MAB3L, the most reasonable truck on the road!

[Uncle Gump]

Maybe the dimple I'm remembering is for the torsion unloading tool.

 

[Lefty]

I'm not sure how low you wish to go. I would imagine you could lower yours to stock without any serious modifications. The shocks you have may even work but your ride quality might suffer. All you would need to do is pull the blocks out of the back and crank the keys.

You just might want to try it and see. You might even want to keep it that way. Lowering it more would improve the handling but not necessarily the mileage.

 

[Uncle Gump]

It still looks problematic to me.

 

[bhgl]

But maybe...

I've never tried.

Some folks have and have posted about it, to dreadful results. Usually the ride is awful or depending on what key they have something breaks.

I'll be going with a key swap first, and then maybe I'll do some cranking or uncranking if the angles in the suspension don't look awful.

 

[Uncle Gump]

Some folks have and have posted about it, to dreadful results. Usually the ride is awful or depending on what key they have something breaks.

I'll be going with a key swap first, and then maybe I'll do some cranking or uncranking if the angles in the suspension don't look awful.

I was going to mention they do break. My lift keys were Rough Country... they're forged units. The cast ones that most companies sell are cast units.

 

[bhgl]

I was going to mention they do break. My lift keys were Rough Country... they're forged units. The cast ones that most companies sell are cast units.

As in, cast them into the garbage, am I right?

 

[Uncle Gump]

Sorry... didn't come out right.

Most aftermarket units are cast... they break...

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Ok, so…

Torsion bar keys…

My green 2000 Ranger I pulled the front bump stops and backed the adjusters out until the key about touched the bar the adjuster bolt goes through. That got me a decent bit of drop, but not enough for my needs. I got a set of keys out of a 2010 in the junkyard and found they appear to be identical to the Explorer keys that I already had. I have not yet compared to the ones in the Ranger from the factory and I haven’t installed either of the other keys yet. The reason for that is that with the adjusters backed out, my upper ball joints are maxed out, I have essentially zero up travel in the front. To get lower is going to require lowering upper control arms which are out of production but there is talk of one of the old manufacturers making a limited run of them again. The other choice is to fab your own. I’m not sure that you could heat and bend the upper control arms without risking making a weak spot for them to break at.

Misc. fuel economy stuff…

The 3.0 is happy in its power curve. My first Ranger was a 2000 extended cab 2wd 5-speed with a 3.0 and 3.73 gears. In largely stock form, it got a consistent 17-19 mpg around town and 23-ish on the highway with an aluminum work cap and a couple hundred lbs of gear. A soft tonneau cover and nearly empty bed and I was 20-24 mpg around town and 28-31 on the highway. That was also getting into the powerband and shifting to keep it in there until I was up to speed. That was also before ethanol gas. Once we started getting ethanol gas and some of the newer blends, mileage dropped to 16/17 around town with the cap and 18 with the tonneau, low 20s for highway. The 3.0 is most efficient when running higher RPMs to stay in the power curve. Seems counter-intuitive on its face because you would think lower RPMs would sip gas, but that is only true on engines built to perform best in low rpm ranges.

Weight reduction helps fuel economy, but also more engine power helps. Dad’s 2000 Ranger that we converted to a 5.0 v-8 AWD would actually get 17mpg around town if you weren’t smashing the go pedal (then it got 14/15). My green 2000 with the 4.0 was getting 12/13 before the v8 swap. I still have to work out a bunch of issues on my swap so my current fuel economy numbers post-swap are not entirely accurate, plus I’ve been doing a lot of hauling with it lately.

I have an electric power steering pump that I was intending to try putting in my green Ranger, but the problem is space under the hood. The ideal place would be where the air box sits, but that means the air intake, filter and box all needs to change along with the coolant reservoir and windshield washer fluid tank have to move/change. Not sure the gains are worth the effort, not sure about the normal Ranger power steering pump, but to my understanding the Explorer pump doesn’t suck much power. Air conditioning is the thing on the accessory drive that pulls the most power. The clutch fan and water pump are also your big pulls. Alternator doesn’t really draw much power off the accessory drive.

