What can we fit in a third gen ranger?

[b3million]

Hey fellas. I've been doing a whole lot of browsing on the forums lately picking out a swap motor, seeing as I haven't bought anything yet, but in around a year or two I'll likely have the money to start my first project with this truck. So- I wanna ask- What can we fit in a third gen? We know the 5.0 Windsor can be fit without issue, but what about a boss 302 (pushrod) crate from Ford? Someone was swapping a 6.8 v10 in there, I saw that too. What about a 5.4? I've seen the idea thrown around, but no clue if it's been done.

The rules are as follows: No frame stretching or having to cut the fenders to lengthen the engine bay. Engine bay has to stay the same dimensions as before, but everything inside is fair game. Let's say for the sake of "fun" we're working with a 4wd truck with torsion bars, which puts a hard limit on how tall the motor can be. Lift kits of any type are allowed. You can cut the hood if you have to, but you have to be able to drive it... which means you have to be able to see. Ford motors preferred, but anything is fine. For the transmission, if you can make it fit, anything goes. Let's imagine we have unlimited money.
If you've seen something crazy that's been done, link it so we can all ogle it.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

For the $$ I would rather do a 7.3 or 6.8 Godzilla pullout over a Boss 302 crate engine if they even exist.

 

[PetroleumJunkie412]

2.9l

No, I'm not joking.

 

[Ranger850]

A guy in New York, tiktok name is The_Baker_man, is doing the ford 300 I6. He's got the block in and didn't have to stretch anything.

 

[Shran]

Engine swaps are kind of on a bell curve if you are familiar with that. On one side you have a lot of older carbureted engines that may be easy but with the tradeoff of low power, weight, poor parts availability. In the middle there are the 5.0 swaps - can be a big complicated with wiring but have been done enough that they're documented. On the other side, you have a lot of newer engines that are light and make a lot of power but require a lot more on the wiring/tuning side. It's easy to say "5.4 swap it" or something like that but you need fabrication skills in addition to wiring skills AND possibly aftermarket support... engine swaps with late model parts get impossibly complex real fast. Making it a 4x4 application increases that complexity even more.

I would like to see someone do a supercharged GM 3.8 V6. I think there are a number of ways to make that happen in a 4x4 platform. VW TDI diesels are high on my list and have been done many times. LS swaps!!! Let's be honest, there are very few of those documented in the Ranger platform but they would be on the easy side of late model engine swaps. Even a Hemi V8 from a newer Ram/Dodge donor would be cool. Or, an EV swap.....

I find it kind of hard to get excited about swapping in a lot of other newer stuff though. We no longer live in the 90's/early 2000's where good donors are easy to find, wiring is primative, and what we started with was kinda crappy from the factory.