New to the 2.3L with lots of ??'s

[fireman660r]

Hey everyone. I bought a sandrail last week with a 2.3L turbo in it. I have some questions regarding the setup however. The exhaust manifold is a ford part as well as the intake, it also has a Motorcraft carb on it. The turbo is a garrett. I do not believe that this is a factory set up though. The turbo pushes air to the carb instead of pulling it through. I have been told that I should switch to a side-draft weber set-up, but don't know how. I am curious if the push through set-up would work good if it was set-up correctly. The waste-gate is wired open as of now, because the previous owner said that it ran crappy when the waste gate was closed. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[Sevensecondsuv]

Rip that stinkin carb off and get the factory EFI from a turbo coupe or Merkur or something. Heck, even NA ranger EFI would probably work better than that carb. Carbs and turbo's just don't get along well (actually they can if you really know what you're doing and want to spend days fiddling with it to get it just right)

Slap the EFI on and forget about it and enjoy an engine that is in perfect tune all the time, builds good clean boost, and pulls really hard. Given how easily the 2.3T tosses my ranger around I don't think I'd even want to try full throttle in a sand rail.

 

[dieselboy740]

megasquirt it.

 

[martin]

By their very nature carbs do not like to be blown through. In the early sixties gm tried a blow-through set up with the corvair. they later changed to a pull through setup with the later models which were supposedly much less troublesome. The type of carb would make little difference as the basic problems don't change, a carb is a carb you can't change physics. I would have to agree with the other replies regarding lose the carb and slap an efi setup on there. How you do it would be up to you, it can get very expensive in a hurry. How much boost you want to run would also make a difference in your choice. The megasqirt idea is not a bad one if you are after a lot of power and maximum tunability, it is however not cheap and does require a fair amount of familiarity with engine tunng at the basic level, it's not just slap it on and go. Think this thing through very carefully before you part with your hard earned money, good luck.

 

[fireman660r]

I am wanting to do this on the cheap. Most of the side draft webers I have seen with manifolds are around 1000 bucks. I know I could scour the junkyards and probably find the efi for a turbo-coupe, if that is what I have to do, then so be it. Would a turbo coupe EFI fit right onto my engine if I took enough parts off of the car?? What year did the turbo-coupe go EFI??

 

[scotts90ranger]

I think they went EFI early on, like '81, '85-86 is simplest and many people get rid of most of the stuff to update to the '87-88 stuff...

the intake manifold and such should be able to come from a FI'd ranger or mustang you'll just need the right injectors...

 

[fireman660r]

I found a complete 2.3 out of an 87-88 turbo coupe for $350. Only problem is there is no computer. How hard is it (and how much $$) to get a computer to match the fuel injection? Thanks

 

[Bill G]

Computers are not hard to come by. They are usually $50-80 on Ebay. I'm sure if you ask around someone will have one here, turboford or at turborangerforums.

 

[RangerSVT]

Fireman660r, where are you located?? This will help us help you, we can probably find what you would need kind of cheap. I could get you what you need from a local junkyard minus the computer, there is a large junkyard here that has at least half a dozen complete EFI systems making them kind of cheap. You could get a complete ranger setup, get bigger injectors and just buy a tuner to run a reliable setup, or you can get the ranger intake, engine harness, and hunt down the turbo computer and injectors (turbo coupe injectors are low impedance, naturally aspirated fords are high impedance), and also the vain air meter from a turbo coupe...
SVT

 

[fireman660r]

I am located in Arlington, KS. South central kansas. I am definitely wanting to do this as cheaply as possibly. Thanks for any help.