1985 2.8L Ranger 4x4 5 speed

[franklin2]

The carb is electronic also and you should change it out. But to be fair, it will run ok with the electronic carb still on there. I did it for about a year till I bought a china knock-off 2100 carb. After installing that, I picked up about 2 mpg. So the electronic carb will run ok, but you will be down on fuel mileage.

There are a couple of other things I had to overcome to initially run the electronic carb with no computer.

1. There is no proper port for the vacuum for the distributor. On the electronic carb I did find the proper ported vacuum port, but it was plugged off by the factory with a hard plastic cap. I had to cut it off with a knife, but it turned out to work good with the vacuum advance on the swapped in distributor. The port was located on the front driver's side of the electronic carb.

2. The choke system. A regular carb has a choke system with a fast idle cam. The cam has multiple steps in it, for different fast idle speeds. I found when I started running the electronic carb with no computer, the fast idle would not work correctly. Come to find out the electronic carb only has one high fast idle step. All the other choke speed steps were taken care of by the idle speed motor which was controlled by the computer. I was able to grind another step in the fast idle cam to give me a middle of the road fast idle for the choke.

 

[StephenF]

Well, the 84 has the electronic distributor also. The carb looks like it is a mechanical chock, so I think I'll try to rebuild it and see how it works. Also found a a 79 Pinto to check out the distributor on. Maybe it will be ok to convert over with some luck.

 

[StephenF]

Finally took some pictures. The only thing I have done is put new tires on it. A previous owner swapped out the doors and tailgate from an '84. I just bought it also and will probably switch the doors back. Just need to make a spot to but the '84.