me and my are takeing on a father son project. a 68 rager i want to use the 6.9 5speed thats in my donor truck. he want to rebuild the 360. i said the 6.9 would get better mpg and tow his boat beter has a 19 foot bass boat. he tows with his exploer we call the expoalder all wheel drive all the time gets a woping avg for 13.3 mpg and it dosent mater how ur drive and of all thing it my step moms and it purple . i get beter them that with my huge tires guy what the worst and best mpg u recorded. and the the pros and con of a 6.9 and a 5 speed.

 

The 360 was a tough motor it wont even know a bass boat is behind it.
The 6.9 would last forever in this application and would have a fuel mileage advantage but in many areas the difference in price between gas and diesel makes it a wash unless you are towing heavy.

I would go 6.9 but thats me if you do go with the diesel you are going to want to use some sound deadener they are noisy in these cabs.

 

i know mine only has a bed liner floor

 

Ahh the good ol exploder....they should have kept the bronco2. The 2.9 EFI was probably the best of that chassis series.

The 360 could easily be built to blow the tires off and still get decent mileage with the right carb/cam/tires/etc.

There was a member on another forum here on FTE that converted a 1980-86 truck to a 390 (I have a soft spot for the 390). He reported being able to blow away powerstrokes and get up to 16 MPG (not at the same time though).

The FE series got a bad wrap for bing fuel hogs, but most of the problem was brought on by low quality fuel, the phasing out of leaded gas, and tightening EPA standards in the era. Higher compression and better timing curves are possible today on regular unleaded if the engine has some modest updates. Although if I were to build a gasser, I would use LPG but thats just me.

The 6.9/ZF 5 speed would also be a great combo, and would likely get better economy and that also gives the truck a longer range for the same tank size. You also can't put a ZF 5 speed behind an FE block engine so taller gears would be needed on the gasser to get it to an ideal highway RPM. I also hear that you can't use 5th gear for towing with the ZF, not sure if that would be a problem.

If you want to turbocharge the diesel to get comparable power to the FE engine, you will likely need to hack some of the firewall since space is tighter in that era of truck.

I thing both are great engines, its really a matter of preference. Take lots of picture no matter which way you end up going.

 

David he's talking 1968 ranger different animal.

 

I thought he meant a ranger as in ranger package on a 1968 F series pickup. Other than the compact ranger pickup from 1983 and up, I don't know of any vehicle that was called a "ranger".

 

it will be a beast when where done no mater what motor

 

He was when you mentioned the efi 2.9 I thought you were thinking late model ranger (my bad).

 

i have a freind with a 2.9 bronce leack watter out the watter pump

 

What I liked about the 2.9 is it wasn't a high RPM screamer like most V6s. The later 3.0 had the exact same Hp and torque numbers but all of it at higher RPM (WHAT FOR???). Considering it was the mid 80s when it was first offered, it was a pretty good engine for a V6.

My sister's 87' ranger had one from factory. Was OK because it didn't have the EGR system from factory and could get 20+ MPG average on the highway (which is good for a V6 powered 4x4 ranger).

We lost patience with it because of all the electrical bugs that it had from the tune port EFI and related wiring. I swapped a 2.3 turbo diesel in there from another ranger. Its more fun now. and I took great pleasure in pulling the PCM out for good.

We sold the 2.9 when it had some 300000 kilometers on it and as far as I know, its still running somewhere to this day. Don't remeber it using much oil either. Not a great engine, but not too bad either.

 

iam leaning torads a 6.9 idi

 

Well if you already have the engine and tranny, why not? The donor has a 6.9 and zf 5 speed? Thats a pretty rare combo. I wonder if you already have the newer 7.3 style rockers in that engine. what year is the donor truck?

 

The choice is so easy even a caveman can make it:

6.9L GOOD!
360 BAD!

 

its a 87 f250

 

Now we are going to disagree on the 360 oh wait your prolly talking dodge your right.