Thread: 2.3 turbo Mustang

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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?

Originally Posted by falconvan

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.

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/




.

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