1994 Mazda B2300 2.3l Project
 

I own a 1994 Mazda B2300. It's identical to a Ford ranger. Main difference is it has sequential fuel injection. No A/C. No power steering. It has the 3.08 highway gearing, I can't go any lower.

I want to improve it's power output and MPG while still keeping it as a daily driver and use as a truck with a bed.

Mechanically it's in great condition.
- I've replaced all fluids. Fully synthetic in the rear end and transmission. Sticking with oem standard fluid for the engine (I don't want a potential leak).

- I removed two air baffles in the intake system.

- Installed a new K and N air filter.

- Brand new 215/75/15 Hancock tires all season light weight tires.

- Partial grill block. Front air dam (needs to be fine tuned)

- Roll up tonneau cover.

- Stick shift.

- Led head lights

I want to close the gap for the wheel wells. Do some under body work at the rear end for aero. I'm also working on an electric fan.

Any other ideas as to what to do???

Some more pictures. New duel core allumiun radiator. Wrapped headers and Egr tube. I used a rubber seal to close the gaps at the hood and between the bumper and grill. I noticed right away engine noise was cut down.

I installed a partial grill block. I did this once before and went for a 50 percent grill block. It was mid summer, I had an old single steel core radiator and it would heat up too much and loose power. I'm thinking this smaller grill block with the better radiator should do well. I'm installing an electric fan and the cooler the truck runs the less it will have to turn on and the less power it will rob.

What do you think of the half-tonneau? Front half of the bed open and the back half boxed.

Performance would [apparently] be better than the tonneau and not quite as good as a full aerocap.

What do you think of a full aerocap?

I wouldn't mind doing an aero cap. Especially if it looks like the pic below. A half cover would be allot easier to construct

The one you've shown is sub-optimal. The most it will do is fill the wake.

An effective aerocap will transition [gaplessly] off the cab on the top and sides to prevent the turbulence your example will induce.

How about this?

https://ecomodder.com/forum/member-f...02-5-26-32.png

I talked to the manager at the pizza parlor and he knew it improved the gas mileage, but not by how much. An aerocap that tapers on the top but not the sides would have the same rear face. So it's midway between a cap and a half-tonneau.

The way it works is it sets up a rolling ball of air in the bed that causes air flow to skip over instead of invade the bed.

It would be improved by beveling the top corners. The low road to results might be to get a utility box and slide it from the front of the bed to the rear. Instant half-tonneau.

In fact you could A-B test the front and rear locations, and generate useful data for other pickemup owners.

I can definitely test out a half tonneau cover. Looking at the pic I posted you are definitely right, it is not gapeless and would still have turbelance.

So are you saying that having what is in the pic you sent would be ideal because it would still keep that rolling ball of air in the bed but would allow other air to pass over seamlessly. (Of course a full boat tail is deal)

I seen one guy years ago did a kamback on his ranger, off the cab, but he couldn't get it quite right and it only caused drag

Rather than 'ideal' I'd say in the ball park. Here's the patent GMC took out
Use the search term 'pickup truck wing' and look at the first three articles.

"Ideal" can only be defined in the context of what you are comfortable doing to your own truck, how you plan to use it, how much time and money you want to spend, and what results you actually want. You need to nail those down first. In fact, "optimized" is the better word, and what OEMs typically use to describe the process of aerodynamic development.

I started a website a couple weeks ago. You might find these useful:
A Practical Guide to Aerodynamic Modification
Tuft Testing: A How-To Manual
External Mirror Removal
I'll be updating it with more on my truck as I test things this spring.

Thank you! I will definitely check out each one of those links. The word "optimize" is definitely more accurate to what I'm trying to do

Damn how many mpg are you getting now? My 3.0/3.73/5mt was getting 25mpg on average doing standard stuff that we do, but you basically have the holy grail of Rangers. It is 5 speed isn't it?

It is a five speed fortunately, and yes I feel like I have the holy grail of rangers haha. The later year ones the uped the rear gear ratios to 3.27 or something. As for mpg, it's hard to say. With my current set up, I'd say around 27mpg on average. I could be dead wrong one way or the other. I don't have a scan guage. I hypermill it pretty well too.

