Where to turn

[MrFixIt]

Hey guys I have a 94 ranger 2.3 8 plug and I was wondering where I could get a decent tuner. I've been looking all over it seems and cant decide, I really just wanna boost fuel economy more on longer trips, but I do like those hp gains. I guess what I'm asking is what programmer would be beat for my truck?

 

[Will]

Need more air going through it for it to make more power and a tuner doesn't provide more air. The fuel injection system already on the truck can measure additional air and correct for it so I would go that route with it.

I have tuners on 2 types of vehicles. One is a direct-injected turbo car that can make use of additional fuel through the turbo. The other is a motorcycle that uses a simple look-up table (no air measuring sensor) and uses a wide-band 02 sensor, tachometer and throttle position sensor to hold the mixture at a selected A/F at each given rpm/throttle setting. Your engine can't benefit from either of those scenarios. The tuner would be a waste of money. Installing a header and free-flowing exhaust would be a much more effective use of money, and your engine will automatically adjust to use that benefit.

If you want to add something, I like to install a Scanguage. Once you figure out how to program it, it will tell you secret stuff that is going on with your fuel injection, real-time as you drive.

 

[scotts90ranger]

actually on the 2.3L short of porting the intake manifold, head work and camshaft the exhaust won't do much as the 2.3L's are known for a nice exhaust manifold or header from the factory, all the restriction is at the head mainly on the intake side.

That said, I'm with what Will said, modest foot control on the throttle, a healthy engine and components will get you way more than a tuner. You have to be able to let the air in and flow it freely to get both power and efficiency. To some extent an engine capable of high power can be very efficient (camshafts with overlap and some other extreme power thing aside), which is why most engines have much more power than they used to and are also smaller than ever...

 

[MrFixIt]

I took the intake noise damper out, idk how much that does but it has a drop in k&n. So I need head work? Ballpark about how much that would be and what would the safest limit to bore the intake/exhaust knowing that both are different sizes?

 

[adsm08]

A scangauge won't go real far on an OBDI vehicle, so there's that. The computer has all the data it gives available, just the hookups are wrong.

As for costs, those are hard to estimate as the machine shop rates are going to vary wildly by location. Try calling a local machine shop and ask for some numbers.

As for how far can you go, you should be safe with port-matching, which is all the bigger you can go and still have something to gain. If you make your intake ports on the head bigger than the ones on the intake now the intake manifold is the restriction, and it is hard to make that bigger.

 

[MrFixIt]

Thank you

Ok thank you everyone, I really appreciate. The more I learn the more fun I can have, ya know.

 

[Will]

A scangauge won't go real far on an OBDI vehicle, so there's that.

Oh, yeah.