An LS fits anywhere. But I love this. And still Ford pedigree.
On the list of what engines normally get swapped into old-school rides like mjlogan’s ’62 Ranchero, a 2.5-liter Duratec four-cylinder engine from a Ford Transit Connect probably isn’t very high on that list.
Why, then, chose a Duratec?
“My turbo LS drag racing buddies were in my ear about LS swapping this thing. Anyone who has been under the hood of an early falcon knows how tight the engine bay it. I had a different idea though…
“Scouring craigslist brought me to this $200 2.5 duratec out of a ford transit connect. I was on the fence between duratec or ecotec but in the end duratec won due to ease of RWD transmission compatibility and the fact that they can be had for pennies. I literally trip over them in the junkyards.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, a turbocharger was soon added to the build, too.
Check out mjlogan’s Duratec-swapped 1962 Ford Ranchero over on the Builds and Project Cars forum.
An LS fits anywhere. But I love this. And still Ford pedigree.
I love a MAZDA engine going into a classic Ford.
Junghole said:I love a MAZDA engine going into a classic Ford.
Given it's from a Transit, it's not a Mazda engine- the separation of the two companies happened well before it was put into the Transit Connect. Even when it was shared, the development was shared. But I know that it's more popular to bash US car companies....
That's also a car that could benefit from a significant weight reduction on the front end. Even though the turbo added some weight back, it's still got to be a lot less than the cast iron lump.
I have no problem with cross pollination ( out of brand swaps) even though this is not by my standards. If the swap improves the overall driving experience I would call it a success. Most modern drive lines in older vehicles do just that. My first car a 1962 falcon wagon could have sure used this swap. Unfortunately that was not an option in 1973....
alfadriver said:Junghole said:I love a MAZDA engine going into a classic Ford.
Given it's from a Transit, it's not a Mazda engine- the separation of the two companies happened well before it was put into the Transit Connect. Even when it was shared, the development was shared. But I know that it's more popular to bash US car companies....
Incorrect. The Duratech 2.5 is a Mazda LF engine. No need to bash US car companies, they do quite a good job themselves. That wasn't what I came here to do. I actually like this idea of the engine in this chassis.
Open your mind before you open your mouth. https://www.google.com/amp/s/fordauthority.com/fmc/ford-motor-company-engines/ford-duratec-engine-family/ford-2-5l-duratec-engine/amp/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Transit_Connect
In reply to Junghole :
Dude, I worked on the team that developed that family of engines back in 2000. I know very much how much work we did at Ford and what Mazda did. Feel free to tell me what I did wasn't real, but it was. I was in meetings with engineers from Mazda, and I know the people in Dearborn who did our drawings and development.
That engine family was a very good one, and what we all did together was pretty amazing. But to pretend what we did was nothing, well, yea- that's not going to fly with me.
And it happened to end up being a very easy engine family to make PZEV, which was a huge deal 20 years ago.
As a matter of fact, back in 2003, we made a couple of turbo Duratecs- one that just had a turbo in the exhaust stream to test the heat loss, and the other in a Mondeo that was an actual boosted car. Pretty fun. *Almost* lead to a turbo Focus from SVT, but that didn't happen. But it also lead to a nice trip to visit Volvo about turbos.
To make this more tangent, I even "have" a 2018 Transit Connect development vehicle... Last used to project a 2024 version.
edit- I just looked at the wiki for the Mazda L, and it claims that the 2.0l Ecoboost based on the earlier Mazda LF- it was not. Very much was not. I know that someone looked into using the block, but other than that (if it was used), everything else was different- head, pistons, intake, etc- all designed around the DI system for our Ecoboost 2.0l family. We did have a Mazda 6 as an early DI development car (when we were working on the 3.5 GTDI) but things were changing so quickly, we didn't use much info from that work.
In reply to alfadriver :
Good to know. Sorry to call you a liar, I didn't realize you had a hand in this engine first hand. Had I known... but... this means there is a LOT of misinformation out there about this engine. Because all I can go off of is what the internet tells me.
In reply to Junghole :
It's all good. Seems that everyone here knows I'm a development engineer at Ford. For just 7 more months! Yay!!!
Displaying 1-9 of 9 commentsView all comments on the GRM forums
You'll need to log in to post.