I had a 94 ranger, same setup as you. 2.3, 5sp, 3.08 rear end. I have an idea for you. When i had mine, i swapped injectors. The stock ones have a single stream much like a washer fluid nozzle that squirts gas into the manifold. I got a set of four from the junkyard (i think it was an early 2000’s focus, i don’t remember but i know they were the same pound rating) that have the four small holes on them that “mist” the fuel instead of squirting it. Now, i don’t have any real-world mpg data or FE records since the truck didn’t make it much longer, but i can tell you that i hooked it up to the MAC scanner at work. With the stock injectors the fuel trim was between -1 and +1. With the focus injectors it was between -12 and -10. That was only tested at idle, since the obd1 plug was under the hood. If you have time and a cheap u-pull-it junkyard close by, it may be worth a shot.

Oh and another thing I forgot… you have the 8 plug head. 4 fire on ignition stroke, 4 fire on exhaust stroke to help with emissions. You can swap the four plug wires on the secondary coil so they fire on the ignition stroke, so you have two plugs firing per cylinder. There’s a ton of write ups on it with pictorial instructions if you search Ford ranger forums.

Awesome. :thumbup"

I was aware of both wasted-spark and twin-spark engines, but I would never guess Ford did this setup in this engine, instead of having both spark plugs on each cylinder firing simultaneously.

A few thoughts:

1. Based on my previous experience with a Ranger, this 2.3L engine REALLY likes full synthetic oil. It makes a noticeable difference in fuel efficiency. My favorite was Mobil1 5w30.

2. Swapping the engine fan/clutch setup for an electric cooling fan properly set inside a fan shroud makes a noticeable difference in fuel economy and power available at the rear wheels.

3. Any weight reduction in things that spin will reduce the power that it takes to get your truck moving. Lighter tires, wheels, aluminum driveshaft swap, etc would all be beneficial.

That's one of the most straightforward mods that can be implemented on trucks in general. It also decreases the likelihood of an overheating at a slow-pace traffic jam.

My rear main seal isn't leaking oil but I can tell that it does drip very slightly and I'm afraid fully synthetic may cause that slight drip to worsen. It is a 28 year old truck after all. I'll have to think about it.

Id love to find lighter weight 15 inch rims for my truck especially ones that won't break the bank. Ive got the Mazda Navajo rims on but I feel I might be able to find a lighter weight set of oem rims at the junkyard.

I'd also love to try and find an aluminum drive shaft aswell. I heard some old Ford aerostars had them. Maybe I can find one for cheap.

I decided to try and close up the huge wheel well arch gaps. Wheel wells cause a significant amount of drag. I'm hoping my solution will actually help reduce that drag. I went and got weather stripping off a Dodge Durango, cut it to size and bolted it to the under side of the fenders. I'm half done and will do the same to the front of the truck here shortly.

I've done zero ABA testing. I'm just hoping this mod does what I want it to do haha.

Thank you! I will 100 percent look into that

I went ahead and installed a set of EV6 xs4u-aa 4 hole fuel injectors off a 2000 Ford focus. According to my research they are between 16-19lb fuel injectors. A bit more than the standard EV1 pintle 14lb fuel injectors. I just started driving with the new set up and nothing has gone wrong so far. It idles just fine. No check engine light. Fuel trim doesn't seem to be affected by much but I would need a scan guage to truly tell. It seems like a worthy upgrade so far.

I have to give thanks to backroadbomber for bringing this idea to light.

I had a 97 Ranger with the 2.3l / 5 speed / and a 3.73 rear and was getting 30-32 mpg fairly regularly but it was almost all highway. The 3.08 sounds great but is it maybe too tall for something with barely 115 hp? Especially if the majority of your driving is in town. Maybe moving up to a 3.45 would be middle ground between what you have and what I had. I did the intake baffles and the coil pack mod mentioned earlier. Tonneau cover and oversized tires to help with the final drive ratio. You can still find it in the garage under Little Black Ranger. Unfortunately it died a few years ago. Never did the injector swap.

That's a good point. Or if the OP ends up unsatisfied with an excessively taller rear-end for such engine, maybe resorting to smaller wheels and tires like some Japanese and Korean trucks which have smaller rear wheels in some versions is another option to consider, as a smaller diameter of the wheels would equate to fitting a shorter gearing, and eventually would save some weight too...

I was just thinking about that today. What makes these tall gears difficult to work with is the in town shifting. It's just not smooth at all. Each gear feels so far away from each other in terms of rpms. Shorter gearing would make shifting easier. The nice thing is I am able to get it into 5th gear at 35 without the rpms being to low when cruising

There's actually a 15inch Ford OEM ranger rim style I can find at the junkyard that weighs less than my current Mazda Navajo alloy rims and would work with my new tires. Any weight savings on the rims would help with my lack of engine power

Just got the truck aligned first time in 5 years. The technician said everything is perfect for the suspension. I opted for zero toe. Less friction of the tires and possibly better mpg. Plus it might help with understeer and turning the truck, especially since I don't have power steering.

