Some Geniuses Are Turning Old Ford Rangers Into The Perfect Small Trucks By Using Volkswagen Engines

The old Ford Ranger is a legend in the truck world. These compact trucks will happily take all sorts of abuse for years while for many being far more practical than going full-size. Yet, those old trucks have long had a problem: You could get fuel economy in a Ranger or more power, but not both at the same time. The solution comes from somewhere you wouldn’t expect. Ranger owners are tossing out their old Ford engines and instead, they’re lowering in little diesel engines from Volkswagen.

The Ford Ranger was birthed out of Project Yuma, Ford’s plan to make a compact truck centered around a small engine, but still designed to be a real truck. At the same time, Ford knew that truck buyers of the 1980s weren’t going to buy the same poor-quality garbage that was shoveled out of the 1970s, so the new truck had to be as sturdy and well-built as a full-size truck. The new truck had to be aerodynamic, light, and frugal.

The first-generation Ford Ranger hit the road in 1982 and it smashed expectations. This was a truck that could still do real truck things, but when paired with a 2.0-liter four was able to get 28 mpg. The first-generation Ranger was also the first and only time Ford gave us a diesel Ranger. At best, Ford offered the Mitsubishi 4D55-T 2.3-liter turbodiesel, which netted 86 HP and 134 lb-ft of torque. Ford advertised as high as 41 mpg with the diesel, but EPA corrected numbers put that number down to 28 mpg.

Yet, even back then the Ranger had a bit of a problem. You had a choice of power or fuel economy, but not both. For example, a Ranger fitted with the 2.0-liter four got well over 20 mpg, but it had just 73 HP on tap and accelerated to 60 mph in a glacial 18.9 seconds. I don’t even want to imagine how much slower that would be with a trailer. That faster diesel still took 13 seconds to get the job done.

Ford did sell a more powerful version with the 4.0-liter Cologne OHV V6. These Rangers, which were sold during the 1991 and 1992 model years, made 160 HP and 225 lb-ft of torque. In my experience as someone who has owned a couple of Rangers and driven more, these trucks were great. There wasn’t an overwhelming amount of power on deck, but more than enough to get some mud on the tires, tow a trailer, and haul in the bed without worrying if you were going to make it up a hill.

A side benefit was a 60 mph acceleration time of around 9 or 10 seconds, which isn’t fast, but does practically halve the time of the oldest diesel and the 2.0-liter four. Unfortunately, all of that power came at a cost of fuel economy. A 1991 Ranger with that 4.0-liter engine and an automatic transmission got 19 mpg on the highway, which means some pain at the pump with a load, mods, or off-road driving.

The old-school Ranger got two more generations, one in 1993 and the other in 1998. Those future generations killed the diesel engine but continued the conundrum presented with the other engine choices.

Ford simplified the second-generation engine choices and now there were just three engines. At the bottom was the Pinto 2.3-liter engine, which made up to 112 HP and 135 lb-ft of torque. The middle engine was the 3.0-liter Vulcan V6, which made up to 145 HP and 165 lb-ft of torque. Finally, the 4.0-liter Cologne V6 punched out 160 HP and 225 lb-ft of torque.

In theory, you’d choose an engine based on what you were looking for. The Pinto was gutless, but it got great fuel economy while the Cologne sacrificed some fuel economy for power. I owned a 1997 Ranger with the 2.3-liter four and can confirm it was gutless. My Ranger was slow when it was empty and snails would beat it to 60 mph when it was loaded.

Yet, it was a charming truck. On one road trip home from Nevada I scored 30 mpg on the highway because my convoy went no faster than 60 mph. But even when we were doing 80 mph my truck still did a solid 22 mpg. Unfortunately, fuel economy and reliability were all my truck was good for. I tried to mount 30-inch all-terrain tires to the truck and the engine wheezed so hard my new top speed was 60 mph, and that was if I didn’t go higher than about fourth gear.

The third generation Ranger arrived in 1998. Once again, engine choices were limited. The base engine was a new 2.5-liter Pinto four good for 117 HP and 149 lb-ft of torque. However, by 2004 the Ranger got a 2.3-liter Duratec four making 143 HP and 154 lb-ft of torque. The top engine was initially the Cologne OHV 4.0-liter V6 making its return with the same power numbers as before. In 2001, it was replaced with the Cologne SOHC 4.0-liter V6 making 207 HP and 238 lb-ft of torque. The Vulcan V6 also came back as a middle child, but the third-generation Ranger was weird for the Vulcan because at times it made similar power as the four-cylinder.

I owned a 2000 Ford Ranger with a 4.0-liter V6. The power provided by the engine was great and I never really found myself asking for more. It even had enough ponies in the stable for me to mount 33-inch mud tires to the truck and still be able to go highway speed. Unfortunately, my truck was thirsty. It got 16 mpg stock and the big tires brought it down to 13 mpg. It was a small truck that drank like one of the big boys.

My friends with Vulcan trucks complained even more because as I said before, some model years made about the same power as a four-cylinder Ranger, but came with the penalty of V6 fuel economy. What’s worse is that some of them had to fight blown head gasket problems, something that the smaller fours and the larger sixes didn’t have as much trouble with.

According to the EPA, my truck achieved about the same fuel economy it should have before I added the tires. A guy with a Vulcan V6 in 2002 made 11 more HP and 27 more lb-ft of torque. However, 2×4 Vulcan trucks did about 20 mpg when the four-cylinder got as high as 25 mpg. Make that a 4×4 and the Vulcan drank as much as my 4.0-liter, but still had four-cylinder-ish power.

