1995 2.3 in a 1989?

[LilBJessup]

Does anyone know if a 95 2.3 would be a direct swap in the place of a 1989 2.3? I know the crank position sensor changed, but would it be plug and play?

 

[adsm08]

Any time you take an engine from one year to put in a different year plan on needing to swap sensors and manifolds at the least.

 

[LilBJessup]

I appreciate it!

 

[adsm08]

Honestly, what I would do, if you are going the buy a spare and rebuild it, have everything ready to go except the camshaft. Then when you put it in use your old cam.

In 94 for Cali engines and 95 for Federal engines the cams and rockers changed. Using an old style cam with new style rockers is supposed to produce a valve lift of .443 and add a total of 4 seconds duration to both valves. The gains might be high up in the RPM band (but the 2.3 already loves to spin fast, so who cares) but that should give her a nice kick in the pants. I know you are looking for power.

The problem with just throwing the newer rockers in an older engine is that the valve diameters changed too and the older heads have the bigger valves, so the new rockers wouldn't fit.

I actually have a set of newer rockers to get cut out, I'm just waiting for my guy to be less busy. I'm hoping to do this to the wife's Mustang this summer when I do the timing belt.

 

[scotts90ranger]

I doubt there's much difference in the cam swap, so don't know if I would worry about trying that...

Shouldn't be too hard, but there's going to be some differences, the crank sensor is the biggest one, that will require changing the front seal housing as that's where the sensor is on a '95 and making a template for the crank sensor bracket off of the old block (be as close as you can, it's important...). Get yourself a 6mm tap and drill the 3 holes, two for bolts, one for a stud, use a 6mm bolt with a shoulder and cut the head off for a stud, then loctite it in.

From there, there's going to be other things like the throttle position sensor is most likely different, you're going to have to find a spot to plumb in the MAP sensor from the '89 (the vacuum hose that connects to the upper firewall on the passenger side, just above the heater core hoses), that needs to go to a vacuum port between the head and throttle not before the throttle... you might have to use the fuel rail from the '89 as the hoses are going to be different... better yet, probably keep the stock '89 intake manifold as you're going to need the DIS module mount that's on the lower intake... the ports should be the same since they're both DIS.

The front end is going to be different, and the oil pump is most likely behind the AUX pulley so some of the old brackets might not work, I don't know if the coil bracket that is on the exhaust side of the engine in the front will bolt on the new head, but it might, a '95 has both coils on the same side I think...

Shouldn't be too many surprises...