My thoughts exactly. I went ahead and traded my '99 in on it anyway though.

 

I have a 1993 Ranger 4x4 with the 5r55e trainy. I understand that the 4x4 adds about 500 lbs to the frontend but there has to be something I can do to get better gas milage. I guess my probem is I drove 2 rangers with the 2.3 L in them for 6 years and now that I have the 4L i AM MISSING THE FUEL ECONOMY!. But dont get me wrong, I will sacrafice the fuel for the power anyday. The 4.0 Is a really powerful engine. I frequently pull my boat around and it works great. THe 3.0 L on the other hand will pull but nothing like the 4.0 I LOVE IT AND WONT GO ANYOTHER WAY.

Love the man with no gas money....

 

I have a 1999 3.0L that I ordered new in 99. Should have got the 4.0L. The 3.0L is slow, especially with a 2000lb trailer behind it. My 88 Merc with a 5.0L gets equal gas mileage. I get 15-20 with the ranger depending on the time of year.

 

i have a 99 ranger and 89 mercury. what is yours? mine is a grand marquis. And yeah, even with the 5.0 it got good mileage

 

My Merc is an 88 Grand Marquis GS, and I love it, only 84K miles and runs great. It is my everyday driver because I have so many problems with my Ranger. The Ranger just sits in the back yard collecting dust because every time I drive it something goes wrong.

 

im shure its diffrent in a ranger chassis (gear ratios and so forth) but the 3.0 in the taurus really has impressed me. we get 23 m.p.g around town and 29 m.p.g. highway. penty of passing power and uses no oil. my ranger with the 4.0 gets me a consistant 17 mpg and the only thing i dont like is it seems to take it a bit longer to fire up in the morning (starter cranking time) but all in all its a great step up from my '88 2wd s/c with the 2.3 i test drove a new ranger with a 4.0 when they first came out with the engine and i thought wow, this feels like a 302, and really it is close to the same horsepower of the old 302-2v, but with less weight.

 

how about a 4.6L in a ranger? hell, make it the mustang engine and sell it as a 2wd shortbed. something to beat on the dakotas with v8s, i dont know why ford is ignoring this sector of the market.

 

One of the huge reasons people buy Rangers instead of F-150s is for fuel economy. So why put a V8 in the Ranger? It would defeat the purpose. If it's power you want, that can be had with 6-cylinders. GM makes a 6-cylinder engine that produces almost 300 horsepower. A V8 would be silly.

 

I have an 89 mercury grand marquis 5.0. I was planning on selling it to help out on my truck payments but you have got me thinkin'. Would that 5.0 mount to my 99 ranger tranny? Or are my dreams of a 5.0 ranger slipping away?. And i know there's more to it that a few bolts, but what exactly does it take to swap an engine. P.S. I also have a '79 351 M, but that is too good to betrue to have that in the ranger.

 

You're a little off about why people buy the Rangers. I bought mine over the 150 because of space considerations. Just try driving an F-150 in bumper to bumper traffic, parallel parking on a busy street, parking in urban parking garages with their micro-compact parking spots. It just ain't worth it, I bought my Ranger because I can drive it like a car in traffic - and haul a load if I have to. My '00 Ranger drives just like a car, its low to the ground, its quiet, its responsive in the tranny, its steering is tight, it just doesn't haul as much as the big boys.
Believe me, I used to haul farm implements back and forth between farms in my boss's F-350 and that's something I'd never want to relive - heck I'd rather take his banged up '68 Dodge with the 200 gallon diesel tank in back and the exhaust pipes coming out of the front grille.

 

both the 302 and the 351w fit in the ranger and its been done, i guess a 3 inch body lift makes the process go easier for a 351w, but it possible with out one, they make kits, books, and such on doing it, its been done many times, i think you need to get the tranny out of the donar vehicle, the 302/351w will rip the ranger tranny to shreads, but they make all kinda of adapters for transfer cases/drive shafts/bellhousings/motor mounts and such. Remember, its very possible, and its been done many times, check out advanced adapther, or just go to your favorite search engine and type in 5.0 ranger or somthing like that, theres alot of resources, also check out www.ford-trucks.com for a page on conversions, there's alot of info out there

 

Eh...no, not really. So what anyway? The SOHC creates more peak horsepower, and it doen't have a heavy valvetrain weighing it down. Fact of the matter is that the SOHC is the highest evolution of the Cologne motor family. If the OHV is so great, why is it gone? I will say it again that the OHV was only kept around so people could still buy an Explorer with a manual option. Sure, it doesn't have cam train problems, but I can't stand that wrist pin racket. Drive a 4.0 SOHC with 4.10s, and tell me it's not the great V-6 you have ever driven. Imagine this motor in a light-weight car.

As well, that I-6 in the TrailBlazer sure ain't making what Chevrolet claims it to be.

 

I BOUGHT A 2003 4.0L AUTO EDGE IN OCTOBER . I LIVE IN ORANGE COUNTY CALIFORNIA AND I TOOK A TRIP TO UTAH. ROUGHLY BURNED 3/4 TANK FROM O.C TO LAS VEGAS AVERAGE SPEED 75 MILES AN HOUR SO THE ENGINE IMO KICKS ***
,MY FRIEND HAS A 2000/2001 EDGE 3.0L MANUEL AND BURNS A LITTLE MORE GAS ON THE SAME ROUTE I-15 ALL THE WAY BUT I THINK IT'S HOW YOU DRIVE THE STICK

COULD SOMEONE TELL ME ABOUT THE DIFFERENTAL?
IS ONE WHEEL TURNING OR BOTH PLEASE FORGIVE ME I'M NEW TO THIS THANKS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS

 

Eh...yeah, really. The "old marbly" 4.0L makes, what, about 230 ft./lbs. of torque at 3,000 RPM? The SOHC 4.0L only makes about 240 ft./lbs. at 3,250 RPM. That's virtually identical power. And that torque (twisting force) is all the transmission really ever sees. So to say Ford only kept the OHV 4.0L around so that it wouldn't shred the transmission is not correct. I personally have driven a 4.0L SOHC with a manual transmission...the same manual transmission that was mated to the 4.0L OHV the year before. They still make them today.

Ford probably got tired of people complaining about the noise the OHV engine made, even though it was a harmless noise in 99% of cases, and experimented with the SOHC version in the Explorer first and then moved it to the Ranger. It is not a superior engine. It will not achieve better fuel economy, will not tow more weight, and hasn't yet proven that it can last longer either.

I am satisfied with mine for the most part. But I definitely do not think it's better than the OHV version in my old '99 model. In any case, it still provides more power than you can get from any of the competition so that's really what counts.

 

Physics teachers everywhere are cringing at this portion of the post!