best way to lower 96 4cyl ranger?? also, wheel question

picked up a 96 2.3/2.5 2wd ranger from my dad the other week for $500 and after I'm back from my 3 week business trip I'm going to start playing with it.

wanting to lower it a few inches and toss on some FR500 mustang knockoffs.

also going to throw on a spare turbo setup from one of my turboford parts cars.

anyway. whats the best budget way to get the lowering done without having the crappiest ride in the world?? I dont wanna be bouncing all over the highway and dont honestly care about scraping the dirt either. I just wanna lower the right way and have a decent ride and looks with the wheels.

also, what size wheels can I get away with ?? 17" or 18"?? 9" wide up front or 8" wide up front?? 8"/9"/10"/10.5" out back??

as well as how far can I drop before I get body rub front/back??

basically wanting to make this a cheap sport truck for fun.

maybe after I turn up the boost too much and blow the stock engine I'll toss one of my spare 5.0's and T5's in it, who knows.

been searching around and getting some conflicting answers.

also, most of the kits on ebay use lowered I-beams and flip shackles but I'm pretty sure the flip shackles will give me a hell of a bouncy ride out back?

cant tell if I should go with the front lowering springs or the lowering I-beams either?? never heard of springtech?? sounds like a cheap ass straight rate chinese company that'll make me bounce for hours and tear up balljoints like paper...

stackz:

Sounds like you want a fun, good handling truck with minimal expense. Since you are boosting or eventually going V8 - save yourself some trouble and headaches later. Might not be the cheapest route, but IMHO is the best for your choices. Do the drop beams up front, I personally am adamantly against cut coils - it changes the way they were made and no guarantees can be made with them.
Springtech is a Canadian company I believe, but they have decent products. I had a set of 3" drop coils, but that threw me WAY into negative camber and I eventually blew a front tire at 70mph - scary as f**k but no damage - bought the beams.
Out back is another story all together. I have a flipped axle that gives me about 4" drop in the rear. I put on 93 Nissan Hardbody shocks and she rides fine but hits the bump stops on - bumps - lol. I am going to cut the stops down OR put in a C-Notch with stops just to get a bit more travel in the rear suspension. Another drawback - you loose your carrying capacity. If I carry more that 2 full sheets of plywood and a couple 2x4 I am riding ON the stops. So I am considering some helper air bags for hauling duties only.
Wheels - I am running 17" Cobra wheels - 9" front and 10.5" Rear - rear is fine, I would actually like to have some bigger tires on the back. Fronts have been removed until I can get some spacers - about 1". My rims were hitting the shock mounts before I could turn full stop. Was tearing up the inner lip of the wheel. That is why my pics show me running the original rims up front. I really wish someone made a 7" Cobra wheel like mine - that would be cool.
Anyway - if you are going to do a static drop with good ride and handling - do it the right way. I am sure there are other styles in use - I have seen some Rangers with 4 Links in the rear with coil over shocks, awesome set-up but a lot of work and big on cost.
Good luck man and hit up the Tech Library for more information .

ok, so do the I-beams up front?? I was on the DJM website looking in their explanation section and they say to keep using stock springs but wouldnt using different I-beams just compress the stock springs more??

also, got a larger pic of your truck?? you say you have a 3"/4" drop. depending on how it looks larger versus your avatar, that might actually be more drop than I want.

and yeah, I definitely dont want to lose my towing capacity as I have a 15' boat I tow down to the local landing. if two sheets of plywood cause it to bottom out there'd be no way I could tow my boat haha.

The lowering beams have the spindle mount raised to give you the drop you want. The mounting points and spring perch are not changed. So yes you can use the stock springs - I am. For more drop guys have put in the drop springs in the front also.

Here is a better pic of her at the lake jus chillin:



As for capacity, I am not sure if my problem is my springs or because of the flip. Before the flip though I could carry more weight, but now I have to be careful what I haul until I get something to help with the load.

stackz said:

picked up a 96 2.3/2.5 2wd ranger from my dad the other week for $500 and after I'm back from my 3 week business trip I'm going to start playing with it....

