Getting the most out of the Ford 2.3L

	2.3L Ford Modifications! This website is a little bit more than just performance tuning the 2.3L Ford engine. There's really not too much performance parts that will deliver inexpensive hp. It seems that when anyone wants power from these babies, they jump to turbocharging which is costly. This site looks at inexpensive ways of coaxing power out of the engine. The most expensive modification and probably the best place to start spending money is to go to a higher rear end gear ratio - documented farther down. My 1992 Ford Ranger with 2.3L, 5 speed, 2wd, no A/C, no power steering, 3.73 limited slip rear end, no cat, no egr, 200 degF thermostat, free flow air filter, no intake muffler, electric fan, 94 octane gas, 19 lb/hr fuel injectors. These mods will work with pretty much any 2.3L Ford, I have one in my 1992 Ford Ranger and that's the basis that I will be working with. The 2.3L Ford Ranger engine is pretty weak and I've been slowly modifying it to get more push out of it. When I first bought the truck in 2005, anything below 2100 rpm was dogging it. It was pitiful. Here's a list of simple mods that have had good return, I noticed that after all of these mods, the useable rpm dropped from 2100 rpm until its now around 1200 rpm. At 1200 rpm in 4th gear, I can press on the gas and actually accelerate - it's great! An added bonus is the increase in gas mileage. 5 years after buying the truck and doing all these mods, I have a pretty peppy truck that is fun to drive. Gas Mileage There will be some confusion as to the gas mileage gains when you read through the webpages. I'll try to put the increases in gas mileage with the modifications: When I first got the truck, I was making about 20 mpg around town and not much better on the highway. Towing a trailer with my foot to floor on level road, I could go 70 mph unloaded and 60 mph loaded - highway gas mileage with a trailer was 20 mpg. When I unplugged the catalytic convertor and put in a freer flowing K and N style air filter, the highway mileage shot up dramatically to 33 mpg. This was still with the 3.08 gears and it was on very flat prairie highway. Performance was still pitiful. Surprisingly, around town, gas mileage was still only around 20 mpg. After doing all the other modifications including changing the rear end to 3.73 gears , the power increased dramatically (relatively speaking for a 4 banger). I could tow a loaded trailer on level road easily to 80 mpg with a little room to spare! I drove 3000 miles (5000 km) in 4 days from Calgary to Santa Fe New Mexico through Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and then New Mexico - all at high elevation (3200 to 7600 ft above sea level) towing a 1300 lb loaded trailer. Gas mileage varied from 23 mpg to a best of 27.5 mpg. Average speed for 3000 miles with rest stops was 60 mph typically between 70 to 80 mph July 2009 I finally have had the chance to take it out on the highway on a long trip without the trailer and I got 30 mpg highway with the engine revving at 2800 rpm at highway speeds (70 mph) with the 3.73 gears. Around town the gas mileage is typically around 24 to 25 mpg city during my normal driving which is not in the slow lane! Just a note: this engine does not like cold weather - anything below freezing weather, it gets around 20 mpg (I'll be working on this). Sept 2009 I upgraded to 19 lb/hr fuel injectors and I'm quite happy with the performance increase. The truck is way more driveable in the city and I find that I'm cruising along at 1500 - 1800 rpm in 4th or 5th AND I can accelerate. It took about 100 km for the computer to learn the new settings and it's amazing! I got an extra 20 hp! The first gas tank with city/highway driving was 30 mpg (302 miles/10.08 gallons)! The next fill-up which was strictly city driving was 25.4 mpg. July 2010 I replaced the stock worn out muffler with a Cherry Bomb Turbo muffler (1/2 the price of the stock muffler) - engine breathes way better and another good performance increase - HIGHLY recommended! The Theory behind the Modifications The following modifications are based on these assumptions: A 4 stroke internal combustion engine is basically an air pump. Anything that you can do to make the air flow better on the intake side will increase efficiency and increase hp. Anything you can do to make the exhaust more free flowing will increase efficiency and create more hp. This is called making the engine breath better. To improve breathing an aftermarket performance camshaft can be added. If you make the engine breath better, than the next step is to increase the amount of fuel available to mix with the greater air efficiency. This will create more hp. The engine should be running at its most efficient temperature The engine should be running in its most efficient power band (rpm range). The engine should also have all of its components such as O2 sensors and sparkplugs in top shape. Since the word efficiency comes up so often, anything that we can do to make the vehicle roll easier (use less hp) and have less wind resistance will increase our efficiency and increase our gas mileage too! Clearing the ECU memory After you modify any of the engine related components. You should clear the ECU memory so that the