Ford’s 2.0/2.3/2.5 litre engine family guide

The round tooth belt is a lot stronger, and it's harder to strip the teeth out of them.

 

I maybe highjacking this great thread, but a few years ago when a close buddy of mine passed away, I inherited some sort of Ford 4 banger with a auto tranny attached as it was pulled out of what ever it was in. My buddy was going to build a streetable track roadster. I would like to know what it is, how I can identify it. At this point in time I can't produce any photos or numbers as the engine is up in my place in TN and I am down in FL right now. If there is some kind of base info that I can use when I get back up there, it would be greatly appreciated. I am not a Ford person so I am running blind so to speak.It may be from the late 80s, or 90s. Thanks

 

Here ya go

 

Very nice ... thanks.

 

How about a cosworth yb head for the EAO 2.0 if one can be found?.

 

Or a aftermarket blow through turbo kit?.

 

hotroddon what intake are you running or is it home made

very nice looking machine

 

Here's another side to the "square tooth" debate; I was a parts counter-man in a large Wichita Ford dealership. In 1978 I got acquainted with David Blanton, since deceased, Dave was an aircraft engineer, and did quite a bit of consulting work. He also had a passion for home-built aircraft and was coming up with a package to install a 2300 in such! Much more economical to adapt an automotive powerplant than to use a Lycoming or Continental! Since the cars were 4 years old that first received these engines we knew there was a certain percentage that were throwing the timing belts! Not chronic, but more timing troubles than anything else at the time. Other companies using "rubber bands" had similar tales. I remember asking Dave about that; "Yeah, well we're working on that, come out to my shop sometime, I'll give you a demo flight". I did and he did, they had a 2.3 installed in a Cessna 152; he and his crew had built a reduction drive , 2 to 1 ratio using a HUGE Gilmer style belt!
Interesting to say the least, but this timing thing kind of bugged me; you don't want an airplane to shut down over such a simple thing! Well, Dave comes in one day, and excitedly relates this; "You know Mike, we have a Pinto with a 2300 and a 4 speed, you can put that car in first gear, move out and basically floor it, then without clutching it, take your foot off the gas, fast; it'll throw the belt every time!!" I know that surprised me, he did it more than once, it did it EVERY time!! His explanation; the square tooth tends to climb the sprocket and then jump! So Dave had gotten acquainted with some of the Powerplant Engineers at Ford, he told this one guy the same thing I just related. "No way", the guy said, "no way'!! "You try it, get back with me", Dave told him. Dave said the guy called back a couple of hours later; and astonished had to admit Dave was right; they had taken a Mustang II out of the motor pool did what Dave told them to do and had to walk a mile or so to get help!! Ford definitely had a problem! The 2.3 airplane project; it never really caught on, Dave really promoted it heavily in that fraternity. I wish I had saved the pamphlet that he gave me, interesting pictures!!

 

Thanks - the intake manifold was made by TWM. They haven't been made in years and are difficult to come by. Took me about 6 months to find this one.
PIerce Manifolds bought out the patterns to cast these from what I understand, but in talking to them, I'm not sure they have ever made any.

 

Interesting.

 

Hey guys my buddy is having a hec of a time get this motor timed; crank is at t.d.c. and the dizzy is point at #1 and well the cam is well we don't no as all the marks are gone so any help would be great. He keeps talking about using a string and the we tried the flat piece of steel on top of the cam like they did on TV and that didn't work so any tricks or hints would be great.

 

Just so you know, the motor is stuck!
I re-tightened the belt about 4 times, each time it ran fine for a minute or so then slipped again. I kept thinkin it was me being a lousy mechanic, but then the 3rd time it felt really hard to turn over by hand and infact when it slipped for the 4th time it froze.
I guess a valve, or more, kept gettin stuck at random forcing the belt to slip, until now that it got stuck for good. I have yet to open the rocker cover to see the actal havoc thou.
So, in the grand scheme of things it is nothin major, as i have a good spare 205 block 2 liter at home, and its the chance to buy a econobox daily and finish this project properly like i want it to be, but in the small scheme, it sucks major, cause im broke, in need to find a new home in 3 months top, with 4 dogs and a full shop to carry with me.
How well, as they say, when shit hits the fan.....

 

So you are saying that the cam belt cover (2 pcs) is missing ?

 

yep we dont have all the pointers to match up

 

Are there timing marks on the pulleys? Or maybe I'm confusing the 2.3 with another engine.

