Best year for turbo 2.3 and what trans???

[Got302ci]

Got a 95 ranger that I put a 302 in, its getting old and gets horrible mileage for the power it has.

I am going to put a turbo 2.3 in it all I need to know is what were the best years to look for??

Also what manual transmissions bolt up to it?? Its 2wd btw.

Do these motors use the small block pattern or a pattern all to themselves??


How much power can I expect from stock parts (turbo, intercooler, ect??)

 

[scotts90ranger]

'87/88 thudnerbird turbocoupe are the best to look for, about 190hp stock, if you increase the boost to around 15psi you'll be in the 225hp range and you won't have to change anything... the bottom end is supposed to handle upwards of 300hp.

as far as best tranny, that's somewhat of a controversy, some will say M5OD (myself included) some will say WC T5, I like the M5OD because it was stock and works fine.

 

[Got302ci]

Thanks thats sweet now I just gotta find a engine!!

The M5OD is the trans that came behind the 2.3 stock???

 

[scotts90ranger]

yep, I've put 20K on mine since the swap, it had nearly 200K on it before that...

 

[Lynx_Gen]

the engines are essentialy all the same.. theres a short and tall valve cover if i understand it right, one has a relief in the top to clear the intake tube...

I would jsut look for a low milage turbo engine above all else.

the key difference with the thunderchickens are the VAM is slightly larger/better sized, (Not sure, but maybe handles more flow as well) and the Brainbox out of those is the most desired.

aside from that, its pretty near all plug and play type stuff..

some other slight differences im aware of is XR4Ti specific, not sure about other vehicles tho:
The auto Merkurs had thier boost limited keeping them down to around 150HP due to the auto tranny they used.

The Manual ones were set to around 15-18Psi and had around 175Hp.

the coveted thunderchickens had a whopping (lmao) 220Hp, and this was due to the intercooler, larger vam and puter.

its reported that essentialy, with a large intercooler, 3inch exhaust, resized injectors/fuel supply and mild tuning/chip, near to 300hp is achievable.

essentialy any one will do the job, but the thunderchicken vam and ecu is the one you want

 

[Surrey]

What about an 84-86 SVO? They also had the 2.3l turbo with an intercooler? Any idea about them?

 

[tcranger]

the svo's and the 87-88 turbo coupes both had intercoolers and a big vam. the computers were different thought the thunderbird had either lb3 or a la2. not sure what the svo's had. i love my swap i can get 35mpg on the highway but in the city i only get 17-18mpg. which is still pretty good imo.

here is a lot of good information on what cars had what also
http://www.40bob.com/?loc=faqs

 

[AllanD]

thre were only ever 9844-ish SVO's made (all years combined)

and only the last year and a half of production got the big VAM.

1987 alone there were a total of over 23,833 turbocoupes made
in 1988 another 37,252 Turbocoupes. so Intercooled thunderbird
turbocoupes are atleast six times as common as SVO's

Add to that the Turbocoupes used a larger intercooler than the SVO

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