ECU can relearn the air/fuel mixture with the new settings. All you have to do is to disconnect the negative of the battery for a minimum of 5 minutes. After that, the engine will initially run rough and over the next 15 miles, it will relearn the new air/fuel settings. Otherwise you may have the check engine light come on. For example, when I replaced the original fuel injectors with bigger ones, the check engine light came on intermittently. Hooking up my OBD-1 reader, the error code 179 was displayed. This error code indicates a rich condition at part throttle. Clearing the ECU memory, forced the ECU to relearn what normal driving conditions were with the new fuel injectors. Here's a link to the Ford official release on ECU trouble codes and stuff for EEC-IV ECUs. Modifications Most of these modifications are damn cheap if not free (except for the rear end swap): Check your tire pressure! I receive a few emails from people who want to increase their gas mileage. Here's the simplest way that's good for 1-3 mpg, inflate your cold tire pressure to the maximum setting for your tires! Check your tires and on the sidewall will be written the maximum tire pressure. My front tires which are summer/winter radials have a max psi of 30. The rear tires which are mud and snow have a max of 40 psi. My trailer tires are 50 psi. Wind Resistance If you have a pickup, you can pick up a few mpg without the air restriction that the tailgate provides at highway speeds. Myth Busters has an online video (well worth watching) with the science. for tailgate up, tailgate down, box cover, no tailgate, no tailgate/cargo net. Find out which is the best! Change your Sparkplugs The latest generation of 2.3L have long life sparkplugs, we're talking 50,000 miles. It is easy to forget to change them routinely. If your 2.3L idles rough, it could be that your sparkplugs are worn. The simple solution may be just to change the sparkplugs. This can also result in a 1 to 2 mpg increase in gas mileage and a performance improvement. Several people have emailed me that they have had excellent results with the platinum plugs. Ignition Modifications Alex from Lynchburg Virginia sent in these excellent suggestions: Hey, my name's Alex and I have an 88 mustang with a 2.3, I work at Autozone so I picked up a set of 8.8mm plug wires and an MSD streetfire coil, you can definitely feel the difference on the top end. I also heard if you bring the plug gap from .044 to .050 youll gain a little bit of go. The next best thing to do is an MSD blaster 3 coil ($49.99) and the MSD 6al-2 ignition box($232.00), even if just for a daily driver application the multiple spark out put of the MSD box, and the tuning capabilities you receive are worth it. The later year 2.3l engines had two spark plugs per cylinder and two coil packs. I think that Alex is on to something for the single sparkplug heads as the Ford engineers definitely noticed a spark problem when they redesigned the 91 and up heads for dual plugs. Save Weight Alex also had some good weight saving advice too: I took my power steering and my AC compressor off (roughly 100lbs weight loss and 5 hp from the powersteering). Any weight that you can lose will lower your Elapsed Time (E.T.) in drag racing. E.T. is the time it takes to race a quarter mile from a standing start. The rule of thumb is 100 lb loss is equivalent to a 0.1 sec faster E.T. You may not want to remove the power steering and A/C from your daily driver! And if you do then the serpetine belt should be the same as mine: 92 Ranger 2.3L, no A/C and no P.S. - you can pick it up at any parts store. Intake muffler modification The plastic tube between the air filter box and the throttle body housing has a muffler in it to smooth out the back flow from the cylinders when downshifting. It is very easy to take apart. Intake Air Temperature (IAT) sensor If you are in a warm climate, you can replace it with a 43kohm resistor for a performance boost. If you are not in a warm year round climate then you may be able to put a resistor in series with it to richen the mixture. If you have pinging, trick the ECU into a richer mixture by adding a small resistor around 4.7kohm in series. Free flow air filter Adding a free flow air filter instead of the factory unit makes a huge difference and adds a growl when you floor it. Disable EGR The EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) valve's job is to introduce exhaust back into the intake manifold to reduce emissions at the expense of power and gas mileage. This seems to be utterly stupid especially because exhaust gases are added after the fuel/air mixture is determined. It seems to be defeating the purpose of a proper air/fuel mixiture! There is a lot of b.s. about how it lowers the cylinder temperature, etc.. but in reality, it replaces needed oxygen for performance with exhaust gas which produces about a 3% to 5% loss in power. You can make a block off plate or buy one from the Detail Zone (scroll down to middle of page) Ram Air Adding ram air to the free flow air filter increases your gas mileage and your power at highway speeds as it acts like a mini supercharger. Still thinking about the easiest way to do this. One way is to move the battery to where the old air filter box is to make room