my broke ass 86 ranger 2.3

[Mikel89us]

Mill the head for compression. .125" is my suggestion.

As for the crank and rods, doing replace them unless needed. If no knocks are present, none of the journals will be bad.

If you are rebuilding it, replace all the bearings, a rebuild is worthless if you blow it up because a bearing fails. New pistons and rings. Buy speedoro pistons and perfect circle rings, both are cheap and reliable. If you want a motor that will last forever, buy moly rings, they last longer and don't wear the cylinders as fast as the stock style cast rings.

 

[Kenneth S]

Before you go honing the block check the bore diameter first, a good machine shop can check it pretty quick, but I think you are going to need new oversize pistons (especially since the engine got washed with gas). If you go oversize on the bore (you will gain a little more compression). On compression ratio if you plan on running 92-93 octane gas all the time then you can go to around 10.0:1, if you are going to run cheap 87 octane gas I wouldn't get to crazy with raising compression.

 

[ricardo93]

Yeah I was thinking of going 10:1 and the highest octane in my area is 91, I don't really trust machine shops in my are so I would have to look around or if there is a trs member here in socal that can point me in the right direction to a good one I'll go there.

And can you please post a link for the pistkns and rings because I only have my cell phone to shop with :-/

 

[Mikel89us]

Where are you from??

 

[Mikel89us]

http://www.northernautoparts.com/part/sl-h537p30

These are 3
.030" overbore.

http://www.northernautoparts.com/part/rs-e442x75mm

These rings are .030" over iron rings

 

[ricardo93]

I live in l.a. county

And thank for the links

So change all the bearings and bolts... and the rods and crank should be fine still right?

 

[Mikel89us]

The head bolts and main cap bolts are not torque to yeild, so the will not need replaced unless they are in bad shape. Rod bolts usually don't need replaced eithr, but its not a bad idea.

 

[ricardo93]

Alright, so if the bottom end bolts still look good I should still use them?

Everything i've read up on for the head bolts on these motors is that they are stretch to yeild, but I planned on replacing them anyway.

Mikel89 could you p.m. the list so I can take it down and have a checklist/shopping list. Thank you

 

[Kenneth S]

Ford went to the "stretch to yield" head bolts in 1983 so if it's a 83 or later engine toss the head bolts for either a new set of stretch to yield bolts, 1982 and earlier head bolts, or ARP head studs. The main bolts can be reused a long with the rod bolts, but getting a new set of ARP rods bolts would be better. When replacing rod bolts have the big end of the rods resized.

 

[Mikel89us]

Kenneth, I have been building these for a while, and the head bolts are all 10 or 11mm around in the middle. There is no way the will stretch at the torque that we put on them. I torque mine to 110 ft lbs, which is way over spec and I have never broken one.

 

[Kenneth S]

Wait until you have one of those STY bolts snap off flush with the top of the block while the engine is still in the truck it's something I don't recomend.

 

[Mark_88]

I thought they were called TTY...torque to yeild...but I've never actually seen them...I pulled five or six from the mustang head that I had rebuilt and some of them were like new so I found ten of them that were in really good condition and used them...some of my bolts have probably came from my original 2.0 but I've got so many of them over the years that I've lost track...

As long as the threads are good and there is no crud in the middle of the bolt the old ones should be fine.

 

[Kenneth S]

Some call the STY (although they are TTY), anyways after my experience with one snapping off (clean threads in the block, and the TTY bolt still looked like new) I don't trust re-using them any further than I have to throw them into my scrap metal bin. Besides I'd hate to tell someone it's ok to re-use them then have them come back to me bitching about one breaking (being the youngest of 4 kids I got blamed, and bitched at all the time while growing up for anything that got broken, when you get older you tend to not want to hear it anymore).

 

[ricardo93]

So as a re-cap I need new bottom end bearings, and bolts, and new pistons rings and head bolts. And possibly the cylinders bored .030 over and the head milled .125"? But the crank and rods themselves are still useful?

 

[Kenneth S]

So as a re-cap I need new bottom end bearings, and bolts, and new pistons rings and head bolts. And possibly the cylinders bored .030 over and the head milled .125"? But the crank and rods themselves are still useful?

The stock crankshaft is plenty stout, and for most people who run 2.3's the stock rods are plenty good. The main bolts are not TTY (torque to yield) bolts so you can re-use them, just the head bolts are TTY bolts (a set of new TTY head bolts are around $30.00). Don't get the rings, and pistons until you know how much the block needs to be re-bored (if it's never been re-built it will probably need to be re-bored).