jim2
Member
- Joined
- September 17, 2012
- Messages
- 13
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Hawaii
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- '88 Ranger, 2.9, 4WD
Hi all, I'm new here. When I saw the "Whoops" forum, I figured I gotta share a story..
I picked up an 88 Ranger to run at a small dirt-rally track we have here. It had a lot of problems, including cracked heads and back taxes, so it was too expensive to ever put it back on the road. I got it for $200.
So anyway, I did the heads, and a bunch of other things, and got a few races out of it so far. ... but I never got around to lowering it because of all the other repairs. I needed shocks too, but didn't have the funds..
The first time at the track, I won my heat race. I was running second in the main, but overheated with 5 laps to go. .. had to pull out.
Second time, something just wasn't right. She had no power down low.. I still don't know why.. I got sixth, but that's only because 4 other trucks didn't finish. I was a distant sixth...
So, I set the timing according to the book. ... didn't help..
I tried setting it to 12* BTDC, but that didn't help either, so I set it back to 10.
I got a throttle body from an '86 and put it on there... still nothing.
There was a dead spot coming off idle, and no power down low. It was driving me crazy, and I was out of ideas.
Then, my buddy told me "just set it to 32 degrees @ 3500 rpm". That sounds crazy, but it worked! There was still a slight hesitation, but the power was back.
So the next day, we went racing. This is where it gets good...
We were running some real good lap times in practice, but the temp was climbing.
My buddy is telling me to save it for the race, but there was a couple guys that pulled into the practice session, and I had to see if I could catch em. ...even in practice, it's always a race whenever there's more than one vehicle on the track.
Fast-forward a couple laps... the #02 goes wide on a hairpin and I got the inside line.
The little 2.9 is pulling strong, and I'm grinning ear to ear. ... we're gonna make this pass.. it's a sweeping left, the fastest part of the track.. we hit some bumps, and on the third bounce, we rolled it...
I picked up an 88 Ranger to run at a small dirt-rally track we have here. It had a lot of problems, including cracked heads and back taxes, so it was too expensive to ever put it back on the road. I got it for $200.
So anyway, I did the heads, and a bunch of other things, and got a few races out of it so far. ... but I never got around to lowering it because of all the other repairs. I needed shocks too, but didn't have the funds..
The first time at the track, I won my heat race. I was running second in the main, but overheated with 5 laps to go. .. had to pull out.
Second time, something just wasn't right. She had no power down low.. I still don't know why.. I got sixth, but that's only because 4 other trucks didn't finish. I was a distant sixth...
So, I set the timing according to the book. ... didn't help..
I tried setting it to 12* BTDC, but that didn't help either, so I set it back to 10.
I got a throttle body from an '86 and put it on there... still nothing.
There was a dead spot coming off idle, and no power down low. It was driving me crazy, and I was out of ideas.
Then, my buddy told me "just set it to 32 degrees @ 3500 rpm". That sounds crazy, but it worked! There was still a slight hesitation, but the power was back.
So the next day, we went racing. This is where it gets good...
We were running some real good lap times in practice, but the temp was climbing.
My buddy is telling me to save it for the race, but there was a couple guys that pulled into the practice session, and I had to see if I could catch em. ...even in practice, it's always a race whenever there's more than one vehicle on the track.
Fast-forward a couple laps... the #02 goes wide on a hairpin and I got the inside line.
The little 2.9 is pulling strong, and I'm grinning ear to ear. ... we're gonna make this pass.. it's a sweeping left, the fastest part of the track.. we hit some bumps, and on the third bounce, we rolled it...
