2.3 turbo questions
 

I'm considering building a motor for my truck, a 2.3L turbo motor to be specific. so far, I have the ideas down, but I need to know the specific make and model of turbo, and the mods I'd have to do other than just turbo manifolds to make it work on the engine. between me and a cousin I think it can be done easily enough. anyone willing to help me out here?

Look at 2.3 thunderbirds, or if u wanna use your stock ranger 2.3 check out "Making big HP with the 2.3L. It can be done!" post in this room.

The 2.3 factory turbo was a Garrett AiResearch, but I don't recall the model. T-03 sticks in my mind but I can't swear to it. I can look it up if you like.

As far as internal mods, I believe the only major difference was forged pistons.

By far the simplest way to go is to buy a complete turbo motor from a late '80s T-Bird.

Are you planning to go EFI or carb?

EFI only. easier to feed a turbo motor the fuel it requires that way. so I'm going to need forged pistons, the turbo itself naturally, intercooler, and EFI setup with heads for that too. currently, I've got a carbed setup on there. add to that the computer and wiring for the efi system, and related stuff, new intake manifolds. Is there anything I forgot?


BTW, I just noticed my topic title is tubo, could a moderator please change it to turbo? thanks.

You didn't want it to say tubo? As in a "fat setup"? :-D

Nevermind, I'll fix it.

Anyway, you seem to be on the right track. EFI works so much better with a turbo than a carb, just a bit more work to swap the EFI system ito a carbed application.

It just seems to me that the T-Bird turbo setup is the way to go for simplicity since all the engineering has been done for you. Just add the intercooler and you're good to go...

Having said that, I don't know if those turbo T-birds are Mass Air or Speed Density. Might need to swap over to a Mass Air system while doing the install since you plan to add that intercooler.

I only plan to get the parts and do it myself, because I enjoy the engineering stuff myself, thats half the fun for me. it may cost me a few bucks, but since I have a good deal of time, and not many bills, I'll have plenty of money to do it all I think.

You can't beat the satisfaction of doing it yourself, that's for sure! I went the same route with my 5.0 swap on my Ranger. Sure, there are a ton of motor mounts and headers out there for the swap, along with other items needed but I did my research and mocked up an engine in a parts truck and built everything myself, so that I could put the engine exactly where I wanted it. With that swap the P/S pump hits the steeering box if you get the engine down where it really belongs, so I used a different, smaller pump with a remote reservoir to gain back the space I wanted. You can't beat doing it yourself...

Have fun with it, that's the main thing!

Having said that, I don't know if those turbo T-birds are Mass Air or Speed Density. Might need to swap over to a Mass Air system while doing the install since you plan to add that intercooler.

I have a 87 Tbird turbo coupe, I am sure it is Mass air.

I wondered about that myself. With a direct stock setup, I think Speed Density would be fine because the correct performance perameters are programed into the SD computer. But when you build your own higher HP system with an intercooler and so on, I would think you'd have to have Mass Air. But on the other hand, it may be that a turbo-charged installation requires Mass-Air due to the major fluctuations of intake flow.

I'm just making suppositions here, I think we need the advice of an expert on turbocharging. I'll see if I can bring in a consultant.

It appears that I am said consultant. :)

Ok, for a start,the 2.3l Turbos ran a T3 (except for the 87/88 Turbo Coupe, which ran an IHI, and in my opinion are the pick of them) - though some used a .63 housing, others used a .48 housing.
Now if you are going to do this project, find a turbo 2.3l block - it will make it a fair bit easier. It already has an oil drain hole drilled and tapped into the block about 2/3s of the way back on the passenger side of the engine - this prevents the oil from backing up in the turbo, not to mention the turbo block already has the lower compression ratio with the forged pistons.

From what I understand the only issue you will have is the location of the turbo on the 2.3T exhaust manifold will interfere with A/C on a Ranger. Does your truck have A/C?
It can be worked around anyway.

