That's more like it, I still think it has a bit more 0.050" duration than necessary but it should produce decent power. If you could upgrade the valve springs while you're at it you would make the most of it.

 

That was the smallest off the shelf cam I could find for the Ranger. It list for 400.00. Is it worth the money to cam it? I know a port job is in order to get it to breathe and the stock header should be okay for under 4,000 rpm's.

How much am I overloading by pulling 2,000 lbs?

Cam, ported head, 5 speed manual and 4.56 gears should make it easier, if not easy huh?

 

Maybe one day I can build a 2.5 turbo engine to slide off in it but I would need a tiny turbo to spool up at 1,800 rpm's and boost fully at 3,600 rpm's. 4.10's would be sufficient or even 3.73's for that matter. Oh well one day.

 

Does your truck have air conditioning...

If not then you can cut your heater box, and BOLT ON a turbocoupe manifold and turbo. The early ones were garrett "super 60s" and a little bigger than the air research ones on 87-88 tc. The e6 manifold is better.

Easiest turbo bolt on you'll find.

 

Except its not that simple. You cannot take an engine with a high compression ratio, hot spots in the combustion chamber, barely adequately sized injectors, barely adequate fuel pump, and an undersized MAF sensor and expect it to last. If you bolted on a turbo and ran it on a stock motor like that, I'd give it maybe 500 miles before a piston melted, or head gasket failure.

If you want to turbocharge, you need engine internals rated to handle it.

 

My 97 ranger had 30lb factory injectors.
I bolted the turbo on, hooked maf to the inlet, zero tuning and Volvo intercooler, beat it for 3 years at 7psi.
I did put a 190lph pump in the tank, but as far as REQUIRING better internals and more investment in motor, you don't. A motor and internals are rated for a certain hp, and unless you exceed that, it will be fine.
I ran a stock 5liter with no intercooler, 10psi, and 100hp nitrous for a year. I put an ic on it after a year, and only blew it up because I forgot my tuner and ran 150shot because I thought it was tuned rich enough already.

I suggest getting your ranger tuned, upgrade injectors and fuel pump, but as far as needing a special built motor for the boost you want to put into it, that's not true. Correct tuning will help, research Dyno shops and go there and speak with them to see if they can tune your ecu.

 

Think the cam is about the most I can do right now. Putting the gears in tomorrow. Can't wait to see how they do, but I know it's definitely going to beat what's in it now. Should pull that trailer nicely, then I've got to do the brakes, 60-0 is more important than 0-60 sometimes.

But seriously, how much am I overloading the engine by pulling 2,000 lbs.?

On a previous post, I asked about making 130HP naturally aspirated, I'm not really looking at high horsepower, but more torque, hence the cam. I know I worded the question wrong, horsepower and torque are two totally different things. So now that I righted that wrong, am I heading in the right direction with the gears and cam? And what other things can be done to increase torque?

 

456 gears is the correct direction. You'll be very pleased.
As far as 2000lb being overloaded... If most of the weight is on the trailer, with your maximum tongue weight of the hitch being utilized (on this truck it's probably 300lbs up to 500) then the truck suspension itself isn't being abused. As far as the motor and trans, the gears will help reduce the strain.
You are correct in saying 60-0 is more important. Get some good brake pads, maybe upgrade the rear brakes, add trailer brakes and controller. It takes money to do this correctly and safely.

 

If I could get this engine to pull hard up to 3,500 rpm's, I'd be happy. I calculated my speed (65 in 5th) and rpm's and looks like cruising speed will be around 2,800. Right now its 2,500 so 300 rpm's and way better pulling power, I can live with that. I know everyone says rev the **** out of this motor but I feel good with 3,500. Anything over that and it's burning fuel and making noise, tho it will increase speed quick in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd when wrapped up that hard, 4th gear just maintains speed until you hit a hill then down it goes. 5th you can forget about it. I was thinking cam to help it pull a little harder. I know you can get a long tube header for the 2.3, but is there really a gain to be had vs. the stock header?

 

A lot of circle track guys by me use the ranger header. I'd leave it and put a free flowing exhaust on it.
Buy an eBay cat and put 2.5" exhaust with a magnaflow straight through muffler. I ran 3" on my turbo ranger and it sounded great and wasn't too loud.

 

That's kinda of what I thought. I'm going to get a 2.5" exhaust put on soon with a chambered muffler. Dual out is 2.5" sounded pretty good before but had a cat on it too so don't know how loud it will be this time. Not really worried out loud, just don't like the pitch, too high with a glass pack.

 

The cat will get rid of the crappy 4cyl sound, I prefer magnaflow for sound. Straight through or a packed muffler. I'm not a fan of the flowmaster muffler. Your truck though.

