life]

thats amazing. wut all engine work u have in it? internals? turbo type?

 

[Sevensecondsuv]

Turbocoupe pistons with ranger rods (same as turbocoupe rods) on a ranger crank in 1990 dual plug ranger block with an extremely home ported (flows 65% over stock) dual plug head. Turbocoupe computer, large vam, and 35 lb/hr injectors. Home ported dual plug intake. Jess Warren's (rangersrevenge.com) header. 255 lph walbro fuel pump, kirban adjustable fuel pressure regulator. The turbo is a Garrett T3 off a 88 XR4Ti, with .48 A/R hotside and .60 A/R coldside. Boost is controlled by an adjustable boost controller from www.boostvalve.com hooked up to the internal wastegate. Then full 3" exhaust with a almost straight through muffler. 2.5" intercooler piping with a 12x28 front mount intercooler behind the grille.

The trans is the stock ranger M5OD with a centerforce dual friction clutch (which I like a lot and doesn't ever slip!). The rear end in an 93 explorer 8.8 with 3.73 gears and a tight L/S.

Future plans are megasquirt, larger (like 55 lb/hr) injectors, either a holset off a dodge or a T3/T4 combo turbo, and crank the boost up past 20 (may require at least some E85).

 

[skyy_4life]

can i get a picture of ur intercooler because if u look at my thread i am having problems with my intercooler. lol.

 

[RacinNdrummin]

Wheres the pics???????

 

[Sevensecondsuv]

Well I decided to take the engine apart and switch out the head gasket because I've been seeing traces of coolant in the oil over the last 2 oil changes. So right now there's not much to look at.... Unless you like the look of a 4 cylinder block with no head on it...

Yes putting an intercooler in there takes some creativity. I had to get the 28" long one even though the 32" one seems a lot more common on ebay. I don't think a 32" one will fit. I had to cut two holes in the radiator support for the intercooler piping to go through. The intercooler itself is mounted on top of a piece of 3/4" pipe I welded between the frame rails. The intercooler is 3" wide and there is about 3-1/4" spacing beween the grille and radiator support, so all I did was putting a little rubber padding between all the surfaces and it holds it in place very rigidly and gently. I also had to cut the center tab mount thingy off the strip of filler metal between the bumper and grille. That tab would be right smack in the middle of the intercooler.

Now granted this is on a square 2nd generation truck so I'd imagine your rounded 3rd gen. might be a little different. I'll try to get pics tomorrow, I'm busy the rest of today. I'm also hoping to get it all put back together tomorrow, just need to get my dad to help me lift the head+header+turbo+intake assembly back onto the engine.

 

[Hibs]

was your ranger a 2.3 before you swapped?

i'm in the process of swapping a 90 ranger with a 2.9 over to a 2.3T from an 88TC, just wanted to know how big of pain the wiring is going to be.

 

[skyy_4life]

take some pics i wanna see this truck. even with it apart it sounds like a beast. yes i alrdy finished my intercooler and i cut out a peice of core support and welded in steel supports underneath the intercooler and finished it up nicly. ill post pics tomorrow or so.

 

[Sevensecondsuv]

Mine was a 2.3 to start with so I just used the existing harness and had to move a few wires around at the computer connector. I also had to add wires for things the ranger harness didnt have, like the electric fans (which I didn't end up using), change the MAF wires to VAM wires, BAP sensor, boost control solenoid (which I also ended up not using).

 

[Sevensecondsuv]

Pictures as promised!

Here is the engine bay:




Intercooler:


The truck:

 

[skyy_4life]

damn thats sexy. is it lowered at all? looks like a nice stance. size of frontmount?

 

[pearldrumbum]

Howd you make the Dual spark ignition work with the turbocoupe computer?

Is the fuel pump inline after the in tank one, or is it replacing the in tank one completely?

 

[scotts90ranger]

the DIS isn't too hard to swap over to, hardest part is getting the crank sensor on a non DIS engine...

 

[Sevensecondsuv]

Not lowered. Stock heigth with 215/70R15 tires. No offense if yours is lowered, but IMO lowered trucks are for guys who cant get it up. 2wd is cool, but I just hate the look of a lowered truck.

Front mount is 12x27.

DIS is easy. Just hook the wires from the ranger harness up to the right pins on the turbo computer and computer doesn't know the difference. It still thinks theres a TFI dizzy on the other end. TFI and DIS use all the same signals so it's a piece of cake swap. I re-used the ranger block (with a good honing) so mounting the crank trigger was putting the stock part back on.

The fuel pump is a walbro 255 lph that is a direct replacement for the single in tank pump that 89-97? ranger's run. Most all fords from that era use the same size/shape/hookups fuel pump just with different capacities. The walbro pump is the same part no for the ranger, mustang, and others. One problem I did run into was using the stock return line I had 70 psig at the rail because the stock return line was too small for the new higher flow rate and caused restriction, forcing up the pressure. To fix this I ran a new 3/8" fuel return line from the discharge of the FPR back to the tank. After that it's back at 35 psig at the rail just like it always was.

 

[skyy_4life]

Not lowered. Stock heigth with 215/70R15 tires. No offense if yours is lowered, but IMO lowered trucks are for guys who cant get it up. 2wd is cool, but I just hate the look of a lowered truck.

ouch... that hurt. and yes my truck is lowered

lol no offense taken. but i still like my trucks lowered.