for some mods to the radiator support. The other way is to add a small hood scoop to the passenger side of the hood. CK emailed me with a simple method to provide cool air to the KnN style air filter. It looks like a great way to start the ram air webpage! Throttle Body Spacer CK also had this trick up his sleeve - adding a throttle body spacer to increase performance. I'm not 100% convinced on this mod and don't know if it is worth the effort. I would like to see some hard numbers from a dyno to back this one up. Any input from others who have done this would be welcome! Synthetic motor oil This one surprised me as the engine really likes synthetic oil - it quieted down big time and added a couple hundred more rpm at the low end! Went to a higher octane gas I was running regular and with the unplugged catalytic convertor, I could hear a slight pinging sound on acceleration. The old non computer controlled vehicles would make a hell of a racket if you were detonating but the new ones detect detonation and back off the timing. The result is poor performance. I switched from regular 86 octane to 92 octane and no more detonation and more power at low rpm in the 1300 to 1600 range! I've read where some people have even disabled the knock sensor. Turn up the heat: Modify the Engine Temperature This engine needs to warm up fast and run hotter than most engines for best gas mileage and performance. Swap the ECU I haven't done this one yet but the theory seems sound for 1991-93 Ford Rangers. Note: the ECU (Electronic control unit) is also called the computer, the ECM (Electronic control module), EEC (electronic engine control) and the PCM (progammable control module) - basically the computer that controls the engine's spark and fuel/air mixture. It is the brains of the powertrain. The 1991-93 Ford Ranger's 2.3L engine is rated at 100 hp and 130 ft/lb of torque. Interestingly, the 1991-93 Ford Mustang's 2.3l engine is rated at 105 hp with 135 ft/lb of torque. The engine and the wiring harnesses are identical, so that leaves the ECU programming as the reason for the extra 5 hp that the Ford Mustang has. Swapping a Ford Mustang ECU into a Ranger should provide an extra 5 hp and 5 ft/lb over the stock one. The ECU's are physically identical and the important points in identifying one are: same year as your Ranger, 5 spd or auto transmission, Federal or California emissions. A typical parts number for a 1992 2WD Ranger is F2PF-12A650-AAB, here's what I've figured out (not necessarily right): F2PF-12A650-AAB F - indicates 91-97 Rangers, E - indicates 1990 and earlier models 2 - 1992, 3 - 1993, and so on.. P - maybe 2wd, F - 4wd, T- auto transmisson, Z - turbo or Mustang, 7 - 4.0L F - all are F, don't know the significance. 12A650 - all AAB - may be revision code or it could be the only part of the code that matters! And again, I think that the most important part is that the ECU should match the year and transmission. Electronic Fuel Injection Modifications I've been researching some inexpensive ways of improving performance by modifying the electronic fuel injection (EFI) components. Here's the theory behind what works and what may work. Change the oxygen sensor Change the fuel injectors Change the fuel pressure Change the Mass Airflow Sensor - NEW info July 2010 Advancing the camshaft timing Advancing or retarding the camshaft timing in relation to the crankshaft will change the power curve range on your engine. You can dial in the performance depending on your application. I finally installed an adjustable cam gear and put it at 6 degree advance. Very nice improvement in the bottom end! Select a hotter cam The least expensive swap is to grab a used roller cam, followers and lifters from a 1989-92 Ranger or 91 and up Mustang if you have a hydraulic cam. The Ranger cam provides very good low end torque starting at 800 rpm and up to about 4500 rpm. Otherwise there's a lot of cams available for the hydraulic lifter but very little performance cams for the roller cam. Pretty much all of the other roller performance cams trade low end torque for high end power and start working above 3000 rpm which is okay for racing but sucks for daily driving street use. For performance cams, I did find that Crane Cams makes a good series of Powermax performance cams for the 88 to 98 2.3l with my choice being the #199501 for street/strip: Camshaft - Crane Cam part #199501 (around $400) Valve seals - Crane Cam part #99820-8 (around $18) Retainers - Crane Cam part #99967-8 (around $38) Dual coil valve springs - Crane Cam part #99884-8 (around $72) Here's a performance roller cam from the Ford Motorsports catalog:M-6250-A237 for a decent price of $275. Unfortunately has been out of stock for the past 5 years. Some aftermarket suppliers carry similar cam grinds (0.420" lift) but they are around US$450 each. Part Number Type Application Intake/Exhaust duration Intake/Exhaust lift M-6250-A233 Hydraulic Flat Tappet Good idle with good mid-range horsepower for turbo and naturally aspirated usage 270°/270° 0.404"/0.404" M-6250-A234 Hydraulic Flat Tappet Good to fair idle with excellent mid-range horsepower for turbo and naturally aspirated usage 272°/280° 0.420"/0.420" M-6250-A237 Hydraulic Roller Follower only from M-6252-A230 camshaft kit