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You gotts love a cheap truck. I payed less then that for my 95 but have put almost 2k into it LOL

stackz said:

wanting to lower it a few inches and toss on some FR500 mustang knockoffs.

also going to throw on a spare turbo setup from one of my turboford parts cars.

anyway. whats the best budget way to get the lowering done without having the crappiest ride in the world?? I dont wanna be bouncing all over the highway and dont honestly care about scraping the dirt either. I just wanna lower the right way and have a decent ride and looks with the wheels....

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Get the beams, I have chassi tech IIRC and they make their steering stops larger then stock. you loose some turning radius but from what I hear you don't end up rubbing the shock mount when you go to wider rims. Dream beams don't have a built in stop but can be added somehow, I don't remember though. Either one company will work just fine.

stackz said:

also, what size wheels can I get away with ?? 17" or 18"?? 9" wide up front or 8" wide up front?? 8"/9"/10"/10.5" out back?? ...

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I did some measuring on my truck and I can get a 12" rim/tire combo in the wheel well. I was planning on running a 15x10 with 6.5" of backspacing but havent gotten that far yet. I also have a genII rearend in my truck that is 2" shorter then the GenII.

stackz said:

as well as how far can I drop before I get body rub front/back??...

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It varies slightly between trucks. When I only had the 2" coils I was running a 255/60/15 on 15x8 rims with -11mm offset. I had NO rubbing issues. When I put the beams in with the coils, I can't even run the stock 225/70/14 w/o rubbing. I have 225/60/15 right now that seem to just make it, I do rub from time to time though on large dips if I am going to fast.

stackz said:

basically wanting to make this a cheap sport truck for fun.

maybe after I turn up the boost too much and blow the stock engine I'll toss one of my spare 5.0's and T5's in it, who knows.

been searching around and getting some conflicting answers.

also, most of the kits on ebay use lowered I-beams and flip shackles but I'm pretty sure the flip shackles will give me a hell of a bouncy ride out back?

cant tell if I should go with the front lowering springs or the lowering I-beams either?? never heard of springtech?? sounds like a cheap ass straight rate chinese company that'll make me bounce for hours and tear up balljoints like paper...

Click to expand...

I didn't use a flip kit on my truck. I bought drop leaves for it. I have no issues hauling, I did cut my bump stops down front and rear in half. I was damn near riding on them up front and the rear only gave me about 1.5" of travel before cutting. I've moved myself several times in my truck, including moving a fridge w/o issues.

The front, no matter how you drop it you can use stock length shocks if ylou want. The drop shocks tend to be valved differently though, but I have KYB monomax's up front and love them. They are by far the best shock I have purchased to date and have already lasted longer then anything else I have used. The rear, well you'll want to run a shorter shock for sure. I plan on finding a KYB shock for the back once I feel like searching for it LOL.

Boost would be a wonderful thing, my turbo has been sitting on the shelf for several years now. I just can't seem to find the time and money and the same time to get things going.

James

Hazmat Ranger said:

As for capacity, I am not sure if my problem is my springs or because of the flip. Before the flip though I could carry more weight, but now I have to be careful what I haul until I get something to help with the load.

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just curious but how old are your rear shocks??

I was thinking of compensating after the rear drop by getting some $$ coilover towing shocks. had some friends get them for their trucks when they would start to sag in the back while towing and they do WONDERS...

I'll digest the rest of the info this afternoon and go from there.

oh yeah. illegalconcepts...what do you mean you get rubbing with the i-beams/coils??

did you swap both i-beams and lowering coils?? I'll probably only do just the coils. I only want the fender lips closer to the FR500 wheels but I dont want that v-dub look haha. kinda want a good mustang stance from the truck.

oh yeah, if you remove the bump stops all together or cut them. what kind of bad things can happen from that such as if they are gone all together, when your suspensions hits it's travel limit will it just be suspenion on frame resulting in damage, etc??

oh. one last thing. I was reading you have to get aftermarket bolts to get the camber right after this?? I looked on ebay and all I saw were cam nuts for these years??

stackz:

