- Joined
- Jan 25, 2012
- Messages
- 120
- Points
- 1,601
- City
- Pennsylvania
- Vehicle Year
- 1987
- Transmission
- Automatic
Well here's my second ranger project I'm attempting. Picked up a rust free 1987 ranger with a blown tranny to be the project. Here she is.
With the tired 2.9L
I picked up an old 68' 302 out of a torino with a set of used E7te-PA heads. Not too pretty but she cleaned up nice.
I'm about 2 months into this project so I'm gonna post a lot of progress in the next day or two. Then I'll post as I make progress.
So the engine was torn down and I discovered it was recently bored .30 over with newer forged pistons so I was lucky. So my 302 is actually a 306. Freshened up the rest of the block and rotating assembly and started to reassemble. I had my heads, oil pan, and timing cover sandblasted. These next few pics are about a months amount of work when I had time.
Onto the heads where what felt like countless hours were spent on, I heavily ported and polished the e7's and got a trick flow valve spring upgrade kit for them. I'd say not too shabby. Following a very helpful online guide for porting these exact heads helped me a ton. I was very pleased with the final outcome.
Sadly I didn't take many pics of the porting. The work was so tedious and time consuming it slipped my mind. The port on the far left is done in the picture and that's what I repeated on both heads. The exhaust ports were very restrictive and probably where I made the most gains. I then went and polished the chambers, and exhaust ports to a nice shine. Once the heads were finished and cleaned I assembled my new springs and valves. You can see the exhaust ports here and the springs installed. I threw some rockers on just to check fitment and alignment with the new springs.
At this point I loosely assembled the engine for painting. No gaskets and only a few bolts holding on the oil pan and timing cover. I installed a few head studs to hold the heads on for painting. Here is the tape job and painting.
And finally, I went with Eastwood's Deep Ford Blue ceramic paint for the engine and here's the finished product.
And I finished up with a gloss black oil pan and in the future valve covers.
Now to catch everyone up. I dissembled everything and did a final assembly up to my intake so here's where I'm currently at on the engine.
Hope y'all enjoy this thread I'll post as progress is made. Future plans include a complete interior makeover which is currently underway, rear end swap, a slight truck lowering and much much more. Stay tuned!
With the tired 2.9L
I picked up an old 68' 302 out of a torino with a set of used E7te-PA heads. Not too pretty but she cleaned up nice.
I'm about 2 months into this project so I'm gonna post a lot of progress in the next day or two. Then I'll post as I make progress.
So the engine was torn down and I discovered it was recently bored .30 over with newer forged pistons so I was lucky. So my 302 is actually a 306. Freshened up the rest of the block and rotating assembly and started to reassemble. I had my heads, oil pan, and timing cover sandblasted. These next few pics are about a months amount of work when I had time.
Onto the heads where what felt like countless hours were spent on, I heavily ported and polished the e7's and got a trick flow valve spring upgrade kit for them. I'd say not too shabby. Following a very helpful online guide for porting these exact heads helped me a ton. I was very pleased with the final outcome.
Sadly I didn't take many pics of the porting. The work was so tedious and time consuming it slipped my mind. The port on the far left is done in the picture and that's what I repeated on both heads. The exhaust ports were very restrictive and probably where I made the most gains. I then went and polished the chambers, and exhaust ports to a nice shine. Once the heads were finished and cleaned I assembled my new springs and valves. You can see the exhaust ports here and the springs installed. I threw some rockers on just to check fitment and alignment with the new springs.
At this point I loosely assembled the engine for painting. No gaskets and only a few bolts holding on the oil pan and timing cover. I installed a few head studs to hold the heads on for painting. Here is the tape job and painting.
And finally, I went with Eastwood's Deep Ford Blue ceramic paint for the engine and here's the finished product.
And I finished up with a gloss black oil pan and in the future valve covers.
Now to catch everyone up. I dissembled everything and did a final assembly up to my intake so here's where I'm currently at on the engine.
Hope y'all enjoy this thread I'll post as progress is made. Future plans include a complete interior makeover which is currently underway, rear end swap, a slight truck lowering and much much more. Stay tuned!
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