Doing the turbo swap.

[nicholasgreen]

OK tomorrow I am going and picking up a 87 turbo coupe. It is a complete car. I have been doing a lot of reading up on the swap and so far this is what I want to do. I want to use my 8 plug head off my 89 ranger. So I know I need to convert the TC motor and computer to DIS and swap the head. Any one have pics of how to wire this up?

I also want to use the TC transmission. So I have read I will need to make a bracket or move my cross member. I am choosing to move the cross member. Again any pics of this being done.

I also should say I'm using the wiring harness and computer form the TC.

Also has any one swapped the TC instrument cluster in to a ranger? Again pics would be great as well.

Any other things I should know before doing this.

Thanks

 

[nicholasgreen]

No one has any tips or anything?

 

[boosted2.3]

I have a question, why do you want to use the dis head?? I don't think there is an advantage with it. Just use the T-bird motor as it came out . I used an 88 and just stripped out the eng harness including all the fuseable links and overlayed it to my truck harness. It works great and was easy to wire .

 

[scotts90ranger]

your '89 is basically exactly what I did. Use the stock ranger harness, it will save a LOT of headaches, simply strip the connectors off for the components that you need to add and go from there. Swap the ranger throttle body on and that'll connect right up, nearly all sensors are the same between the ranger and TC, no reason to change harnesses, there's only like 5 wires to add and about the same amount removed or moved.

I wouldn't bother swapping heads, the DIS works fine on 4 plugs, take the old engine and pull the front cover off, make an accurate template for the 3 holes you need to drill and tap in the front of the block for the crank sensor. The two bolt holes are 6mm, and for the alignment pin I used a 6mm bolt with a long shoulder and cut the head off after loctiting it in. To make the DIS work on 4 plugs, cut the connector for the drivers side coil pack off (leave a pigtail just in case) and splice the two outer wires together and run them to a ground, terminate the middle wire. For a heat sink for the ignition module I have about 1 square foot of 1/8" aluminum plate attached to the inner fender, I'm going to make one that mounts between the two intake halves sorta like stock at some point in the near future.

If your truck has a manual in it now, I would suggest keeping that tranny, they handle the extra power fine, I know I've been abusing mine and it shifts great. I would keep the TC tranny around though in case...

 

[nicholasgreen]

It's up in the air. Some say dis some say duel dis and others say distribtor. I dont know.

 

[dangeranger93]

I agree with using the ranger harness as well as the ranger transmission, i used both and its still going.
as for your head issue it depends on what you want the 87 d port head is the better of the turbo heads if im not mistaken, I use a 93 ranger dp head. Also DIS or not is what you want, I like the dis only thing is if you want to adjust your timing you have to get a chip and tune it, no more turning the distributer

 

[scotts90ranger]

I don't think the extra horse or two is worth going backwards in reliability going to the TFI ignition.

I'll agree, the reliability of my setup hasn't been the best, but I've caused most of it using questionable parts not executed the beset.

 

[Captn awesome]

I just did this swap in my ranger and can't get it to run right boost is hit and miss past 1/4 throttle I kept ranger harness spliced in what I didn't have( unsure if I did that right) I also swapped for my 4 prong fuel rail harness and ranger injectors i had to run the ranger ecu because truck won't start with t bird ecu any idea's