Automatic transmission…

This is your biggest parasite. For one, it’s not programmed to use the 3.0 power efficiently. That would probably require a custom tune on something like a Megasquirt system. I haven’t dove into that side of things very far yet. I can tell you that the auto transmissions in these are notoriously sloppy. A shift kit, valve body mods, bonded separator plate and square cut reverse servo o rings will help the transmission substantially. I believe the bands for 2 and 3 are still adjustable on yours and probably have never been adjusted like they should. My red 92 Ranger with a 4.0 was getting 12/13mpg around town and after I did the transmission work (the transmission can stay in the truck, you just have to pull the pan and valve body, very messy, little tedious, and an exercise in patience and cleanliness), it hadn’t quite fully settled out when the truck got wrecked, but I was up to 15mpg and a massive change in performance, crisp shifts and it would smoke the back tires if you hit the gas hard from a stop.

 

[bhgl]

Ok, so…

Torsion bar keys…

My green 2000 Ranger I pulled the front bump stops and backed the adjusters out until the key about touched the bar the adjuster bolt goes through. That got me a decent bit of drop, but not enough for my needs. I got a set of keys out of a 2010 in the junkyard and found they appear to be identical to the Explorer keys that I already had. I have not yet compared to the ones in the Ranger from the factory and I haven’t installed either of the other keys yet. The reason for that is that with the adjusters backed out, my upper ball joints are maxed out, I have essentially zero up travel in the front. To get lower is going to require lowering upper control arms which are out of production but there is talk of one of the old manufacturers making a limited run of them again. The other choice is to fab your own. I’m not sure that you could heat and bend the upper control arms without risking making a weak spot for them to break at.

Misc. fuel economy stuff…

The 3.0 is happy in its power curve. My first Ranger was a 2000 extended cab 2wd 5-speed with a 3.0 and 3.73 gears. In largely stock form, it got a consistent 17-19 mpg around town and 23-ish on the highway with an aluminum work cap and a couple hundred lbs of gear. A soft tonneau cover and nearly empty bed and I was 20-24 mpg around town and 28-31 on the highway. That was also getting into the powerband and shifting to keep it in there until I was up to speed. That was also before ethanol gas. Once we started getting ethanol gas and some of the newer blends, mileage dropped to 16/17 around town with the cap and 18 with the tonneau, low 20s for highway. The 3.0 is most efficient when running higher RPMs to stay in the power curve. Seems counter-intuitive on its face because you would think lower RPMs would sip gas, but that is only true on engines built to perform best in low rpm ranges.

Weight reduction helps fuel economy, but also more engine power helps. Dad’s 2000 Ranger that we converted to a 5.0 v-8 AWD would actually get 17mpg around town if you weren’t smashing the go pedal (then it got 14/15). My green 2000 with the 4.0 was getting 12/13 before the v8 swap. I still have to work out a bunch of issues on my swap so my current fuel economy numbers post-swap are not entirely accurate, plus I’ve been doing a lot of hauling with it lately.

I have an electric power steering pump that I was intending to try putting in my green Ranger, but the problem is space under the hood. The ideal place would be where the air box sits, but that means the air intake, filter and box all needs to change along with the coolant reservoir and windshield washer fluid tank have to move/change. Not sure the gains are worth the effort, not sure about the normal Ranger power steering pump, but to my understanding the Explorer pump doesn’t suck much power. Air conditioning is the thing on the accessory drive that pulls the most power. The clutch fan and water pump are also your big pulls. Alternator doesn’t really draw much power off the accessory drive.

