Hey, i am new here and so far i love this site! I am currently in the process of turboing my 1987 2.3 ranger with a 5 speed. It is the xlt model. If i am not mistaken, the crank and rods are forged but the pistons are not but the pistons from a 2.3 turbo SVO model car from the 80's have forged pistons that will just swap right in which is what i plan to do until i can afford some eagle interanls or weisco internals.

My biggest problem right now is that i am struggling with how i am going to tune it, what im going to tune it with, and what ECU i am going to need to use.

I was wondering if anyone has done a turbo in a truck as old as mine and how they did it.
Would the turbo ECU from a stock 2.3 turbo fox body mustang work to run the motor? Thank you in advance i know i will be asking lots of questions lol.

 

I don't see why not as long as its not bored out a lot or changed a lot internally then any 2.3 turbo computer from around 87 should run it. Sounds like your pretty much doing a factory build so a factory computer really shouldn't need to much tuning to run well and the old OBD1's are pretty basic in the terms of control anyway most stuff was still mechanical. But if you do decide to go crazy with the internals and such you may have to get a newer universal OBD2 system and run a custom tune that way or go completely old school and convert everything to mechanical control. I'm not to familiar with OBD1 other than the basics but i don't really think there is much tunability to them i don't even know of anyone that makes a tuner for OBD1 much less anything custom.

 

Ok thank you that is exactly the information that I have been looking for! Thank you sir.

I have another question. Will the turbo cylinder heads from a 2.3l turbo mustang fit my 87 2.3l ranger? I feel like it should being that it's the same motor size and the same era.

 

No problem! And for the head as long as they are both the 4 plug style and not 8plug they should be fine i think the switch happened around 94 or 95 so anything in the 80's era should be the same. They changed in the early 90's somewhere once the ranger started sharing with the expo thats when things become interesting. Just make sure they look the same and the ranger station forums have a good info page for each engine that was in the ranger they have bore specs and everything might be a good idea to check over there and make sure everything is the same.

 

Hey thank you again! You are super helpful