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Ghetto jet
Member
I've been checking the Ranger Station out for a while now and I've used it to help inspire me and answer some questions that I've had. I don't know why I've waited so long to join but I figured I would introduce myself and show and explain my truck and where it is up to now. The truck has a ton of sentimental value because it was my mom's and she bought it new in 98. Have a lot of memories of riding around with her. I lost my mom about 5 years ago and before that happened I did say to her that I'd love to have her truck and redo it in her memory and make it cool and redo it like a lowrider. I sure do miss her but every time I drive the truck I think about her. I know she would love it the way I've have done it.
When I first got the truck it was a few years after she had passed and rode up there from where I live in Southwest Florida to where it was in North Carolina and brought it back home on a car hauler and started off right away with replacing body parts getting new rubber but otherwise it was in pretty good shape.
After I had most of the body work and things straightened out to a point where I was happy and I got a new windshield just because I decided it was time to deal with the suspension and driving parts underneath. I bought a kit off of RockAuto that includes everything to replace your suspension and it was a lot more cost-effective than buying it piece for piece and I also bought drop Springs and a flip kit. I did the drop on it myself. Now that I've done it I recommend a few things like be prepared to drill out the hole in the little c-notch thing they give you it's not big enough and that the shocks that come with a drop suspension trucks suck so I would just put the regular shots back on and in fact I'm looking into getting heavy duty leaf springs and then put in 4 by 4 shocks in the front just to help eat up Road instead of Road eating up me. I'm happy with it but I also realize that you need to get special stabilizer links that you can order to size. It actually ended up putting the drive shaft in a better and alignment. Dealt with that two new U-joints Grease the slip yoke drained and refilled the diff.
Next was paint and since I'm a painter and other things for a living I went ahead and tried my hand at a two-tone look rolled out for a while with that but then changed my mind and wanted to go with like a solid olive green and I'm liking it but had to redo somebody work to make it a little tighter and now I need to re-spray it. Coming real soon. decided to get over the chrome rims and drop the black on them. I have a set of 15 X10 Baja 8 Steely that I'mma put on here real soon. They fit perfect is ridiculous but I can guarantee you if there are any bigger than 15 so they wouldn't work they would rub.
Then I decided it was time to deal with some of the issues I was having with missions so I cut the catalytic converter out and dropped a MagnaFlow pipe about halfway back on the truck pretty close to the center with a dump exhaust. I recommend that MagnaFlow it's a really nice sound. Aggressive but not too much you can still be quiet and drive it normal if you want to. It definitely calls for attention and eggs on people for a little bit of Street fun. I also replace several parts like the hydraulic slave cylinder which entailed doing a transmission flush and a rear main seal job. New AC compressor power steering pump thermostat radiator upper lower hoses performance coil packs that are heavy duty new wires nice plugs and I but upgraded for hole fuel injectors. I've also taken the time to tap into the bottom of the air box and using PVC pipe myself down a cold air ram air style intake but I also have a hole in the side of the box so that when I'm sitting in traffic it can still breathe easy. Plus if I end up with debris inside or something blocking my front cone I can still breathe. I don't think I'm going to do a cold air intake I like the box. I have a high flow flat filter and it works great. I went ahead and got fresh headlights and tailIights .also replaced several parts that have to do with the exhaust and dealing with fumes from the gas tank EGR and other things of that nature. I'm actually quite surprised because a lot of that stuff was original parts with 360000 miles on my truck. People talk all the crap they want about Ford. I also did a Blow by bypass and put a filter and cap and I have plans to take apart the throttle body grease it up real good shine it up and polish it and try to do the same with the air intake and polish the upper part redo the cam spring valve lifters and timing chain. A lot of that stuff isn't very expensive and it's easy to do on a little motor like that. It's got 360,000 and it still has tons of compression and runs great so I'm actually going to try and Spoon this thing up to 500 just to see if it'll go there. I have a feeling it will