I am also looking to possibly do SAS on my 99 ranger and I have did a lot of research but it is quite overwhelming especially deciding on an axle combo.
My truck sees 85% or more on road.
I'm going to be running 33x10.50 tires and I highly doubt I will ever go bigger than that.
Main goals I'm looking for is stock driveability, about 4" of lift, and stock or as very close to stock width as I can get. I want to run coils (no leafs for me) and I am not afraid of doing some fab for adding steering box, track bar, trans cross member, etc. I have two welders, tig and mig setup, bandsaw, torch, etc.
Plan on using the bronco spring cups and f250 shock mounts, bronco/f150 trailing arm mounts,etc
Basically what would be the easiest axle to go with for my width concerns and as cheap as possible. I've looked looked at a Dana 30 from a wrangler, Dana 44, etc. It just seems there are tons of options. I really don't want to cut down an axle because that will involve either having axles shortened or built custom, and I'd rather not go there. I don't mind doing fan externally as far as brackets and mounting but I'd rather not build a custom setup mixing parts from diff axles.
By the way this truck is going to see trails, some mud and light crawling. Nothing extreme.