I am looking to convert my 2007 ford ranger that currently has a the 4.0 v6 to a v8. I’m not having any luck finding information on swapping the motor in a ranger of this year or what motor and transmission would be best and easiest for this swap. Has anyone done it before?

 

Welcome to the forum

The 2004 to 2011 Rangers had different electronics so it becomes much harder to change anything in these years
They have engine computer, instrument cluster and Body computer(SJB) all "married" together at the factory, so you can't change one or two without getting Ford involved to "remarry" new components which probably wouldn't work if new component was older than 2004 in any case
"Marry" means each of these 3 components has a unique ID which they share on start up and when running, if one component doesn't share or has the wrong ID then truck won't start.
This prevents people from swapping in low mile odometers or swapping in computer to steal the truck

But you CAN DO anything you want, just extra layers and costs involved
You basically need to change your 2007 Ranger to a 1998-2003 Ranger as far as the cab electrics go, and then do the V8 swap

IMO, I would look for an older model Ranger with bad engine and/or bad transmission, that you can pick up cheap, and do the V8 swap with that one


And just FYI, your current 4.0l SOHC V6 is rated at 207 horse power, Explorer V8 was rated at 215 horse power....................alot of work for 8 horse power gain
"There is no replacement for displacement", lol, but in practical terms you would need to be building up that V8 to at least 275HP to make it worthwhile IMO

 

Definitely find another truck for the swap. Getting the Explorer V8 to work with a manual transmission is an even bigger can of worms and if you choose to go automatic, that's another can of worms. Worms are great for fishing, but not for engine swaps.