lookin to put a engine and trans into a 92 two wheel drive ranger. the donor being a wrecked 87 mustang automatic, 5.0 . i believe it to be a speed density version, which i know nothing about. any info would be appreciated, im an old school 4x4 guy who runs exotic cleavland stuff, intake, carb, headers suspension that kinda thing. i never messed with the 302 , or mustangs so im kinda in the dark. i guess i wondered most is can you do anything to these things or should i throw an intake and carb on it?

 

Yes, an '87 would be SD. If you stay with the SD you're a little bit limited as to what you can do to the motor without sending the SD into fits. You can put a mild SD-compatible cam in and go long-tube headers (the Mustang short-tubes don't fit the Ranger chassis easily) and a bit of port matching, but not much else. But SD can be tweaked by someone who knows what they're doing (I don't!)

This is very similar to my swap, which is an '88 5.0 H.O. into an '89 Ranger. (Same body style as the '92)

I'm staying with EFI but converting to Mass Air out of necessity. The previous owner of my Mustang doner car hacked up the main wiring harness when he rmoved the engine and the new one I scrounged was for Mass Air, which is wired differently.

But it's really not hard. Once the engine's in place you replace the Ranger main harness with the one from the Mustang and there are 15 wires to hook up, everything else plugs in. And the wires have all been charted out by folks who have done this conversion before, so there are step-by-step instructions available.

Let me know if you need any more info on this swap, mine is going to happen very, very soon. I've got just about all my R&D done and have only a few more parts to come up with. I also have a ton of pics I've taken along the way.

 

cool thanks, james duff enterprises has a anice set of full length headers pretty reasonable. i do remember a freind stuffin a huge by large camshaft in his S D mustang years ago and yup it went into a series of fits! i guess for now a intake and carb will make the most sense for me right now ill do some research on the mass air and convert at a later date. i could put the SD in as is but what fun is that right? so anyone know the skinny on mass air? is it hard to convert?

 

If you already have SD in place, you need the MAF meter and a Mass Air computer, and there's a conversion harness that ties into the main harness at the coumpter. Or you can fairly easily replace the main harness with one for Mass Air as I described a bit above. It's really not difficult at all.

SD still has it's strong points, some people say that it has better throttle response than MA and can be tweaked to work with all sorts of mods. MA is just simpler to work with, a little more plug 'n play.

Also, I have a butt load of links to sites with info and parts for the swap besides James Duff. There are also a couple of manuals available. I bought one here and found it well worth the money.

 

thanks a bunch tigerdan appreciate your time. as i get closer to doin the swap ill certainly look into those resources you mentioned, i never like doing these projects blindly. doing the swap is half the battle , getting it to run better then in stock trim is the trick! should be a good time.

 

I just spent my day yesterday pulling a roller cam SN95 5.0 H.O. out of a '93 Tbird. It's got my MAF and the short accessory mounts on the front so I'll have more radiator clearence if I should need it. I think I can use my standard accessories although I may have to tuck the radiator up inside the core support.

BTW, there are basically 3 accessory dresses in terms of front clearance for these engines. The standard dress, which with minor variations among them v-belt and serpentine, is found on basically every 302/5.0 up to the early '90s, then there's the SN95 which has the accessories set back farther including a shorter water pump, and then the shortest of all is the late 90's Explorer dress which gives the most front clearance. (And around here is the hardest to find.)

A lot of clearance issues are dependant on your choice of motor mounts which will determine your engine placement. I couldn't find any mounts that put the engine just where I wanted it (short of buying them all and trying each set...not in the budget!) so I wound up building my own. One consideration with the '87-'93 Mustang accessories is the P/S pump if you have P/S. It sits right on the steering box and so it determines your engine position. Move the engine back tight to the firewall and you have to raise it up to clear the box, lower it down and you have to slide it forward. I wanted it low and back, so I took the pump off and adapted the pump off of a Geo Storm, a compact pump which has the serpentine belt pully and a remote reservoir. Viola! Tons of room! (Tech article coming on this P/S pump swap.)

 

thats exactly the kind of usefull info i need! thanks a bunch i figured making motor mounts was the ticket and i think low and back is the way to do it. long as the front sump portion of the oil pan can fit. are you planning to use your stock differential? i beleive they are like a 7.5 or somthing. mine is small being a 4 cylinder, and its an open. i considered welding the spider gears, but thats usually begging for disaster. in my other ranger i have a narrowed 9 inch with all goodies.

 

I wouldn't weld the spiders or otherwise lock the diff for street use. And welding spiders is a low buck, often temporary way to lock a diff for racing. I've done it because there were no spools available for the rear end I was using but the welds wound up breaking after 2 seasons. Of course, I know a bit more about welding now than I did then so I might be able to do it successfully if I had to...but I digress.

The stock open 7.5 will hold up for a mild 302/5.0...for a while, depending on your driving habits. I'm going to run mine to start with, partly to see how I like the gear ratio with the V8. My truck came with a 4.10 locker but the O/D in the tranny was shot so it was wound up pretty tight on the highway. I swapped in an open diff with 3.45's and that's what I'll run for a while. A nice, sort of middle-of-the-road ratio. I have a couple of choices of rears laying around. I have the 8.8 Traction-loc rear with 3.08's that came out of my doner Mustang, but I'm thinking I won't be very happy with that ratio. The rear end is only a couple inches wider than the Ranger's and I would of course have to change the mounts, but it also has 4-lug axles and I'd have to change them.

I also have an 8-inch from an old Mustang or Falcon. It's 5-lug already and has perches for leaf springs, I'd just have to move them a bit. But it's an open diff with 3.00 gears. I have a buddy who has an 8-inch with a 3.40 Equaloc (Ford's old name for a limited slip) and he wants me to set it up for his race car with a mini-spool, so I can get the diff out of that and maybe the gears if I come up with different ones for him.

The 4.0 Rangers came with 8.8, I think they switched in '90. You may very well have the 8.8 in yours. If so, you really don't need to do anything but if it's open you might want to swap in a Traction-loc unit. The Explorer rear is wider and is undersprung (sits on top of the leaf springs instead of below them like the Ranger) so it's not a bolt-in swap, but it's not too hard to swap in.

So there's some more stuff to chew on. Hope you don't have indigestion yet!

 

no worries im like a junkie when it comes to the technical stuff! this will be a daily driver so the big high rpm hole shot isnt really a concern. if i wanna go that fast ill drive the other ranger! ive decided on a carb and intake opposed to the speed density for numerous reasons. ill have to baby the rear end till i line somethin else up. does the S D intake and all that have any resale value cuz i have every thing. harness computer intake its all there.