My turbo exh was 3" downpipe into cat back to a magnaflow 3"in dual 2.5 out with dual side exit in front of pass tire. Sounded freakin awesome.

 

Well got the gears put in today, can tell a difference but it still drops a little speed on some hills Speedometer is off about 10 mph but it's still better than what I had, 45 to 55 now. Next thing will be the cam. Seems like it just stops pulling in 4th around 3,000 rpm's. Calling a friend at a junk yard Monday and seeing about a 2.3. Does anyone know if the 2.5 Ford will take the place of the 2.3 or is there some differences in wiring? I was thinking of buying a 2.3 and swap the pistons and crank from a 2.5 but if I can just swap the 2.5, it would be alot easier and cheaper in the long run. And I'm probably going to get the Crane cam I spoke of earlier in the post. I think the motor has just given all it can give. I was wondering about the intake tube, I pulled the louvered tube and left the box it was in on the truck, maybe that is hampering performance. I'll swap that with a piece of tube and see.

 

I find it rediculous that you are talking about cams, and motor swaps, and I have not heard one word about whether or not you have even replaced your exhaust seats.

Funny that you "think the motor has given all it can give". My dad owned a 1996 Ford Ranger 2.3L. It has 380,000 miles and still runs great. Granted it is not the best thing in the power department, it has never had major repairs done, and it still runs like it should.

But what often fails on these motors is the stock exhaust seats wear out usually between 120,000 - 150,000 miles. Often the engine will still seem to run fine, but as the seat wears out, the compression drops. If it eventually recedes into the head, you will lose almost all compression on that cylinder.

Before speculating about swaps, and think that things are just worn out, start at the basics. Do a compression check, that one test gives you a quick overall "physical" of the engines condition.

Can you swap in the 2.5L? No, not unless you swap the electronics along with it.

In case I have not made this clear, the stock injectors (#16) are barely adequate for the stock power output and I have met some who could max them out on a stock unmodified motor. You change the cam, you increase airflow at high RPM, the stock injectors will not be able to keep up. Running lean under full load WOT can easily damage an engine, I have pictures to prove it. The stock MAF is also barely adequate.

You can run larger valves and do porting work without changing the cam. I would suspect that by doing that, you firstly can improve and widen your powerband without harming emissions, idle quality, or low end torque. You probably need to replace exhuast seats anyway, so if you order a set of valves and the larger seats to match, you aren't put out that far, you will still probably have spent less than a cam is going to cost you. And since you are going to be running a stock cam profile, I doubt you would need to do any major changes. You can step up one size in injectors without needing to retune, it will stay within the computers ability to adapt. The larger valves will work with a stock cam, and will still work with an aftermarket cam too.

You can also buy an adjustable cam sprocket that lets you retard or advance the cam timing. You could use it on your stock cam to slightly shift the powerband, and again, it works with the aftermarket cams too. You could use it with an aftermarket cam to advance the timing to make it more similar to a stock Ranger cam from a timing standpoint, but with more lift.

 

You never asked, nor have I ever heard of this come to think about it, but now that you mentioned it, I have noticed a little "cough" at idle from the exhaust. The engine probably is low on compression, slowly lurches forward on a hill in 1st with the engine off. Never really thought about the exhaust seat being in that bad of shape, figured it would be accompanied by valve train noise. Engine is quiet at idle. Come on though, it's not that ridiculous, KFC running out of chicken, now that would be ridiculous!

Technically, if the engine is low compression from bad valve seats as you stated before, then yes this engine has given all it can give in its current form. This little engine has been a great engine, replaced a head back before it kicked over 100,000 because of a bad heater control valve. Only major repair done on it. Probably close to 250,000 miles, don't know though, odometer crapped out at 198,000 miles


If it's low compression, that would be caused from worn out parts,
(rings, valve and seats) right?

Just wondering about it, seen somewhere that it was the same block as 2.3 just longer stroke. Didn't know if it was a plug and play type thing.

Wasn't aware they were such an under-engineered engine, pertaining to modifying that is, then again you said they were barely adequate for stock power.

I was debating on doing a head swap and sending it to the machine shop to get the valves redone. Never thought of larger valve but will consider that when the time comes. I would also get the head surfaced, kind of the way I was brought up to have the head(s) done when pulled off, especially when using a used head. I don't know if it's true, but I have been told that swapping the head on a high mileage engine, bottom end give loose meaning bearing spins and knocks. I have heard two sides to this. I just replaced the heads on a V6 with 155,000 miles and two months later (3weeks ago) the engine went to knocking. That why I was just going to buy a spare engine and build it from the pan up.

Is the adj. cam gear worth the money? I mean will it net a noticeable difference with a stock cam or what