In today’s automotive world, the options for swapping an engine are almost endless. What would happen in a zombie apocalypse, though? Well, the guys from Airborne Entertainment would be just fine it seems. They just managed to install a Johnson outboard boating motor from the 1960s in a Ford Ranger.
Here’s the real kicker… the whole thing works thanks to some unique modifications. Airborne Entertainment is all about this sort of content. Their tagline is “Anything with a motor, we do it.” Across other videos, the team there has built things like remote-controlled motorcycles of the full-size variety, gas-powered rollerblades, and even a 50-horsepower canoe.
In this case, and clearly needing to move more than a slippery canoe through water, the team opted for a 75-horsepower Johnson outboard motor. While it’s possible to use a marine engine in a car, those are usually adapted to automotive use. This is something else.
The video kicks off with the Ford Ranger engine extraction process and then flips to the modifications required to drop a boat motor into the engine bay.
The guys don’t really dive into any of the nitty gritty details here but a few things are obvious. They use steel supports to keep the engine in place and then connect the motor to the transmission via two gears and a chain. In addition, they cut a giant hole in the hood to ensure that they can still close it while the Johnson sits erect. The guys add a 55-gallon drum to the bed of the pickup and fill it with water Why? They have to feed a line from the water tank to the Johnson to keep it cool.
Hilariously, upon startup, the car doesn’t throw a check engine light. Of all times, you’d think this would be the most appropriate time for that particular warning to show up. Alas, it doesn’t, but the Johnson outboard sure does. The team went as far as to make the boat motor throttle work with the gas pedal and to add the starter button to the dash.
Sure enough, the motor fires up, the driver puts it in gear, and this Johnson Ranger is off like a turtle. The build doesn’t feature a clutch but does have gears. To switch from one gear to the next, the driver has to put the boat motor in neutral and then swap gears before re-engaging the motor. This will no doubt shock many of you, but there are a few downsides to having a boat motor in your Ford Ranger.
First, 75 horsepower isn’t really enough to move the Ranger with very much urgency. While this truck is ready for the zombie apocalypse I’m specifically talking about one you’ll see in The Walking Dead, where the keyword is ‘walking.’ If World War Z (the film) happens, this Ranger is not a safe or viable escape vehicle. On the other hand, if the zombies are slow, this Ford is better than no vehicle at all and should manage to drive away.
Still, there’s a second problem to consider. Remember that 55-gallon drum full of water that keeps the engine cool? Yeah, it empties in “ten minutes” according to one of the builders. The team solves this problem by conveniently stopping at just about every water crossing they encounter.
Undeterred by these potential issues, the guys take this thing to a local drag strip. Somehow it passes a two-stage tech inspection. That’s a bit shocking because they snuck in some nitrous oxide and plumbed it to go straight into the carb. That’s right, we now have a nitrous-powered boat motor propelling a mid-1990s Ford Ranger. If this isn’t entertainment I don’t know what it is. It’s certainly not a good idea.
After initially getting stopped at the staging lane with a fuel leak, the team gets that fixed, and gets back on the track. There, the Ranger manages a 26-second run… to the 330-foot mark. The truck is so slow that it didn’t register a time or a speed when it went through the end of the track. There was also a big pop at some point near the end where the chain popped off. In a subsequent test on a gravel road, the truck managed a top speed of 37 mph.
Interestingly, Airborne Entertainment isn’t the first group to pull this off. Five years ago, another channel, Life OD, pulled off a similar trick. In their iteration, they dropped a Honda outboard motor into a Honda Civic so… points for staying on brand there. Sadly, the Civic didn’t feature the same attention to detail that the Airborne Entertainment build does.
The Life OD guys didn’t feed any water to the outboard, they lost a wheel during testing, and visibility was even worse due to the motor mounting location. If we didn’t know before, now we do. A boat motor can stand in for a car engine provided the right know-how and tools to make the swap.