Good to fair idle with excellent mid-range horsepower for turbo and naturally aspirated usage 274°/280° 0.420"/0.420" Here's a great website that discusses the many cams available: Merkurencyclopedia. Here's a link to how to swap in a Ranger roller cam if you don't already have one. Lower gear ratio This one is a must to do if you plan on spending money! I've replaced the 3.08 gears with 3.73 gears. The 3.08 gears are way too low - I hardly use 5th gear! At 120 km/hr (70 mph), the engine is turning around 1600 rpm and nothing happens when I floor the gas pedal. I want it to be in the beginning/middle of its power band which is about 2500 rpm. The 3.73 gears are fantastic! What a difference, I have pulling power down to 1500 rpm - not much but at least its usable now! I've found that my shifting habits have changed, instead of shifting at 3000 rpm, I'm shifting at 2500 and driving around town in 4th at 1600 rpm with no problem. If you are going to spend money on a modification - CHANGE THE GEAR RATIO FIRST! After driving for a couple of months now, I would even consider going to 4.10 gears with my tire size. I've listed some gotcha's at the end of the page. Exhaust Modifications I tested out the catalytic convertor to see if it was plugged and affecting the performance. I pounding out the innards. There are screens at each end of the catalytic converter that must be removed before the innards can be removed. In my case, it was severely restricted and after unplugging it, the performance improved substantially - especially the gas mileage which increased dramatically on the highway! I eventually replaced it with a straight pipe which is very easy to do (easier than pounding out the innards)! I drove for a couple of years with just a stock muffler (no cat) and it finally wore out. I replaced it with a Cherry Bomb Turbo muffler (not the fiberglass pack) because it was 1/2 the price of a stock muffler and what a great performance increase - highly recommended! It's a little louder than I like but it sure makes it fun to drive. I was having off and on again "Check Engine" light coming on while driving due to the big 19 lb fuel injectors. The error code was "rich on part throttle". The Cherry Bomb muffler leaned out the fuel mixture and the error code disappeared - BONUS! I recommend going to a free flowing non catalytic convertor exhaust system if possible. I do NOT recommend adding headers. The stock exhaust manifold is well designed and perfectly adequate up to 5000 rpm. If you have a pre 90s 2.3L, you may want to consider swapping in the header style cast exhaust manifold from a 90s Ranger - they 're plentiful at the junkyards and cheap. I've studied swapping in headers and free flow exhausts for about 40 years now and have concluded that any performance gains you will see from headers will only been seen above 5000 rpm. Around 3000 rpm, you won't seen any performance increase at all. I've left it at the stock 2" dia piping as I've heard that going larger will hurt your bottom end torque which is exactly what I don't want to do. I picked up some exhaust pipe tape/wrap (header wrap). It is an insulation material that you wrap your exhaust pipe and manifold up with to keep the heat in. It's costs about $50 for a 2 inch x 50 foot roll. It serves two purposes: Keeps the underhood temperature lower. Engine runs cooler and cooler air to the intake. Supposed to make underhood temperatures lower by 50% Keeps the hot exhaust gas in the exhaust pipe which increases the exhaust gas speed providing better scavenging of the cylinders during the exhaust cycle. Engine breathes better. Supposed to be good for 2 or 3 hp. Here's a website that shows how to wrap an exhaust pipe with the exhaust wrap as an example. Intake modifications Over at Merkurencyclopedia they have some nice instructions on porting the upper and lower intakes for maximum flow - doesn't look to hard (famous last words!). Head Work Essingler Racing has race proven heads but make sure you bring your checkbook cause they ain't cheap! If you want to get down right radical, you can put a Volvo DOHC head on your 2.3L that flows absolutely amazing. Of course there is a little bit of machining and fabrication required to make it all work. I came across a surprising specification, the Lexus 4.0L V8 passenger side head has almost the same bore spacing as the 2.3L - 0.010" difference. I don't know what is required to mount one on a 2.3L but 16V and DOHC sure sounds inviting! I'll have to get a head gasket from the two engines and see what the difference is. Chad N, who raced dirt track, says for these engines, the head is where you get 90% of your power from. Get the head milled about 20 or 30 thousandths. Then you can run 93 octane. That brings the compression up. It might cost you $100 bucks at the machine shop. That's a cheap and definite mod. Forced induction There are two methods of forced induction for the 2.3L engine: supercharging and turbocharging. Both are expensive to do and will not give you the performance that you expect from a stock normally aspirated 2.3L engine. The problem is the compression ratio for a stock 2.3L engine is TOO HIGH at around 9.7 to 1. Ideally you want a low compression ratio of around 8.0 to 1 for forced induction. The high