and then some. It still fires up runs like a champ has tons of compression and zero issues. These Lima 4 cylinders are meant to last. I would also like to do a chip for tuning a Hurst short shifter and a performance clutch like a stage 2 where it's still a daily driver. Then try to find a ranger that's from 2010 to 11 because they came with 8.8 rear axles with posi lock but they had drums and I don't really care cuz I think drums is just fine. Especially when they're brand new. I know people say they can get them off of newer years with disc brakes and you can rebuild axles and take them out of the Explorer trust me I've read all the threads there is to know about all that stuff. I think I'll be happy just doing those mods and just kind of holding tight right there. I don't think I would want to put a turbo on a motor with that many miles and if I did it would have to be a very simple one with only like maybe 5 lb of boost just for the sound more than anything. I would like to get a new rack and pinion. This one's pretty old now and a fresh alignment would really help to. I'm waiting to kind of do all that stuff at once when I put the new rims on. Coming real soon one thing at a time. so far I'm very happy with this truck miles and performance. it gets great gas mileage too but I don't screw around I get premium every time and I'll make sure I run the product I found called K 100 and if you don't know about it look it up it's the best stuff I've ever seen for gas. It saves all kinds of carbon build-up and you'll notice it in the first fill up.
My plan after all of this is to do an engine swap at 500 or so I've looked up every which way from Sunday and there's a million options but I think going with Ford Explorer V8 that I can build with steel internals before I have it dropped in I could have the head shaved and do other things to it before it ever even gets mounted. I know it has to be a 97 and there's a special mounting brackets and I've seen tons of videos with guys having a fun time with the V8 swap but I've also seen guys put brand new 2.3 instead of the 2.5 that I have and Spoon I'm up like the Focus ST. That would be a pretty cool swap I thought about doing LOL but the truth is the new Rangers are even better when you look at the side-by-side comparisons and the way that they designed and built that motor. I don't know if anyone's ever done it yet but man wouldn't it be cool to buy one of those turn it up a little bit get some parts and things done to it you would basically have something nobody's ever seen before. Thing is with keeping it as a 4-cylinder There's so much things you have to do to spoon up power when really all you have to do is drop a slightly-built V8 out of an Explorer in there and it's goodbye. You can throw a supercharger on that and call it a day. as long as you can keep your engine bay cool and you heat wrap your headers your straight.
Last thing is something that annoyed me for a while then I had to deal with it anyway cuz the bench seat was blown apart but I looked up through a lot of the threads on here that there's all kind of different seats that can be interchanged as long as you get the tracks out of the right year and everything like that well some of that information was wrong and basically found out that even though my truck has tracks that are riveted it wasn't that bad to drill them out and now that they are there the original tracks that go in my truck and you have a lot farther sliding Front and back then taking some out of an old model plus the ones from the old model don't exactly exactly fit. Once you do that you can mount your stuff to whatever chair and I've been always on the hunt or looking around for a Foxbody GT with the Halo headrest and all those cool bolsters or even a decent set of Mustang seats and I found some that would work just for now until I find something I really want. well just the other day I actually stumbled across a listing for a Ford Escort EXP GT. I live in South Florida pretty much Fort Myers area and this car was up in Jacksonville so it's about a six-hour drive I took to go fetch it but I've been looking since I've known about them being a thing and it really is what they say. It is next to impossible to find pretty much any Halo style headrest seat for sale for Anna junkyard or anyting and I got so stupidly incredibly lucky to have stumbled across this car. This guy had no idea what he had. Anybody who knows anything knows these are the Holy Grail of seat swaps and that you can't even find s*** for him on the internet at all anywhere. Literally the only way You'll ever get these seats is to find a car that still exists with them in there and buy the whole thing so that's what I did. This car had a leaky sunroof because somehow someway one of the rubber tubes that is connected to the gutter system was pulled out and it's sat for a couple years without being worked on or anything