Mercury Khronos

Very nice

Didn't quite get the tailgate finished. The yellow took longer to dry than I wanted.



But I did get the grille painted and the light bezels touched up. Also got the lights hooked up adjusted and working.


Since I plan to relocate the boost guage up a bit higher and move the water temp and oil pressure guages also. That would require me to get a tripple guage pod for the top of the dash but I recently go a Innovate wide band O2 with guage and I want that next to the boost. Need a 4 guage pod. Nothing on E-bay so I go with what I do best. Make one.

Nice work! If you want something done, do it yourself!
I will show you my Ute/Bakkie when i got some more pics of it. For now the plan is to run a Ford CVH turbo, but soon there will be a 2.9er with turbo in it. Nope, its not a Ranger but it is a Ford Pickup, one that you probably never heard of.

Got a few more things finished over the weekend.

Tailgate and rollpan painted


Gave the winter wheels a coat... or two....or three, of black also.


Built some bed rails, like a stake side.



And took the truck to the carwash to clean the grime off.

Nice indeed

Just drove it all winter, no work done. I did get new tires front and rear.

Getting the turbo motor together and should be swapping it this weekend.

Free float rocker spacers


New oil drain back tube. First time around I just used a rubber hose and it kinked at the 90 going into the oil pan. No more kinks on this one.


Remote oil filter adapter. While the oil pan was down I drilled and tapped for the oil return, and installed a Melling HV oil pump.


Mocked the rest up to make sure the oil drain was good.

Nice!
What is the plan now. I can see that you builds on a 4.0 but how much boost and what turbo will you run?

The 4.0 really likes big lorry turbos. A big turbine with a smaller compressor seems to be the right recipe.

By the way. I have found out that the cat version of the 29er have much durable heads compared to the non cat versions. Also the 1995- version is even more durable. This might be one of the reasons why we can get much power without breakdowns compared to other countries. We got the cat version at 1988 so all our 2.9ers is the good versions.

Yes I'm building a 4.0L. The turbo is a .63 compressor, .60 turbine. It is a small one but I can upgrade later. I just want to get this running again.

I had it running 3 PSI couple years ago but the under hood temperatures were high. I ended up overheating a couple times and it ended up cracking a head.

I've done a few things to help prevent this, use of header wrap, as well as a better fuel management setup. and will be installing a FMIC shortly.

Got the oil pan sealed and bolted back on. Got the fittings sealed and tight on the oil filter adapter.

I was going to use a pair of 2.9L valve covers but the extra hole posed issues so I used the factory 4.0L ones instead. Got the Power steering pump cleaned and installed, ran the oil feed line and made sure my oil return was good.

Harness run and coil pack back on. It's starting to look like a complete engine again. Serp belt installed. O2 installed into down pipe.

Also routed the vent from the filler neck into the intake. Previous setup used a rubber line but this time I made a hard line for it.

Tonight I start tearing the 2.9L out of the ranger.

The wire harness has kicked my ass but I will not let it get the better of me. Hope to have all the wireing done today and get a couple intake pipes reworked so they clear the rad intake.

The kit was originally built around a truck that had a bodylift, so the rad sat higher. With the lower rad and filter location the rad hose is trying to occupy the space the blow off valve is.



FMU location


Buddy of mine dropped off his truck so I could compare wires better. One is 5 up and the other is 5 down.

Looking good

Nice one!
Good that it's back in business.

Got a couple of coupler reducers so I can now work on getting the intercooler installed. Just need to go down to the muffler shop and get some 2.5" tube to build the intake pipes.

Still need to wire in the LC-1 wideband, so I can see what my AF ratio's are, before I start adding more boost.

Got the LC-1 wideband running. At idle it sees an AFR of around 15-14, which is about normal. as throttle is applied and nearing 0 vac it goes up to about 12.3. And at WOT and 6 PSI boost it spikes to about 9.4 AFR.

I wonder if I install a MBC to bleed off some boost to the FMU if I can make it lean out a bit.

Any thoughts? This is with the stock 19 Lb/h injectors. I have 24's I can put in but then I'm sure I will max out the flow of the 255 pump I have with 6 psi boost.

Experimented a bit and removed the boost line from FMU. Needless to say it went back on quick, at 4 psi it was going 14.4. Way too lean, could clearly hear the motor didn't like that. Then I tried the bleeding off boost signal to FMU, but it's such a fine adjustment it would go lean with just the smallest move, also with that light of pressure on the ball and spring it would have a vacuum leak when not under boost. Didn't have much in the way for spring choices. So I abandoned that idea. Installed the 10:1 kit I have for the Vortec FMU, in hopes that it would bring the AFR's down a bit. It did!! At 8 PSI (cool night) it was at 10.4. I did see it hit 9.9 but only after a couple of hard launches.