I assume your Ranger is carbed at the moment (its an 83 from your profile), correct?
If so, you will need an EEC-IV wiring harness.
The easiest thing to do is to obtain an EEC-IV Ranger harness and re-pin it to match the turbo computer, then interface it with the truck. If you want an "interesting" task you could get a Merkur engine harness as they were completely separate from the rest of the car’s wiring, and piece it all together.
Assuming you will go for the easier option, and get an EEC-IV harness, you will need to change the pins (as they moved the IAC output) - just remove pin 42, and place it in pin 13's socket.


Your best option for an engine would be 85.5-86 SVO. Reason being, it has the PE computer, 35lb injectors, and intercooler, the T3 with the .48 housing and the large VAF. If not, the aforementioned 87/88 Turbo Coupe.

You will also want to redo the exhaust, but we will see how you go with that info for starters :)

Thanks for the info BigF350. that'll cover pretty much everything I needed to get started. that is, aside from the actual parts themselves, and the time to get it done.

There are other cars that came with better computers and the 35 lb injectors. Just pull the whole drive train out of a Thunderbird (87-88). Do this for these reasons. Finding an 85.5 svo is very difficult and expensive. If you part out an SVO period there are a lot of people that wont like you for it. Lastly, you can find a nice Tbird in just about any decent junkyard. I have a Mercury Capri with the same drive train and everything as a Tbird. If you go with the Tbird you also get sequential fire as aposed to batch fire in all the other cars. Anyway I run my car at 25 PSI with stock everything with the exception of a giant intercooler. Needless to say my car is fast. [img]images/icons/icon7.gif[/img]
-Mike-

Yeah...I'm one of those folks that won't like someone parting a SVO just to plop the stuff in a Ranger, seeing I have a 86 SVO myself. ;)

A block can be drilled and tapped for the oil drain, or you can just get a custom drain line made and tap the oil pan instead. Either setup will work.

The proper forged, low compression pistons are available through Summit. The biggest issue you will come across is finding a good turbo head. Many guys have started scouring junkyards for early oval port n/a heads that have the same "open" chamber design as the turbo heads have. You can get away using an n/a head with the dished pistons, but it will raise the compression ratio to around 8.5:1. You'll have to run a lower amount of boost with that setup.

All EEC-IV 2.3L Lima engines use batch injection. It wasn't until the introduction of EEC-V that the 2.3L engine got sequential injection. From a performance standpoint, there's virtually no difference between sequential and batch injection. You gain a little better idle quality and slightly better fuel economy.

There are no aftermarket pistons that compare to the factory turbo pistons. The best ones you can get are the TRW pistons and I have seen enough of them melted at the bottom of the pan to argue their use. Sequential fire is a lot better than batch. The higher boost and performance you get the more exact fuel and air ratio you need, especially with a turbo. Stick with a tbird drive train and use the factory bottom end, they are good too 700+ horse.

Yeah, the TRW replacements might melt...in applications where someone should have been using a better piston to begin with. Plenty of people are running the Speed Pros without problems in mild performance applications. Would I want to put them in a 400 rwhp car pushing 25+ psi? No...but for the average rebuild staying under 300 rwhp they're just fine.

You can have just as fine control over air fuel ratio using batch injection as you can sequential when tuning for performance. Sequential injection allows for better fuel control at lower engine speeds which translates into better fuel economy, better idle and lower emissions. That is the ONLY reason why manufacturers used it. Most widely used standalone EFI systems use batch injection. Why? It costs alot more, the setup is more complex (you have to deal with cylinder ID) and you have almost ZERO gain in performance. And as I said again, you won't find a EEC-IV 2.3L application using SEFI. I have a LA3 computer (87-88 TurboCoupe) and I can assure you it uses batch injection. Otherwise I would have had to completely rewire the injector harness in my car when I swapped it out a couple of weeks ago.

There's no difference inbetween the N/A and turbo bottom ends apart from the pistons. They use the same rods, crank and block. You can modify a n/a block, put in some low compression forged pistons and have the same setup as the factory turbo engines did.