Automatic transmission…

This is your biggest parasite. For one, it’s not programmed to use the 3.0 power efficiently. That would probably require a custom tune on something like a Megasquirt system. I haven’t dove into that side of things very far yet. I can tell you that the auto transmissions in these are notoriously sloppy. A shift kit, valve body mods, bonded separator plate and square cut reverse servo o rings will help the transmission substantially. I believe the bands for 2 and 3 are still adjustable on yours and probably have never been adjusted like they should. My red 92 Ranger with a 4.0 was getting 12/13mpg around town and after I did the transmission work (the transmission can stay in the truck, you just have to pull the pan and valve body, very messy, little tedious, and an exercise in patience and cleanliness), it hadn’t quite fully settled out when the truck got wrecked, but I was up to 15mpg and a massive change in performance, crisp shifts and it would smoke the back tires if you hit the gas hard from a stop.

Thank you so much for the info, getting knowledge from folks like yourself

For the keys:

How much of a drop were you able to achieve just by backing things out to the limit? I'm not looking for anything more than 1.5-2 inches, if that can be achieved WITHOUT a trip to the junkyard all the better. Of course, if it's going to ruin my ball joints then it's a no go.

I'm wondering how the 2008+ rangers were lowered by 1.5 inches from the factory with those new keys, without seeing those ball joint issues. From everything I've been able to find the control arms were still the same. Granted, that's for 4WD trucks, I don't know when they stopped making the 2WD torsion bar trucks.

Fuel economy stuff:

I've definitely found that at a certain rpm range the truck seems to lean out its fuel mixture and get into a more efficient space. Somehow driving at near top speed netted me a more consistent 22-23 MPG compared to a more sedate drive which put me closer to 20-21. I think the power curve seems to reach a peak just after 3500, which is where the engine is at when running closer to 90 MpH. High speed efficient actually suit my use case, so reducing weight and improving aero via lowering, front air dam, e.t.c is going to get me the most return considering this engine is happiest and most efficient at that higher speed.


As for accessories:
The power steering pump is the easiest to delete so that's why it's first on the list for accessory deletes. The electric power steering system I've got in the works is out of an 07 Prius, so the motor actually connects to the steering wheel's input shaft inside the vehicle. And there's just enough room under the dash to fit in. Worse comes to worse though, I just start working out.

Kind of the same deal for AC, easiest way is to just delete it entirely and be warm, but there are now electric AC Compressor making their way out to the market, they're on the docket for the far future, until then I'll live with the loss.

Alternator and water pump are pretty essential short of some big big changes to the electrical system overall. They won't be removed until higher capacity batteries, and alternative charging is arranged.

Clutch fan is getting yoinked any minute now, once I've got a suitable e-fan in my hands.

The transmission:

Yeah it's a dog, shifts sloppy, and doesn't know what day it is. I've been considering a shift kit but ultimately I hate working on transmissions, after a really bad experience. I'm trying to leave the drivetrain alone as much as possible while doing just about everything else around it first to improve efficiency. By the time I get to the transmission, we'll be another 200K Kms on the odometer and I can justify doing something a little more comprehensive.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Thank you so much for the info, getting knowledge from folks like yourself

For the keys:

How much of a drop were you able to achieve just by backing things out to the limit? I'm not looking for anything more than 1.5-2 inches, if that can be achieved WITHOUT a trip to the junkyard all the better. Of course, if it's going to ruin my ball joints then it's a no go.

I'm wondering how the 2008+ rangers were lowered by 1.5 inches from the factory with those new keys, without seeing those ball joint issues. From everything I've been able to find the control arms were still the same. Granted, that's for 4WD trucks, I don't know when they stopped making the 2WD torsion bar trucks.

Fuel economy stuff:

I've definitely found that at a certain rpm range the truck seems to lean out its fuel mixture and get into a more efficient space. Somehow driving at near top speed netted me a more consistent 22-23 MPG compared to a more sedate drive which put me closer to 20-21. I think the power curve seems to reach a peak just after 3500, which is where the engine is at when running closer to 90 MpH. High speed efficient actually suit my use case, so reducing weight and improving aero via lowering, front air dam, e.t.c is going to get me the most return considering this engine is happiest and most efficient at that higher speed.