stock compression ratio means that you will be FIGHTING detonation with anything but the MINIMAL boost. You do not want detonation as it will melt your pistons which leads to other disasterous results. The cost of forced induction when used with minimal boost just doesn't make sense. If you are going to dish out that much money for forced induction then you might as well rebuild the engine with lower compression pistons. Don't even think about the cheap electrical fan super/turbo chargers, they are a joke! I experimented with squirrel cage fans for forced induction in the 80s and unless you have machined fans with clearances in the thousands of an inch, then you will not be able to generate any practical boost. The inexpensive $50 electric fan super/turbochargers, you see on ebay are a scam. Switch to a Carburator Chad N, also mentioned that you can get a sh*t load of power out of them by using the D-port head and intake with a carb adapter using a 500 cfm 2 barrel Holley. He recommends Racer Walsh (904)721-2289 or Esslinger Engineering (626)444-4919 for their excellent tech support. Adjusting the Idle Speed Not a performance modification, but it may result in better fuel economy if your idle speed is lower. I felt that the idle speed was set a little bit too high at 800 rpm and tried the procedure on the Adjusting the Idle Speed webpage to reduce it. NOTE: When I changed to 19 lb/hr fuel injectors, the idle speed dropped to 650 rpm. I thought that was a good thing but started to have acceleration problems that I thought were related to the new injectors. The engine would bog on acceleration big time if you floored it. I also was getting the engine light turning on and off as I drove. The engine code was 179 - rich mixture on partial throttle. It ended up being too low an idle speed. You adjust the idlespeed to 800 rpm and my problems went away. Adding Sway Bars Another performance mod not really related to the engine but improves the overall driveability. At the local Pick n Pull, I picked up a front sway bar from a 92 Ranger and a rear sway bar from a Bronco II. I had to make U shaped brackets for the front sway bar because the factory brackets require you to dismantle the complete front end. The rear sway bar bolts in place - it's a little tight next to the gas tank but it fits. Tip: the rear sway bar only fits one way. I found two major improvements in driving: The sway bars smoothed out the ride going over rough bumps. The steering wheel used to jerk and the truck bounce over bumps before. Now the ride is smoother and controlled. Very nice surprise! Cornering is much improved. Before there were definite limits in cornering as the truck would noticeably roll and feel unsafe. Now it feels absolutely safe all the time. I already went through one corner much faster than planned and thought that I would be in a bit of trouble but the truck just drove through without any problems. If you don't have sway bars, install a pair - highly recommended! 2.3L with low oil pressure Around 1992 (year of my 2.3L), they used a silicone based oil pan gasket. After a number of years, the gasket breaks down inside the oil pan and clogs the oil pump intake. If you have a 2.3L that has low oil pressure, you may be able to solve your low oil pressure by removing the oil pan and unclogging the oil pump intake screen. That's all I had to do with my 2.3L - it had zero oil pressure when I purchased it 60,000 km ago. Unfortunately, it required removing the engine to get to the oil pump screen. The oil pump pickup has a pitiful small opening that is easily clogged. I took my tin snips and made a huge opening to the screen portion. Sorry no pictures. Dummy Oil Gauge to Working Gauge Conversion On 1987 Fords and later years, the oil gauge is a dummy gauge. It has an oil pressure switch for a sending unit instead of an oil pressure sender. When there is oil pressure greater than 8 psi (VERY LOW), the gauge moves to the center of the dial. It is basically an idiot light with a needle. How do you know if your gauge is a dummy gauge? The needle should move as the rpm increases. The lowest pressure should be at idle and the highest pressure at high rpm. The oil pump has a bypass spring in it to limit the amount of pressure so after a certain rpm than there should be no increase in oil pressure. If the gauge moves while driving then it is a true gauge, if it never moves from one spot then it is a dummy gauge. You can easily convert it to a true measuring gauge by shorting the 20 ohm resistor that is on the back of the gauge. The color code for 20 ohms is: red-black-black (gold if 5% resistor). Then put in a pre 1986 Ford F150 pickup oil pressure sensor. I did this about 5 years ago and can't remember if I had to use an adapter. You can tell the difference between an oil pressure sender and switch by the size. A switch is small about the size of a car cigarette lighter, a sendor is quite large about the size of a small orange. If you google Ford idiot oil pressure gauge, you'll find lots of HowTo's on how to convert to a true gauge. Tips and Tricks If you have some tips and tricks that squeeze a little more power out of your 2.3L Ford and you want to share them, contact me at: Return to the Getting the Most out of your Ford 2.3L Website