Diesel Power

So now you have a good idea of what’s going on here. For the first three generations of Ford Ranger, you had the choice of power or fuel economy, but never really both. That’s where Volkswagen’s infamous TDI diesel engines come in.

Volkswagen sold diesels in America for decades, but the company’s TDI engines really took off in the 2000s. Diesels became so common that in 2009, Volkswagen reported that 81 percent of all Jetta SportWagen sales, about 40 percent of Jetta sedan sales, and 29 percent of Touareg sales were diesels. That year, Volkswagen claimed 26 percent of all the vehicles that went home with VW customers were diesel-powered. Volkswagen diesels continued to gain momentum into the 2010s, all the way up to the Dieselgate revelations.

Throughout all of that time, TDIs gained a reputation for reliability, power, and frugality, even if the cars they were bolted to fell apart.

I’ve noticed a wide range of reasons why people have turned toward Volkswagen diesel. Some people just want to have a small diesel truck, which you just weren’t able to get from Ford. Some people wanted the fantastic fuel economy offered by TDI power, which was even more fuel efficient than the smallest Ranger engine. Finally, some people love how much you could tune a TDI for more power while still keeping some of the fuel economy. In other words, when done right, you could toss your Ranger’s gas engine out, put a Volkswagen diesel in, and get what could be a sort of ultimate small truck.

Now, Volkswagen has sold a bunch of different diesels in America over the years so Ranger owners are spoiled for choice. There’s the very common ALH 1.9-liter turbodiesel four. This engine was sold in the Golf, Jetta, and Beetle, making its availability pretty good. These engines were good for 89 HP and 155 lb-ft of torque. Yep, with no tuning at all these engines already make just a little more torque than a Ranger four-cylinder. These engines have iron blocks, forged rods, and die-forged steel crankshafts. They’re hefty units known for being able to have their power doubled while still on original internals.

There are also choices like the BHW 2.0-liter turbodiesel, which was put into the B5.5 Passat. That one’s making 134 HP and 229 HP stock. Or, maybe you want a newer common rail diesel like the CJAA, which makes 140 HP and 236 lb-ft of torque. Based on my research, it seems like a lot of folks go for the ALH out of a Beetle, Golf, or Jetta, the BHW out of the Passat, or a CJAA out of something like one of my Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDIs.

There’s a lot of appeal to going diesel. The CJAA will easily get 45 mpg on the highway and some of them exceed 50 mpg. It’s also super easy to get an ALH to do in the upper 40s for mpg and even the BHW can still hit about 40 mpg. Diesel can sometimes be cheaper than regular gasoline, too. Diesel is regularly cheaper than regular where I live, making my 2010 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI an easy choice for drives.

Each has its advantages. The ALH has a strong modding community, is known for its durability, and isn’t as complex as a common rail diesel. The BHW makes more power than an ALH and is a little smoother, but has a fatal problem with its balance shaft module. Of course, going with something like a CJAA means you benefit from newer common rail technology. Sure, none of these engines are in production anymore, but they aren’t hard to find and parts remain largely plentiful. All of them offer more promise than the old lumps Ford originally sold in these trucks.

For a peek into what a swap like this is like, watch Mechanic Dave explain what he did to his truck:

In the video, he explains that he mounted an ALH TDI in the engine bay, and integrating it with the original transmission was actually relatively easy thanks to adapter plates being sold by aftermarket supply companies. The engine is stock and everything works from the truck’s gauges to the four-wheel-drive system. Small upgrades came in the form of a bigger intercooler and a European-spec turbo.

Mechanic Dave mentions that the engine uses a standalone ECU with an aftermarket wiring harness that ties into the truck’s original harness. He’s even using the VW’s power steering pump and it’s just connected to the truck’s rack and pinion. He didn’t need to use that pump, but the Ford Ranger was known for having a particularly noisy pump, so going with the VW pump makes sense.

There are tons of videos out there and forum posts about these swaps.

I won’t say these swaps are easy. There’s an excellent build thread over at the Ranger Station if you need evidence of that. Remember, these engines aren’t meant to be mounted into a truck, so there will be some custom fabrication with some cutting, welding, and experimentation to get things to fit. At the very least, the good news is that there are adapter plates out there and wiring harnesses, so you’re not left doing the whole thing by trial and error.

There’s even a guy putting TDI engines into darn near any truck he can get his hands on:

As you’ll note in these videos, people then tune the TDI engines to make more power than even the V6 engines offered in the Ranger. People who own these rigs often report fuel economy above 30 mpg, which is believable when you remember that these engines were able to sip at 40, 50, or more mpg when put into smaller Volkswagen cars. If you stick with older TDIs you don’t even have to worry about diesel exhaust fluid or diesel particulate filters.

In theory, a build isn’t too expensive either if you do it yourself. You can find a running TDI for sale on your local marketplace for around a thousand dollars, more if you have to buy the rest of the car with it. You can get a Ford Ranger for a few grand, too, less if you find one with an engine that’s already blasted. It looks like a harness will cost you another grand and you’ll spend another grand on an adapter plate. I reckon if you do it yourself you can make a super Ranger for under $10,000.

Forget a diesel-powered Jeep Liberty. I want to get back into Ranger ownership again with a TDI swap. I don’t have the time or skill to do it myself, but maybe I’ll find one already finished for sale.

In other words, if you’re crafty with your hands and have the space to take on a project like this, you could build your own ultimate Ranger with either more power or better fuel economy than Ford originally put into your truck. Unfortunately, TDI-swapping a Ranger isn’t nearly as easy as bolting a Ford Fusion engine into your Mazda Miata, but owners say it’ll totally be worth it.