You mentioned the leaky rear main seal. One trick is to put a vacuum on the crankcase. You are then sucking minute amounts of air through the seal instead of bleeding minute amounts of oil out. One method (prescribed by Ron "The Gadgetman" Hatton) is to cap the breather side. This forces full engine vacuum on the crankcase through the PCV valve. If this scares you, back in the '90s I tried an En-Valve (still around last I checked) that puts a regulated 5" of vacuum on the crankcase. The one downside to the En-Valve is that it bleeds ambient air into the system, not filtered air.

Something I did was to get a vacuum regulator valve from McMaster-Carr and place it on the breather side. Putting a vacuum gauge on the dipstick allowed me to dial it in at around 7" of crankcase vacuum. More on PCV mods.
Attachment 32126

I guess you know what Colin Chapman would say about weight savings...

Just installed an electric fan. I originally had it running off a 200 degree temp switch in the upper radiator hose. Issue was the bottom radiator hose was ice cold while the top was burning hot. Meaning my duel core radiator cools off the engine effectively without needing the fan. I'm using an adjustable temp switch now and the fan rarely comes on. Bottom third of the radiator is almost always cool/warm at most.

I've installed a switch to allow me to manually turn it on at any time. I have a light that comes on to indicate whenever the electric fan is running aswell.

Power is definitely up, especially after 2000 rpms. Very noticeable. I need less pedal on the highway to maintain speed.

I'm very very happy with the current results

ideas
 

Here's a video link.
They started at Cd 0.475, and got down to Cd 0.315 ( lower than a Corvette of the day ). It still 'looks' like a pickup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHbDj4lWKus

SPIRIT mods
 

Between 2014 and 2017 I got enough data to suggest a reasonable probability that SPIRIT could demonstrate as low as Cd 0.168 at the A2 Wind Tunnel.
I think your B2300 was reported at Cd 0.40.
There's a lot of fruit to pick out there.
The YouTube: 'Streamlined Toyota Pickup in the Wind Tunnel' will show some ideas open to all.

Thanks! That link you provided has brought up a ton of ideas for me to work with. Plus a ton of related videos. I think there definitely is a ton of fruit left on the truck especially at a .4cd. Key is for me to properly understand how this truck swims through the air before going head first into upgrades. More I learn more I can tweak

Added to the front grill block. The area I blocked off doesn't seem to have any real purpose. I don't think it really helps with cooling and sends a lot of air underneath the truck, right where I don't want it

purpose
 

Make sure that there's no expensive electronics with heat-sinks that will be starved for cooling air hiding in there.
My Toyota has the ignition igniter module attached to the passenger side inner fender well underneath the airbox, which receives some airflow leakage around the radiator bulkhead. It's spaced off the surface for air circulation. It's full of circuit board. Perhaps some transistors or diodes which require air-cooling.
You'll want as much money for mods as you can, rather than replacement parts for 'cooked' components.:p

That's a good point that most people seem to forget, and then when anything goes wrong there will be someone blaming the aeromods...

Thankfully there doesn't appear to be. The front bumper design on this truck appears to be an afterthought because the Ford ranger actually has a piece of plastic on it's lower grill intake directing it straight to the radiator. There is none on the Mazda series

Looks like I've got a problem. My check engine light likes to come on every now and again for a small breif period of time. Like 5 seconds then off. I ran the KOER test for the OBD1 system twice and came up with a 172 code which indicates the engine is running lean. It could be something simple like I need a new o2 sensor, small vacuum leak or dirty maf sensor.

However this started happening once I switched over to those different fuel injectors.

So what's your guys opinion on this? New fuel injectors at fault? I would of assumed with a slightly higher poundage right on the new injectors it would of been running rich? Should I ignore it and carry on 🤷

You found injector data suggesting the new ones flow 16-19 lbs/hr versus stock 14. Is it possible the 16-19 rating was at a higher head pressure than the 14 rating? For example, if the 14 rating was at 63 psi versus the 16-19 psi rating at 47 psi? That would suggest that the new injectors may flow less at the same FP pressure. Just a thought.

Makes sense.

Not sure if this is the case but Focus injectors were semi direct replacements back in the day for the hot rodders. They had many more smaller holes and flowed more fuel: your 16-19 rate. Converted my ranger to electric so lost interest, but pulse width was really important. Figure you have mismatched set and one isn't seeing enough to fire every so often. Otoh, I recall my fuel regulation was 50 psi rock solid across several different measuring schemes