Stupid plan, mental help required.

[doorgunner]

I only clicked on this thread because i saw the words mental and help......but if i knew anything about gearing--i'd say 5.13 too & better rear brakes absolutely because of the bigger tires. I had a '41 pikup with 5.?? gears & it would climb up the levee idling at 1,000 rpm....LOL

 

[TheUndeadRanger]

yeah, mental, and help, two words that have totally come into play with this whole plan, its driving me mental, and i needed help haha yeah my old '71 ford had 5.13s without lockers and it would literally climb trees. thats why i wish i still had it. i blame honda. i had to get my hand rebuilt and my old ford was the only thing i owned worth a damn so i had to sell it to pay for extensive surgery. i'm lcuky they didn't amputate. my thumb and all attached bones met the back of my hand because HONDA BRAKES SUCK...... hit a 3ft concrete culvert doing about 45mph around a blind turn, laid on the brakes, the throttle got stuck, and shifted to first, still slid about 60 ft into the wall, broke every bone from my middle finger over trying to push the throttle and pull the brake and still i flew over the old jerome highway and found my bike in two pieces, snapped both frame and forks. flattened my rim, broke my bars, put a flat spot on my brand new bored out 125cc honda engine...... and lost my truck as collateral. but hey, i got a ranger now. it does great for stock height and no motor mods.


but yeah, gears. hah i love to ramble. 5.13s must be the way to go.

 

[Original_Ranger84]

Yeah well you will need to get a 95+ explorer rear end to get the disc brakes, and I agree with the other guys, just because you can doesn't mean you should. That old 71 probably had a v8 in it and atleast twice the power of your 4 cylinder so with the 5.13's it could turn them quite well. But I imagine your 2.3L woun't feel the same way.

 

[TheTopher]

Here's a quick gear lesson.


The gear ratio is the number of rotations it takes for the driveshaft to turn the axle.

So a higher number means more turns of the driveshaft and thus, more mechanical advantage or "leverage"


Now, not considering the extra rolling mass, I'm going to apply this theory to my current truck with 3.45 gears.

It has 225/70/r14 tires, which work out to about 26 inches.


If I were to upgrade to 35 inch tires, that's a 35% increase in diameter, which turns into a 35% increase in the distance my truck travels per rotation of the axle. Which means it gets tougher for my engine to turn it, because this counter-acts the mechanical advantage of the differential.


So, you need a 35% increase in the gear ratio to put everything back into balance.

A 35% increase of 3.45 would be about 4.66 which rounds to 4.56 That's what I would have to switch to in order to keep everything the same.

You also want to take into account that a 35" tire is going to weigh a bit more than a 26" tire, but this was just a quick lesson to help the non-gear guys understand it.


By the way, I fully support the 5.13s because my truck is dog slow with the 3.45s and 26" tires

 

[TheUndeadRanger]

wow hah that quick lesson just made more sense than trying to listen to my step-brother (a schooled mechanic) try to explain it to me. thanks! i have roughly 31's on it now and i have no problem turning those bad boys. it get up and goes pretty nicely, i was led to believe it had 4.56 gears already, which was told to me by the last owner, he put a whole new rear end and drive shaft on it to increase its power, he pulled a 16 ft camper with it (VERy light camper) but it pulled nice, for a 4 cyl. i would be willing to place money that it'd turn 33's with ease. but i'm still going to go with the 8.8 and 5.13's to push 35's. but thanks a ton for the lesson. and the opinions. that made a bunch more sense than book-talk.

 

[mp3deviant721]

You might want to invest in some more power in the form of a 2.5l conversion. That extra 14hp and 14lbf of torque may help. That is if you want to keep it a 4cyl.

 

[TheUndeadRanger]

i couldn't tell you. i know this axle on the guy's exploder that i'm interested in is FAR from stock. it looks almost new, still shiny, but it does look like its seen use. scratched and slightly gouged in some spots from bottoming out in mystery ponds. he did drag (what was left of) a boat out of a local riverbed. it was under water about 2.5 ft. which makes me wonder what gears really are in it...

 

[TheTopher]

wow hah that quick lesson just made more sense than trying to listen to my step-brother (a schooled mechanic) try to explain it to me. thanks! i have roughly 31's on it now and i have no problem turning those bad boys. it get up and goes pretty nicely, i was led to believe it had 4.56 gears already, which was told to me by the last owner, he put a whole new rear end and drive shaft on it to increase its power, he pulled a 16 ft camper with it (VERy light camper) but it pulled nice, for a 4 cyl. i would be willing to place money that it'd turn 33's with ease. but i'm still going to go with the 8.8 and 5.13's to push 35's. but thanks a ton for the lesson. and the opinions. that made a bunch more sense than book-talk.