As for accessories:
The power steering pump is the easiest to delete so that's why it's first on the list for accessory deletes. The electric power steering system I've got in the works is out of an 07 Prius, so the motor actually connects to the steering wheel's input shaft inside the vehicle. And there's just enough room under the dash to fit in. Worse comes to worse though, I just start working out.

Kind of the same deal for AC, easiest way is to just delete it entirely and be warm, but there are now electric AC Compressor making their way out to the market, they're on the docket for the far future, until then I'll live with the loss.

Alternator and water pump are pretty essential short of some big big changes to the electrical system overall. They won't be removed until higher capacity batteries, and alternative charging is arranged.

Clutch fan is getting yoinked any minute now, once I've got a suitable e-fan in my hands.

The transmission:

Yeah it's a dog, shifts sloppy, and doesn't know what day it is. I've been considering a shift kit but ultimately I hate working on transmissions, after a really bad experience. I'm trying to leave the drivetrain alone as much as possible while doing just about everything else around it first to improve efficiency. By the time I get to the transmission, we'll be another 200K Kms on the odometer and I can justify doing something a little more comprehensive.

1-2” of drop is possible with pulling the bump stops and backing off the adjusters. I’m not entirely sure how much drop I ended up with front and rear, I did some major changes to mine and the front has to come down at least another inch or so more than what I was able to achieve with adjusters. I not only deleted the 2” lift block in the back, but also flipped the axle and ended up having to put 2” longer shackles on the rear to get back out of frame notch territory. I’m guessing I ended up with roughly 4-5” of drop in the rear. I haven’t done a lot of measuring yet, but I can say that I no longer fit under the truck without a jack or ramps. I may have end up doing airbags or something in the rear. Like I said, I’m still working out details.

Peak power in a 3.0 doesn’t start until something like 2,800 rpm and fades out around 5k or so. Rev limiter is something like 5,500-6k and redline is 500 rpm above the limiter. The speed limiter in the computer is set at 90-95mph, by the way.

I don’t know how well that electric power steering will work. What I was looking at making work was a hydraulic unit out of a Volvo because I’ve seen it done and actually driven a Ranger with it. I will be doing that change to some of my other trucks, probably my Choptop and full size trucks.

I totally understand reluctance to mess with a transmission, but honestly, that’s your biggest efficiency loss. Not to mention the sloppy shifting builds heat which is usually what kills these autos. I haven’t done a shift kit in my green Ranger yet, but I did modify things to use an 07 F-150 trans cooler which is nearly 3x the size of the Ranger one. Shift kit will come for it, it’s just been a time and money thing for now. You may be able to buy a modded valve body, I’m not really sure.

Oh, and use Forscan to change your tire size in the computer. You need to know the exact diameter of the tire your using (or at least get close) because the computer counts it as revolutions per mile (maybe revs per kilometer for you) rather than inputting a particular tire size.

 

[bhgl]

1-2” of drop is possible with pulling the bump stops and backing off the adjusters. I’m not entirely sure how much drop I ended up with front and rear, I did some major changes to mine and the front has to come down at least another inch or so more than what I was able to achieve with adjusters. I not only deleted the 2” lift block in the back, but also flipped the axle and ended up having to put 2” longer shackles on the rear to get back out of frame notch territory. I’m guessing I ended up with roughly 4-5” of drop in the rear. I haven’t done a lot of measuring yet, but I can say that I no longer fit under the truck without a jack or ramps. I may have end up doing airbags or something in the rear. Like I said, I’m still working out details.

Peak power in a 3.0 doesn’t start until something like 2,800 rpm and fades out around 5k or so. Rev limiter is something like 5,500-6k and redline is 500 rpm above the limiter. The speed limiter in the computer is set at 90-95mph, by the way.

