Don’t be surprised if the one you pull from a good running car is cracked, most can be used as is though repair of them can be prohibitively expensive. Unfortunately these heads are very prone to cracking around the exhaust valve seat. The ’83-’84 heads are lacking 1 bolt hole that is needed in order to make use of the later style intake manifold. Heads: All turbo heads have the same combustion chamber and port design, the exhaust ports are common to all of the Ranger based 2.0/2.3/2.5 OHC engines. All other turbos were oil and water cooled and holds up better. ’83-’84 turbos were oil cooled only and tended to lead a short life. It does however spool quickly though and could be considered a good choice for a moderate performance truck.

The IHI unit is physically smaller than the Garrett and is not capable of putting out the same max. ’87-’88 T-birds used a turbo built by Borg Warner’s IHI division and are referred to as IHI’s. The larger the A/R the more efficiently the turbo will make boost compared to one with a smaller A/R. A/R stands for Area Ratio it is the area of the scroll housing divided by the radius of the housing from the center of the scroll to the shaft center line. 63 A/R (‘large’) housing which breathed freer and had a better top end. 48 A/R (‘small’) exhaust scroll housing for better low end boost. Vehicles equipped with an Auto tranny used a turbo with a. Turbos: All Mustang SVO’s, Merkurs and ’83-’86 T-birds used a Garrett (Air Research) T3 based turbo. Which is the best one is very subjective and I feel the best set-up has components from several different cars. With ’88 T-birds being the most advanced. Engines and Related Components:Īs with most vehicles these engines evolved and improved with each new model year. For the purposes of this discussion I’m not going to include the ’79-’81 carbureted models, as they are fairly rare and their performance potential is limited at best. This page is meant to give you an overview of the engine and what is needed to make it fit and work well in your truck.

Turbocharged 2.3 litre motors were installed from the factory in ’79-’81 Mustangs, ’85-’89 Merkur XR4Ti’s, ’83-’88 Thunderbird TurboCoupes and some ’83-’86 Cougar XR-7’s.

88 ford thunderbird turbo