I have several LMC catalogs, but so far have not ordered anything from them yet, so I personally cannot vouch for them. I would think swapping in a 4.0 V6 or a 5.0 Ve would pretty much be the same thing. Except the V8 would give more power. However, if you had a donor vehicle for either swap it should be a piece of cake. The 302 would be a bit more expensive though since the exhaust would not fit, so you would need to get a kit from Duff, or somebody, also motor mounts would be different.

 

Jim, the 4.0 is straight in swap since it was offered from the factory. The 5.0 takes a lot of fabrication to make work, and the wiring takes a bit of adaptation. There are certain clearance issues that have to be resolved as well. It's not a straight bolt-in swap (believe, me, I know! You've seen mine, it took a lot of work to get that thing in there...)

 

It may have taken a lot of work to get it in there, but your swap looks like it was a factory deal. I was not aware of any fabrication involved in the 5.0 swap. I thought you bought a kit from Duff Enterprises, and just used parts from a donor car/truck. not having done this swap yet, I will defer to your expertise.
I was hoping to do this with my brother's Ranger, but I will not be gettign that since it has not been registered in Oregon, and was last registered in California over 10 years ago. I would not be able to pay the back due fines, and penalties on it.

 

Okay, so does the 2.3 tranny work with the 3.8? I have a fresh 3.8 sitting in the shop and a toasted 2.3 in the car, but I ain't going to go get another transmission just to make the swap...

 

Sorry, the 3.8 was a bolt pattern all by itself. 2.8, 2.9 and 4.0 all shared one pattern, 2.0, 2.3 and 2.5 shared another (with a minor variation in top bolts). The 3.8 may have shared its pattern with the 3.0, I'm not too sure about that, but I know it's not compatible with the 4-bangers.

 

You might check on the CA registration. Usually if a vehicle that has not had the fees paid or put on non op status, will be taken out of the system after 5 years. So if there has been no action taken with the DMV, it most likely is no longer on thier computers.

 

I'll have to check into that, I have heard it was7 years, however, I also heard 10 years. I'll check and see if it is in the system or not.

 

I thought the 3.8 had the same bellhousing pattern as the 5.0?

 

So how can I get to about 200 horses with my 4 banger?

 

For a short time... laughing gas.
tom

 

pull it out and put a 302 in... or rebuild it and put a turbo or supercharger on it, or as said nitrous will work for a little while.

 

If you want 200 reliable hp, then a turbo or supercharger would be the way to go. The 302 in stock trim would give you that easily also.

 

I went and bout a cherrybomb turbo muffler and put it on there and now I need a new tailpipe. I don't care for the sound of it without the tail pipe. If I had the money I would swap a 302 into it. I thought about how great it would be.

 

its a pretty good swap... you get around 20 mpg and more than double the power- especially if you get a hydraulic roller 302 and retrofit it with a carb (makes wiring, tuning, and everything else simple), fab some motor mounts and tranny mounts... throw a c-4 or aod in (either should fit the tranny tunnel ) you will have to customize the driveshaft, but as long as its 2wd and you make the engine carbed its a pretty simple swap. its when you try to make the switch with efi and a computer controlled tranny that you run into big issues. total parts cost was about 1000 dollars- including 300 dollars for a beat to crap 86 ltd that ran good... my friend and i did this to his ranger over the course of about a week.

 

I wouldn't say that EFI causes big issues. The wiring is just a bit more involved but if you have decent soldering skills, it's not too bad. There are basically 15 wires that need connecting and some re-routing of wires. Even swapping EFI into a carbed truck isn't too bad, as there are some good aftermarket kits available. His truck is already EFI however.

And of course the heater box requires some modification. Several kits are availble, some kits include matched headers and mounts (if you wish to go with headers).

I chose to make my own mounts and modified some headers I already had (partly because of the heads I used and partly for steering clearence).