New to Ranger game.. Want to get more horses in my Ranger

Lucas97 · #1 04-20-2011, 04:35 PM

Hello Everyone I'm Lucas and just bought a 1997 Ranger XLT... It has a 2.3 Liter 4 cylinder engine.... I want to do a whole engine swap!... Possibly a good V8 engine...
I have two questions... What kind of V8 do you all recommend? Like what's a really good fit for my Ranger with alot of Horses

And also if I was to do this engine swap... Will I have to find a transmission to go with it... Someone told me I would need to change out my rear end because a V8 would be too much to handle for the stock gears on now!...
I'm new to the Ranger game and could use as much advise as possible thanks!

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Or possibly considering an old crate engine.. What about that?

klinger86 · #2 04-20-2011, 04:46 PM

welcome to frf... i know a few ppl have swaped a 302 into their trucks on here... and from what i'm seeing most say yes you would have to get the trans to go with it and a rearend swap would more hthan likely be needed to handle the extra power.

Airtruksrus · #3 04-21-2011, 12:27 AM

I've got a bit of info on my cardomain page just for one example of a swap.
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/300822...er-regular-cab

Your electronics on board will be quite different and should invest in the alldata for your truck which includes the wiring diagram. Depends greatly if you go EFI or carb. Will need a good transmission to go with the v8 but the rearend, depending if you have the light duty 7.5 should still hold up for a while until you get the swap to the 8.8, just go easy and hold back the urge to try to burn out every chance you get. Huge amount of info to go through but study everything before tearing apart the truck.