I've been poking around on various forums, and throughout the internet, looking for a better understanding of doing a 2.3l Duratec swap into a light-weight older vehicle. I'm considering getting a salvage 2004 Ranger (2.3l w automatic) to use as the donor for this project. I have not performed an swap dealing with modern electronics. I have seen people suggest that you will need various components from the donor. I would like to hear from someone who could not only define these components, but that has actually gone through the process of performing such a newer engine/transmission/harness/ECU swap. Is anyone aware of any guides for performing such an upgrade?

 

The "easiest" swap would be to take the whole harness out of the truck, cluster and all, and throw it into the donor vehicle. That should get you 100% plug and play compatibility.

If you want more of a custom swap, you can look into a standalone ECU such as a Haletch, AEM, Link etc. Its going to cost as much as buying a donor truck in the end, but you'll have 100% control over the engine and trans management.

 

Thanks for the response Turismolover22. I was beginning to think I was thinking too far outside the box.

How much of the instrument cluster has to come across with the swap? Are there work-arounds to this install? I don't really want to cut up the project dash to insert a complete cluster. The project vehicle is a late '30s Ford pickup. Are there options out there for a remote station for OBD systems that could be used?

I'm wanting to build the vehicle with an automatic transmission. I was under the assumption that most of the aftermarket ECU systems were designed only with a manual tranny in mind. That's part of the reason for considering using donor vehicle and pulling everything from it.