I know it's been asked so many times, but I never looked into it much. I was just wondering if you could bolt on a Turbo from a 85 Mustang SVO 2.3 or 85 Mercury Cougar 2.3 without too much trouble? What would you have to do to the stock 2.3/2.5 in the Ranger? Has anyone successfully done it? Could you keep all your accessories, Power Steering and A/C?

 

Just buy another truck with a bigger motor. Even if the turbo from the 80's does fit and work, your truck might be as fast as my 02 with a 3.0, It's a waste of time and money. Even if the turbo is free, there's about 100 things you also have to change with it.

 

If you want to go turbo then you might as well get the whole engine from a junk car, it would be easier. There's lots of info about the swap you just have to look.

 

If you keep the boost down, you can adapt the turbo to a dual plug motor. Otherwise you should probably look into swapping the whole motor. Turbo 2.3L enignes have a different head (larger combustion chamber) and forged low compression pistons.

Sorry to disagree with you Jim, but a turbocharged 2.3L would knock the socks off of a 3.0L. Even if I knock my SVO down to 10 psi boost on the regular fuel setting it is still making 175-180 hp at the flywheel. Since most people doing these swaps don't bother with the octane switch and run full boost all the time, you're talking about a 200+ hp motor stock (assuming its an 86+ enigne).

Look on turboford.org, there's someone who is (or was) selling a 2.3T in an 86 Ranger. It still has A/C, power steering, etc.

 

A turbo 2.3L will knock off a 4.0L, when properly built up. Maybe even give a 5.0 here and there a run for its money.

A 3.slow = no problem for a turbo 2.3L. Seriously.

As noted, it is a waste to run only a few lb's of boost on a N/A Ranger 2.3L.