They are about 2 months old now. I changed them because I thought my bottoming out in the rear was due to the factory shocks being too long - nope and now I have a softer ride meaning it hits the stops more frequently than before.
I would think coil overs would work great, but cost is my deterrent so far.
As for the rubbing, I believe he was referring to the problems I was having with the rim rubbing the shock mount (Thanks for the insight - illegal - know anything more about mods for the DJM's?) when turned full stop.
As for removing the bump stops - you may have the axle hit the frame instead f a rubber bumper - you can see that would eventually lead to stress and possible failure of various parts in the suspension/drive train.
The cam "nuts" you mentioned are actually known as eccentrics because the center hole in the is actually not centered. This gives the alignment people a way to turn the cam and either increase or decrease your camber. Different eccentrics have different capabilities - i.e. the more the offset of the hole the more it will move the camber.

Oh and BTW - this is my 500th post - yeah me!

Talking about flipping axles and hitting bumpstops... I flipped my axle back to stock location, then flipped shackles. Somehow I don't notice any difference between my truck and some other stock rangers now. I do sit ~3" lower than them in the front though.


I pulled some 10" ventilated drums off of a mid '90s Lincoln Town Car... it had an 8.8" 3.55 L/S and the air bag setup... damn would it be nice to have that for just the ride comfort.


If I had a shop of my own right now, I would have yanked that rear end and started getting it put in.

Hazmat Ranger said:

stackz:


The cam "nuts" you mentioned are actually known as eccentrics because the center hole in the is actually not centered. This gives the alignment people a way to turn the cam and either increase or decrease your camber. Different eccentrics have different capabilities - i.e. the more the offset of the hole the more it will move the camber.

Oh and BTW - this is my 500th post - yeah me!

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yeah, they are called eccentrics but everyone calls things by different names. goofed with them in the past but since I havent actually gotten up under the suspension of the truck yet (first ranger owned though I've had a 2wd 98 5.0 mountie that had the long bolt type eccentrics) didnt know which ones to buy as I dont know exactly what to buy but from what I was reading...people have to get special lowering eccentrics when you lower the ranger or you wont have enough travel to get the alignment right.

I read a few posts that said you can get them from pepboys but nobody gives part #'s lol.

Insanejughead said:

I pulled some 10" ventilated drums off of a mid '90s Lincoln Town Car... it had an 8.8" 3.55 L/S and the air bag setup... damn would it be nice to have that for just the ride comfort.

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I've got 2 7.5" limited slips (one from an 83 5.0 capri and the other from an 84 2.3t cougar) and 3 8.8" limited slips from 5.0 mustangs in the garage. very first thing I'm doing to the truck is swapping in a locker dependant on the rearned size...havent even looked under the truck yet to see what size rear it has haha.

also, anyone know if the speedo drive is mechanical or electronic?? regardless I'm going to toss in a set of 3.73's if its 8.8" or 3.75" if 7.5" unless its already that high of a ratio. I wanna burn dual marks down the road and I know from my dad that its got a dogleg in it

Hazmat Ranger said:

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curious why you have the stock wheels on the front in the pic?? aftermarket wheels rubbing too much at lock??

stackz said:

curious why you have the stock wheels on the front in the pic?? aftermarket wheels rubbing too much at lock??

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yep - so stocks until I get spacers.

stackz said:

also, anyone know if the speedo drive is mechanical or electronic?? regardless I'm going to toss in a set of 3.73's if its 8.8" or 3.75" if 7.5" unless its already that high of a ratio. I wanna burn dual marks down the road and I know from my dad that its got a dogleg in it

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if the ranger is bone stock 2.3L then the rear end will be 7.5" i believe. I know in my ranger my gearing is 3.46; pretty common on the 2.3L trucks.

stackz said:

oh. one last thing. I was reading you have to get aftermarket bolts to get the camber right after this?? I looked on ebay and all I saw were cam nuts for these years??

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Could you give me a link to what you were looking at on eBay?

I wouldn't put money on it being only a 7.5". My truck came with an 8.8" 3.73 and it's a four banger.



It is, however, most likely going to be a 7.5".