very good remmy
.
due diligence makes for sound decisions. but running your specific combination and these threads past your cam guy and trans/tq converter guys usually brings the combination to best performing. i still dont know if your gonna be carb indefinitely or efi....i prefer efi... they may say 672 gears....or 373 based on the data....and if they dont know because they dont have experience with this combination they will tell you that and suggest contacting or allowing them to consort with others if they are top shelf builders..
running a 5.0 is very wide open....literally endless combinations of the lil monsters. so asking what gears a guy runs is always relative to the build or engine power range as to whether a guy is happy or not.
i have been putting or helping others install horsepower in rangers since the late 80's....
while generally i tend to own several rbvs at any point in time, and oddly enough...usually all with custom suspension and modified non stock powertrains of some sort, i do have one main ride....it is my primary transport for over 22 years and has been v8 powered in one form or another since 1995 when it had a crate cobra saddled to its rails.....we built 3 trucks at the same time, and i learned allot about efi...they were my first efi ranger ext cab projects....
just in good faith so you can have an idea i am not jacking you around i will post up some old and fairly current pictures of this vehicle....its had a low hp diesel since fall 2008 because feeding the small block was biting my wallet way too hard.....you would not believe the miles i have on the chassis and cab/fenders.
i worked the truck to death as well. beat the holy living fawk out of it with no mercy for about 12-13 years. this includes very north of legal and fully loaded speed runs to Cincinnati from Detroit a few times a week periodically over the years to do some custom exterior work down there....only thing that 302 was lacking was a bigger fuel tank....i needed a 60 gallon setup bad...but no room left for it or the weight without going custom bed...
spent allot of time working out the ttb as well....we got that shit poor boy figured around here for multipurpose work.
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/ford/1097826-ttb-crawlers-multipurpose.html
shitty steering....
better steering
even with 44 inch tires.....i run it up to triple digit speeds just to see what it would do. no sweat at all. now in high range off road it was lacking a bit for sure....but low range would bitch slap d60 parts into oblivion....and that is very hard on the wallet.
this is pretty close to its current life....but i run 35-37 inch tires on it for street duty of course....with about a 110-120 whp nutless diesel no less.
so i have some experience with this platform.....i average over 50k miles yearly..... the vast majority of the miles i have driven this platform has been with sbf 302 base engines.
i am not here trying to lead people down the wrong path.....
theres even a guy that is convinced my truck dont exist because theres no video of it with a running diesel....
you cant make that shit up.
just give them the specifics....the afr 165's i dont have the best faith in, but with the right lsa to get the cylinder pressurs dialed in to be sloping torque up hard around the 2800 range i would have to say it wont be described as lacking.