I don’t know how well that electric power steering will work. What I was looking at making work was a hydraulic unit out of a Volvo because I’ve seen it done and actually driven a Ranger with it. I will be doing that change to some of my other trucks, probably my Choptop and full size trucks.

I totally understand reluctance to mess with a transmission, but honestly, that’s your biggest efficiency loss. Not to mention the sloppy shifting builds heat which is usually what kills these autos. I haven’t done a shift kit in my green Ranger yet, but I did modify things to use an 07 F-150 trans cooler which is nearly 3x the size of the Ranger one. Shift kit will come for it, it’s just been a time and money thing for now. You may be able to buy a modded valve body, I’m not really sure.

Oh, and use Forscan to change your tire size in the computer. You need to know the exact diameter of the tire your using (or at least get close) because the computer counts it as revolutions per mile (maybe revs per kilometer for you) rather than inputting a particular tire size.

In that case I may try the drop before visiting the junkyard in a search for 2008+ keys.

I've heard good things about using the inline motor set up vs. a detached pump. There's some gentleman in the tech library who've done it before IIRC.

As for the trans, it actually does have an upgraded trans cooler installed! I think the folks who had it before me towed a good bit more than I ever planned to, it's maybe 2x the size (and partially mounted with zip ties), but I don't have a stock ranger one to compare.

I've been using a GPS odometer as much as possible for my fuel economy calculations given that the tires are .4% smaller in diameter than stock. Good to know I can change the tire size in the computer however, but I seem to recall the odometers getting the speed from a wyrm gear in the transmission?

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

In that case I may try the drop before visiting the junkyard in a search for 2008+ keys.

I've heard good things about using the inline motor set up vs. a detached pump. There's some gentleman in the tech library who've done it before IIRC.

As for the trans, it actually does have an upgraded trans cooler installed! I think the folks who had it before me towed a good bit more than I ever planned to, it's maybe 2x the size (and partially mounted with zip ties), but I don't have a stock ranger one to compare.

I've been using a GPS odometer as much as possible for my fuel economy calculations given that the tires are .4% smaller in diameter than stock. Good to know I can change the tire size in the computer however, but I seem to recall the odometers getting the speed from a wyrm gear in the transmission?

Yeah, the upper control arm ball joint and the bump stops will be a problem before you need different keys.

An inline motor would certainly make things easier than dealing with fitting a pump in the tight engine bay.

Odometers in the 98+ trucks were run off the ABS sensor in the rear axle. The worm gear in the trans tail shaft or transfer case only applies to older trucks. Might actually be 95+ trucks that dropped the gear. Either way, I know that my 2000 Rangers don’t use a gear and it’s a change in the computer to adjust for tires, had to do it in my green Ranger after doing the V8 swap and I was having issues. Correcting the tire size took it from a clunky 7/8 mpg to a rocket 10-ish. Still have to find and smash a few more bugs in the system and get away from the desire to flatten the pedal with my heavy right boot and it really needs different rims and tires (currently has 31x10.50-15s and I want to go to a 29-ish wider tire on 18” Explorer rims which should help things too). Really need to get one of my work trucks fixed up so I can stop using my toy for hauling stuff around. That will help fuel economy too. One step at a time, I did a ridiculous amount of work which naturally results in a huge amount of issues. Take a little time to sort things out.

 

[2011Supercab]

the tires are .4% smaller in diameter than stock.

.4% or 4% ?

.4% isn't enough to make a difference MPG calculations. That's less than 1/2 mile for every 100 miles driven, about 1 mile per tank of fuel.

And 4% isn't going to make much difference, 4 miles for every 100 miles driven, about 10 miles for every tank of fuel.

 

[superj]

the top speed limiter is 93mph. it sucks too. right when you are trying to pass someone, it kicks in.

at least here, that is how it is.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

the top speed limiter is 93mph. it sucks too. right when you are trying to pass someone, it kicks in.

at least here, that is how it is.

No, when we were down there that was pretty much interstate cruising speed...