BroncoII4x4.com

I have a 85 Bronco 2. The motor scored a piston and i don't feel like spending a ton of money for a rebuild. The driveline is in excellent shape so I dont really want to haul it out to the boneyard. I do have a fresh 4 cylinder 140 cid pinto engine on the floor. I was wondering if anyone has done this engine swap before or heard of it?

It should be possible.

If I were to do something like that I would want to Turbo the 2.3. There are a lot of speed parts around for the 2.3 and not super expensive either. Interesting...

I just wanted to do this as cheap as possible, something i could go across town to work in the winter so i wouldn't have to start up the diesel all the time.

Hey like I always say "Anything is possible with a liberal application of ideas"

Ya it can be done I got a 2.3 4 speed 4wd in mine. It sucks. Like trying to drive a go cart up hills and what not. Gets like 12 to 15 mpg. Now it is carb. You can swap the bellhousings but I hear you have to trim the shaft on the 2.9 5 speeds don't know about auto's. I am gonna go to a 302.

adc is right. the 2.9 input shaft for the 5 speed is longer for the pilot bearing. back when i worked for ford the t-bird came out with a 2.3 turbo that wasn't water cooled and they where burning up so Ford had a recall to make it water cooled. we had turbos laying around all over the place so my friend put it on his pinto (2000). it worked good on it then he put the motor in his buggy and the turbo lag sucked for off road. turbos are great for going up a sand hill fast but don't work for 4x4. it sound like a lot of work to make a 4 cly work for a lot of less power and you are gonna make a lot of trips to the junk yard to make it work. just what i think

if you are going to go through all the work I highly recomend the v8 swap... TONS more power and better fuel economy than 2.9

yeah I would defiantly agree with every one on the idea of a 302 swap and all the information is pretty laid out across a few ford websites