I am a 15 year old and I am working on a car to drag race next year. I have acquired a 1988 ford tempo GL with a 2.3 HSC 4-cylender and automatic transmission for cheap (like almost free cheap.) All the motor needs is a head gasket. I have already taken the motor and transmission out of the car to repair it. Before I install it I was wondering how hard it would be to install this motor in a Ford Escort GT. How much extra work do you think I would have to do to install this motor into an Escort? The motor mounts look the same but i was wondering how much electrical I would have to change and if everything would line up correctly. I just thought that this would be a more nicer car than a tempo because it is getting harder to find a tempo that has minimal rust and a strait body like the Escort I found. I know the car will not be super fast but I figured it would be a good starter car before I move to something faster. I thought it would be a interesting project.
I probably can’t help you too much here but that is an interesting project IMHO. The Tempo is a bland car but the Escort GT is kind of neat.
This swap is one I’m not familiar with but a quick look at a few items such as clutch assemblies, flywheel ring gears, and CV shafts show a direct interchange between the Tempo and Escort so that means it should be a doable deal I would think.
(To reference any parts in the future on interchanges go to the Advance Auto website, pick a part, and click on the pic when it appears. It will then have a prompt for “See other vehicles this part fits” or something to that effect.)
The fuel injection and emission stuff is pretty simple actually and should not be difficult to do. Of course I don’t know your mechanical expertise either. There will be some wire mating, hose adapting, intake duct changes, and linkage modifications here and there but that’s to be expected on something like this.
The 2.3 is a solid engine and they stay pretty much bought up around here. The race car guys run them in the Mini-Stock class at the local dirt track.
Look what this guy did with a Ford 2.3!
http://www.merkurencyclopedia.com/Merkur_misc/Byrnes_1998.html
Thank you for your answer, I took a look too and a lot of stuff looks similar and I think I am going to try the swap. I have only done one motor swap before, and that was in a 75 Ford F150, but heck with it, I figured now is a good as time as anytime to try something new! From what I can see about the only things I would have to change is the distributor harness and some of the fuel injection. I also thought of another idea. I bought a turbo off of an 88 Ford Thunderbird turbo coupe that had a 2.3 and am considering installing that.