Glad to help.


If he put a new rear end into it you may want to check and see what he put, you may already have an 8.8


It's easy to tell. This is a 7.5

This is an 8.8

 

[TheUndeadRanger]

wow, i have what seems to be a cross-over, looks more like a 7.5 though, but its still shiny. maybe i'll find a new one and sell this. or keep it for a spare. landlord just came by. said if i don't pick up my sh*t and make my house look less like a wrecking yard with a chop shop up front, i was evicted. so i cleaned up. found out i'm missing quite a few tools. found more random hardware from dismantling.... where it went is beyond me. but i did manage to find out that my neighbors AREN'T the one's complaining to my landlords. its the guy that got evicted next door. he's been snooping around the past few weeks. my remington model 870 12 ga. almost met his face. now i'm guaranteeing his chevy luv isn't coming around here anymore unless he's got friends haha

 

[Ranger Sport Honduras]

well get an explorer 8.8 or ranger fx4 8.8 since the 31 spline is stronger to handle bigger tires. ull need to regear it, because no ranger or explorer came stock with more than 4.10 gears.

look for a good mechanic, ask him about regearing, get some quotes on it and dont go for the cheap ones lol. it might be expensive, but u dont want it to go wrong.
the TRS store has a good variety of gear brands and install kits.

as for the 2.5 liter conversion, that 14 hp and 14lbs of tq, are noticeable, trust me. my 2.5 has more power than the 93 2.3 we had.

good luck and....

 

[adsm08]

You moron. This is far from a stupid plan, it's AWESOME.

 

[TheUndeadRanger]

hah ^^^^ nice..... and yeah i know pics blah blah can't figure it out. if you want some pictures i can totally text you a million of them, but my computer doesn't like me at all. and i thought about the 2.5 convert, but i would need the motor haha. i acutally have a mechanic friend, well a couple, the two most reputable mechanics in town, (VERY SMALL TOWN, like 750 ppl in the winter, over 2000 in the summer) but they both said they would help whenever. it helps that i am best freind's with one's daughter (through my wife) and i've known the other for a while and he likes my spunk or whatever, sounded gay to me.....

 

[Ranger Sport Honduras]

its ok if it sounds gay, aslong they help u out with the truck lol

 

[Nathan123]

Well I'll try to explain gear ratios for ya. A 5.11 rear end is short for 5.11 to 1 or written as a ratio 5.11:1, this means that for every 5.11 times the drive shaft turns the hub turns once. The effect is sacrificing speed for torque. I think your truck has an M5OD so according to the tech library, first gear is 3.72:1. To find mechanical advantage in parallel, multiply the ratios. So 5.11x3.72=19:1, Which means 19 engine turns equals 1 hub turn. So at 2400RPM you have 126 rotations of the hub. The tech library says your truck makes 135ft lbs torque at 2400 rpm, so at the hub you have 2565 ftlbs torque. If your stock rear end gears are 3.73's, your getting 1873ftlbs. (These numbers are all ideal, not compensating for friction of moving parts) Now where it gets dicey is the tire size. The hub always does the same number of rotations no matter what tire is on it. The bigger the tire, the fewer rotations, more effort to move it. If you look at the radius (half the diameter) of the tire as a lever you can calculate foot pounds (kinda close anyway) With 35's a radius of 17.5 you're making about 107 foot lbs at the tire. Keep in mind this is 1st gear, in 4th, I come up with 39 foot pounds. With stock 3.73's i come up with 35 foot pounds. Sooooooo ford figures out what ratio will give you good performance with stock tires. Bigger tires take more effort to turn, so you need to up the mechanical advantage of the drivetrain. According to the numbers, I'd say it should be fine. However, by using gears to gain torque, you loose speed, which is where the lack of performance comes from. I know there are plenty videos on youtube of four banger cheeps with 33's and 35's and they run just fine. I'm not tryin to be a smart ass, I just got out of Energy Power and Transportation here at college and this is all in the mechanical power section.

 

[Nathan123]

Wow in the time it took me to type that like five other guys replied, and one with a really good explanation, sorry for my long mathy one.