 

Continuing from my post #398. Since I've had some time to think about all of this and remember we're talking over 30 years ago. I made mention of the the story of the 2300s in a stick shift car jumping time. Read 398 for that. It happened in the airplane too! Normal test flight and the pilot cut the power quickly, engine dies! Doesn't restart, at that point you are in a stall situation! I'm not a pilot, but I know several and I've had the privilege of taking "the controls", one I'm acquainted with who is a very good jet pilot! When you stall, you have to get out of the stall, it could end up in a spin, fortunately a Cessna 152 is one of those "forgiving" aircraft! But since we have lost power, then you start looking for a place to land! Kansas being pretty "flat", they got down o.k., but it was a close thing! They had to partially disassemble the airplane and haul it back to Dave's shop on a trailer! That's when they knew the square tooth timing belt was not a good design. They didn't fly it again until they were sure the problem was solved, that was the responsible thing to do! Plus, they didn't want the "Feds" getting involved, I don't believe they radioed about an emergency landing; the amount of paper work and of course people investigating the reason why! That in itself could have killed the project! Several things did kill the project; the economy being one of them, by late '79 and early the 80s it had gone to hell in a hand basket! People give up their hobbies over food and shelter every time! From my recollection Mr. Blanton finally came up with a different set of pulleys and a different belt, fairly expensive, but who wants some home built airplane to crash into a house!! And that was the discussion at work; Dave being a little flamboyant and loud, several people on the parts counter heard the account of the "Kansas- wheat-field- landing- with- a -dead- Ford 2300- engine"!!

 

If it is cam timing you are trying to do the string method works well.
The pointer on the cam sprocket should be directly in a line between the center of the cam sprocket and the center of the aux shaft sprocket when it is timed correctly.

 

^^^ that's what I needed I think^^^

 

Hey guys, everyone here seems pretty informed on these engines so I'll ask it here. What are some quick easy methods to get a little more pep out of these engines? I have a customer with a Model A Shay with a 2.3 and it barely wants to get to 50mph. He doesnt want to do a total engine tear down just a few little mods to briten up the power a bit.

 

I reworked an OBX header (S.S.) to fit the Duratec 2.0L, it breathes quite well thru it.
The earlier motors have all kinds of gear, to do what you're after.

 

What kind of "gear"? i havent really found much help. Mostly i've found people saying to change the cam and head and blah blah blah complete teardown.

 

jkeesey, I'd look into the timing belt, sounds to me like the timing belt may have jumped, put a vacuum gage on it, and do a compression test first. What transmission, rear end gear ratio, tire size does the car have. In something like a Model A it should be able to go faster than 50 mph.

 

Thats what i thought also Kenneth. I believe the trans is a C4, the owner had it replaced recently. It was a standard but in his older age he couldnt shift very well anymore. The tires are 14" radials, not very large but should still do the job. The rear im not sure about, most likely stock pinto whatever that was. When he first got the car it would preignite when turned off and his friend "set" the timing so that was one of the things i was going to check first. I was also going to check his gas pedal throw to make sure he was getting full throttle. If the timing belt has jumped how hard is it to replace?

 

The timing belt isn't too hard to change, you have to pull the pulley off of the crankshaft to get the belt off, and on the bottom timing pulley. The #1 cylinder is a TDC when the key in the crankshaft is at the 12 o'clock position, point the rotor in the distributor at the #1 cylinder, and line up the camshaft timing marks as shown in the picture.


With the new belt on make sure that you have no slack in the belt on the opposite side of the belt tensioner, and only rotate the engine clockwise. You also should replace the belt tensioner pulley with a new one.

 

I'd look thru Summit, then go to the chat rooms for sources too. Foci iron block, Ranger 2.3 etc.
Here is: http://www.summitracing.com/search/...e-size/2-3l-140/engine-family/ford-4-cylinder

 

I know I rambled on in my posts #398 and 406 about the square tooth belts. I would like to hear some feedback on timing belt issues on these engines! Square, round, whatever, I'll reserve my opinion, til I'm "enlightened"!! Mike.

 

Mike,
In gear design, the best shape, is an involute form. Each 'tooth' slides into, and out of, mesh. Not unlike the issue, where CV joints are able to transmit power at a constant, rather than varing speed, a problem when you have u-joints on non-straight shaft alignments. The 'bend' causes shaft (B) to speed up and slow down, oscillating around the input shaft's speed.
When not involute, it could lead to belt tooth dis-engagements and launch.

 

The only time I've seen issues with the square teeth belts is when they are not tight enough. A little bit of slack in the belt will do them in. About the "first gear test" when I used to autocross my Pinto way back when, it would have had the timing belt jump time on just about every run I made. When I race I have no mercy on my stuff.

 

I guess I'll find out...

I'm getting ready to put a 2.3 SVO in a light British racecar chassis ( I'm in the last stages of parts collecting )

And I just bought an adjustable square tooth cam pulley.

Maybe I should have bought all the pulleys to do the round tooth conversion, but I wasnt aware that there were any problems with the square tooth belts at the time.

 

This is not a interference engine, right?

If it jumps one you can just reset it and drive off again?

Or will you have a head full of bent valves?