Rising emissions standards is the reason, and it's not just CA and MA that got these trucks it's all the others and Canada too. CA and MA have stricter state emissions standards then the Federal Govt so they often got these trucks a year before everybody else, for example there are OBD-2 trucks with a '95 build date in Cali.

 

Ok I did some research over on the TRS forum and it would appear the 4-cyl MAF Rangers were indeed batch fired not sequential just like the Turbo car engines... cylinders 1&4 together and 2&3 together. The switch to sequential injection corresponded with the switch to the more powerful OBD-2 system which occured as early as '94 in California it would seem.

 

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts decided that new vehicles sold here would comply with California Emission standards back around 2000. I think some other states are also adopting the stricter California standards.
regards
rikard

 

OBD2 was a federal mandate required on vehicles starting in model year '96 but Ford rolled it out to a few product lines (nation-wide) in '95 since it was ready. The Ranger was one of those, making the '95 model desirable to some tuners since it has OBD2 but is not tested as such from an emissions standpoint.

 

In other posts I have read there doesn't seem to be a LARGE performance gap between SD and MASS Air. Was the government's push to MASS Air all based on inflated numbers they thought would help emissions or is the difference between SD and MASS Air that noticeable?

 

The government/EPA did not push mass-air. There are still speed-density cars being made today, some of them with quite high performance engines too.

Ford for whatever reason felt that it was easier for them to meet the EPA's tightening emissions standards and their customer's ever increasing NVH standards with SEFI and Mass-Air.

 

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