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My son in law bought an 86 Stang to build a streetcar. It's an original 4 cylinder car with no drivetrain. We're looking at a 2.3 turbo 5 speed 88 T-bird for a possible donor. I've never worked with one of these but everything I look at seems like you can make good power without a huge $$ investment. Anybody ever done much with a 2.3 turbo?
Those are super engines - forged pistons, heavy duty rods, decent camshaft. They usually need a timing belt and valve stem seals after 30-40,000 miles, but both are easy. Early versions had turbo problems if you didn't allow some cool down time after a hard run. I had a Turbo Mustang and those are the problems I had - but it would run with most of that vintage SB Chevies, Pontiacs and Fords. Speedway has a bunch of parts.Quote:
Originally Posted by falconvan
That's great, IC2. I've heard good things about them and there seems to be lots of aftermarket support.
Those 2.3's re super durable and run very well when properly built. That would make a cool, quick engine in a light Mustang.
Look to the 80's Mustang SVO's for suggestions of parts etc. These little SVO's have a cult following.
Don. Jr.
I have the 2.3 turbo from a t-bird, intake has been cut, rotated,gutted and knife edged, Haun super 16 G turbo(good for 30#) roller cam, brown top injectors, large MAF with an LA3 ECM. It has a front mounted inter-cooler and walbro 225 fuel pump. It's going in a 62 Renault Dauphine for F/BGALT car at Maxton. Record is 151 and change and I hope to get baby girl in the record book.
full tube chassis with narrowed opel gt front and franklin QC rear
That sounds like a wild setup! Can you post a few pics of your engine? After reading about these engines the past week, we're sold on doing the 2.3 setup. It's amazing you can get that kind of power out of such a small displacement. This should be a fun car to put together; I'm going to tell my son in law to join CHR and start a build thread on this thing.
These little motors have always interested me. I did a little surfing and came across this information. Scroll down for everything you ever wanted to know....
http://www.stinger-performance.com/faq.html
Good stuff here too, although leaning to naturally aspirated....
http://www.esslingeracing.com/faq.htm
Some good info on the 2.3 turbos here:
http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/index.php
http://www.mustangsvo.org/links/
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This will be cool; especially doing it on someone else's money for a change.
I had a 2.3 Turbo in a '79 Ghia 'Tang. It had a boost gate with a hose leading to the intake. If a 302 beat me, I'd pull the hose off and plug it off, and go again. It'd go from 9# boost to 12 or so, and it was bye, bye 302! Of course it was bye bye 2.3 in a little while too, but it was fun while it lasted! I bought the car for a 351 swap anyway.
i always thought one of those motors in a pinto would make the ultimate sleeper.
Well, we bought the donor car last night so he's commited. If he hadnt bought it, i would have; an 88 Tbird turbo coupe with a 5 speed and 3:55 limited slip for $300 bux! It was a police imound special; the perpetrator ran it into a ditch trying to escape and it sat in the tow yard until auction time. A friend of mine bought it but then got in a money pinch so it worked out good for both of us.
Here's the donor; I told my son in-law he could bring it to my place if it was stripped and gone by the weekend. We both had a day off so we worked from 7am to 8pm and got it stripped of the drivetrain, rearend, and all the wiring harness. He's freaking out looking at that big pile of parts and wondering if we'll ever get his car to run.
Well, my son in law decided that hot rod building wasnt for him, at least not now. Once he sat down and started figuring the time and $$$ it would take to put this together, he decided to sell off the car and the parts. So I just became the owner of a 2.3 Turbo T-bird engine and 5 speed trans. Dont know what I'm going to do with it yet but I'll come up with something. I think it'd make a great roadster engine.
Amazing!! But it's a better wake up call now. You either 'have it' or you don't.
Dang - too bad you weren't closer as that combo would easily fit in the bed of my truck and then I could 'make a home' for it
Were you able to save some other stuff? It looked like the seats were sharp looking.
I kind of saw it coming; Brent's a great guy but he hasnt done a lot of car work other than the basics. He's probably better off starting with a running "fixer-upper" to build some skills. The Mustang he bought was going to need a lot of TLC and $$ to get it roadworthy.
When he said he wanted to sell the drivetrain I knew I wanted it. When my Plymouth's done I'll figure out what to do with it. Lots of ideas!
I did save the front seats but they were rough. I'm thinking of using the power unit off of one of them for my 48 Plymouth front seat if i can figure out how to widen it to fit the bench seat. There were some misc items i saved; this car had a nice gauge setup and lots of dash gadgets. I might Ebay those. And he did get an 8.8 limited slip disc brake rear end out of it, too. So I need to figure out what kind of car to build around this motor/trans. Throw some ideas at me; it has to be small, light, and topless.
MGB, Triumph Spitfire or any of the other small british roadsters.
Or a T track roadster,as long as you are short enough to fit in it..Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt167
A track 'T' would be great with that motor. Unfortunately for me, I would need another leg joint to fit most that I've seen.
Attachment 49538
(I don't like the high windshield on this one, but this would be "the car")
I'm only 5' 6"; that might be perfect. I kind of though about a Nash Metropolitan, too. I've always liked those weird looking little buggers. I think a convertible one with a MII front stub would be cool.
Somethin' like this?
That's it!! Now I really want one.....
Ok, after some thought and research; I'm going with a 27 T roadster. I downloaded some chassis plans online and I'll go with a glass body, although I'm not sure from who yet. I probably wont start on it until my other car is done but that's the way I'd like to go.