I have a confession youse guys. I have no idea how to swap a motor, or how these things ever work. The sheer amount of ports, hoses, connections and various gubbins on my QR25DE Sentra – not to mention mating it to the transmission! – felt like borderline witchcraft. Where do the adapters, the wiring harnesses, the motor mounts, the x and the y and the z come from?
Am I really just that faint of heart?
I thought this was going to be one of those swaps where someone shovels a giant 3.7l Mercruiser four-banger under the hood to pick up some power and conversation starters. I’m a fan of big fours and shoving 220+ cubic inches in just four pots under a hood is pretty sweet as far as I’m concerned.
This? This is just nutty for nuttiness’ sake, like powering a pickup with a mower engine. You can do it and sometimes it’s even halfway practical – Robot Cantina on YouTube has repowered a first-gen Insight with a three-cylinder Kubota diesel and its fuel economy is a little better than stock. But it’s just a WTH project, a way to fill time. So for the views, it works.
How about a 300hp Evinrude in a Volvo?
This V8 Volvo uses a two-stroke home-made boat engine, and it sounds nuts | CarExpert
“It came to us when we were drunk”…
Hhahahha That’s an awesome opening line
Something about an outboard motor being so poorly adapted to land use in a truck, combined with the poor design choices like the chain drive and open-loop cooling, make this such a madman-ish, beautiful hellscape of a project.
This is hilarious.
TIL most(?) boat motors aren’t adapted car/truck motors like I’d always thought!
True, although according to Car and Driver the V6 Honda outboard is adapted from the J series V6.
I need to connect these guys with my stepdad and they could try to get a fully amphibious Ranger. My stepdad once forgot to engage our 1992 Ranger’s parking brake on the boat ramp and the truck got a quick seaworthiness test when it rolled back into the lake.
I can watch boat ramp fails all day.
Total loss cooling system is a lazy choice.
Even just routing it back to the 55 gallon drum should be enough of a ‘radiator’ to last a good amount of time. Putting an actual radiator in wouldn’t be much more work.
Also, the radiator was already there. It probably would have been less work than the drum. Not as good for comedy though.
Some ‘Geniuses’
Much better, thank you.
Maybe instead of a boat motor in a truck they should make the truck into a boat.
Wow, that is a really low bar for “attention to detail.”
Just proves my point: the smaller the truck, the bigger the Johnson.
Vertical V4, fuck yeah
“… they snuck in some nitrous oxide and plumbed it to go straight into the carb.”
Adding nitrous to improve your Johnson? There has to be a Viagra joke here somewhere.
Seems a waste of what was a perfectly good and fairly rare Ranger just to get some page clicks.
I wonder how much money they made off that after all was said and done?
And you just concisely described the ‘world of YouTube.’ The internet gong show.
As a dude, I would have a difficult time sticking my Johnson in a ranger 😉
As someone allegedly conceived in a 64 Beetle, I have to say that , if the want is strong, a way will be found
So, you’re living proof of Herbie, the Love Bug! ヽ(͡◕ ͜ʖ ͡◕)ﾉ
Anyone find it ironic that an article about boat-motored cars is written by ‘Rivers’?
Rivers trolls the internet looking for ex-stream content.
“ … they cut a giant hole in the hood to ensure that they can still close it while the Johnson sits erect.”
Might have fit better if they’d waited until the Johnson was flaccid again.
Needs a bumper sticker “Gone Fishing”
That chain drive is an anchor around the neck of this project. Won’t be long before it goes under.
Geniuses?
How much water will this Ford ford? Thinking at least to the hoodline.
If you’re going to make this Ford ford water then I think you can afFord a simple mod that intakes water at the front end of the Ford below the line of the water that you’re fording.
Oh right then you can ford the water in the Ford and not have to afFord that bucket of water in the back!
And will driving it make you start Pining for the Fjords?
Pinin’ for the fjords, what kind of talk is that?!
Eees pining. If we don’t keep ’em locked up, he’ll go VOOM!!!
Glad they used and afFordable truck. Else they would be underwater with this boat-anchor of a project.
This is too awesome and jank not to love.
With the help of social media, there is no limit to humanity’s backward progress.
Hahaha amen