Couple 4 cylinder Ranger Questions

[cdnturboz]

I have a 2.3L turbo engine from an old merkur xr4ti kicking around and I've been wanting to swap it into an 88-92ish Ranger.

What I'm wondering, did Ford make a 4cylinder 4X4 within those years?
Would a 2.9L V6 4x4 truck work?

Thanks

 

[adsm08]

The engine will bolt into any year Ranger, not matter what engine it originally came with. You just need the 2.3L engine mounts. 4-banger 4x4s were around up until about 97, but most of the transmissions are not likely to stand up to a turbo 2.3 for too long. The T-5 is the choice of most for that duty, and I don't know that a turbo 4 T-5 can be made into a 4x4 trans. I'm not all that familiar with them.


The wiring and engine controls will be a bit more work, but still very doable.

 

[Turbo-T]

I put a 2.3T in my '84 Ranger 4X4. It has the original drive train and it is holding up fine. 'Course I don't drag race it either.
You'll save yourself a lot of grief if you start with a 4 cyl truck. None of the 6cyl tranny's will fit the 4cyl. engine.
Scroll down to forced induction and look around and ask your questions there, then look through the tech section. There's lots of info available.

 

[scotts90ranger]

look for a '87 up for the better tranny, '90 up for better front axle

the Mazda tranny is plenty strong, I've been abusing mine for 20,000 miles with the turbo engine and the only part that's failed is the shifter bushings, tranny had about 200k on it before I put the turbo engine in... so bushings aren't too much of a surprise.

the only way to make a T5 4x4 is use the turbo T5 (the WC are supposed to be the only T5's worth using, the one in the S10 I drove for a while was a real slow shifter...) is to use chevy S10 4x4 stuff swapped to the back of the trans, way easier to just find a 4x4 M5OD or a 4 cylinder 4x2 and 4x4 parts swapped to the back since it'll just bolt in and was meant to work...