The stumble at 4000 is gone. I was able to take it up to 5000 redline....still under boost. I'm guessing that my fuel pressure was so high that I was fighting the fuel pump and injector pressure limits, or it was near flooding itself at 6 PSI.

My AFR's at idle (700 rpm) are still around 15-16 at start up. This is stock parameters in ECU. Most times I see around 14, once the motor hits optimum temp, get drop out of cold start mode. I could run the 24 lb/h injectors to fatten it up under vac, and keep the 10:1 kit on it or get a 8:1 kit and and 6:1 kit to see if I can bring the AFR's to a more reasonable 11.5ish under boost.

Intercooler is for sure next to get going on. before I start upping the boost to 10psi.

Sure feels like I'm getting some good power now. The HP may be on the low side but this turbo 4.0L makes GOBs of torque. Smokin these Bald 31x10.5's is so easy now. I can hit second and keep them spinning. Good thing my welded diff is holding up, but I bet my u-joints have taken a hurting. Might be time to replace before they leave me stranded like last time.

Ya it's totally noticeable. Nothing some semigloss won't fix.

Awesome! Will you give it a bit more boost now or will you just tune the ignition?

I started to increase the boost, and at 8 PSI it rattles the bottom end. I'm at the limit of 87 octane fuel. I'd have to start using 91-92 octane and it stupid expensive. $1.60/L.

I'm good at 7 PSI. No knocks, and 10.5 AFR. 

Plan to just run fuel and miles now. The odd maintenance needs to get done however. My Propshaft joints are screaming at me.

So as of right now my setup contains

1992 4.0L motor
Stock ECU parameters and electrical
Free float rocker spacers
HV Melling oil pump
.64/.60 trim Garrett T3/T4 turbo original wastegate
Stock 19# injectors
Walboro 255 fuel pump
Vortech 10:1 FMU
12 x 12 x 3 intercooler
Ebay blowoff valve.
7 PSI boost.

Sunpro boost guage
Innovate LC-1 wideband with X-16 digital guage.

No dyno numbers yet, but already roasted a pair of tires.


Other things to note:

Stock Mazda M5OD-R1 transmission
Ford 8.8 rear axle with welded diff, and 4.10:1 gearing.


Top speed 170 Km/H

Copykat skrev:

I started to increase the boost, and at 8 PSI it rattles the bottom end. I'm at the limit of 87 octane fuel. I'd have to start using 91-92 octane and it stupid expensive. $1.60/L.

I'm good at 7 PSI. No knocks, and 10.5 AFR. 

Plan to just run fuel and miles now. The odd maintenance needs to get done however. My Propshaft joints are screaming at me.

So as of right now my setup contains

1992 4.0L motor
Stock ECU parameters and electrical
Free float rocker spacers
HV Melling oil pump
.64/.60 trim Garrett T3/T4 turbo original wastegate
Stock 19# injectors
Walboro 255 fuel pump
Vortech 10:1 FMU
12 x 12 x 3 intercooler
Ebay blowoff valve.
7 PSI boost.

Sunpro boost guage
Innovate LC-1 wideband with X-16 digital guage.

No dyno numbers yet, but already roasted a pair of tires.


Other things to note:

Stock Mazda M5OD-R1 transmission
Ford 8.8 rear axle with welded diff, and 4.10:1 gearing.


Top speed 170 Km/H

Ah, sounds nice! Play safe and have fun instead of going tops and be back at the drawing board.

Why not just go for the 8.8 with LSD (every Explorer more or less)? I'm going to run my P100 with a 8.8 disc LSD 3.73 version, should work fine up to 500bhp what I read.
Guess that you have seen this one: http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/Explorer8_8.html

I use a Ranger 8.8 for the narrow width. It's at about 56.5" where as the Explorer 8.8 is 59".

I've already flared the bedsides alot to fit the tires I have 31 x 10.5 -15

I've had a LSD before and they wear out fast. Also tried the locker route and the predictability of the welded (spool) is second to none. I also have converted the 8.8 to disk brakes already.

The week part of the 8.8 is in the carrier where the cross pin goes. That is where the most failures occur. Welding the spider gears to the carrier help strengthen this area.

Copykat skrev:

I use a Ranger 8.8 for the narrow width. It's at about 56.5" where as the Explorer 8.8 is 59".

I've already flared the bedsides alot to fit the tires I have 31 x 10.5 -15

I've had a LSD before and they wear out fast. Also tried the locker route and the predictability of the welded (spool) is second to none. I also have converted the 8.8 to disk brakes already.

The week part of the 8.8 is in the carrier where the cross pin goes. That is where the most failures occur. Welding the spider gears to the carrier help strengthen this area.

Ah, I see.
Like this I guess.

Nope. But that does help.

Like this and on both sides of the window.

Here are some pictures of the Gauge hood.



Trimmed and sanded. Just needs a skim coat of putty and an addition to the face, then I can paint it up and mount it for good.