and had some very minor water damage. I ended up looking up about the car and realize how rare and special the car is in the first place. this thing as a hundred and twenty thousand and it has a really fun little 1.9 it fires right up and it runs like perfectly I've combed it over and there's nothing wrong with this car. It's sat for a while so it needs bearings and greased up but everything on it is tight and now I think I'm going to keep it. I started gutting it and getting all the interior out to clean it all up and fix on it and repair the two holes in the floor behind the seats where the water was allowed to gather. I'm probably going to put my Mustang seats out of the Ranger into this car it fits the interior color better anyway and those GT Halo headrest seats are going to for sure set off my truck. I'm still in shock and disbelief that this is even happening and that I even have these seats and not only that but they're in pristine condition which is ridiculous. well that's it that's me that's the project that's where things are up to now and I'll check back in in a couple of few months and post more and try to add to this thread once I figure out how it all works. Hopefully I didn't bore anybody and the pictures will go along with the way I have said the post. If anybody has any questions on stuff that I talked about I can tell you whatever you need to know thanks again guys. Looking forward to making Powell's on here and I'm going to probably buy a second Ranger and do something with that one being airbagged?
When I first got the truck it was a few years after she had passed and rode up there from where I live in Southwest Florida to where it was in North Carolina and brought it back home on a car hauler and started off right away with replacing body parts getting new rubber but otherwise it was in pretty good shape.
After I had most of the body work and things straightened out to a point where I was happy and I got a new windshield just because I decided it was time to deal with the suspension and driving parts underneath. I bought a kit off of RockAuto that includes everything to replace your suspension and it was a lot more cost-effective than buying it piece for piece and I also bought drop Springs and a flip kit. I did the drop on it myself. Now that I've done it I recommend a few things like be prepared to drill out the hole in the little c-notch thing they give you it's not big enough and that the shocks that come with a drop suspension trucks suck so I would just put the regular shots back on and in fact I'm looking into getting heavy duty leaf springs and then put in 4 by 4 shocks in the front just to help eat up Road instead of Road eating up me. I'm happy with it but I also realize that you need to get special stabilizer links that you can order to size. It actually ended up putting the drive shaft in a better and alignment. Dealt with that two new U-joints Grease the slip yoke drained and refilled the diff.
Next was paint and since I'm a painter and other things for a living I went ahead and tried my hand at a two-tone look rolled out for a while with that but then changed my mind and wanted to go with like a solid olive green and I'm liking it but had to redo somebody work to make it a little tighter and now I need to re-spray it. Coming real soon. decided to get over the chrome rims and drop the black on them. I have a set of 15 X10 Baja 8 Steely that I'mma put on here real soon. They fit perfect is ridiculous but I can guarantee you if there are any bigger than 15 so they wouldn't work they would rub.
Then I decided it was time to deal with some of the issues I was having with missions so I cut the catalytic converter out and dropped a MagnaFlow pipe about halfway back on the truck pretty close to the center with a dump exhaust. I recommend that MagnaFlow it's a really nice sound. Aggressive but not too much you can still be quiet and drive it normal if you want to. It definitely calls for attention and eggs on people for a little bit of Street fun. I also replace several parts like the hydraulic slave cylinder which entailed doing a transmission flush and a rear main seal job. New AC compressor power steering pump thermostat radiator upper lower hoses performance coil packs that are heavy duty new wires nice plugs and I but upgraded for hole fuel injectors. I've also taken the time to tap into the bottom of the air box and using PVC pipe myself down a cold air ram air style intake but I also have a hole in the side of the box so that when I'm sitting in traffic it can still breathe easy. Plus if I end up with debris inside or something blocking my front cone I can still breathe. I don't think I'm going to do a cold air intake I like the box. I have a high flow flat filter and it works great. I went ahead and got fresh headlights and tailIights .also replaced several parts that have to do with the exhaust and dealing with fumes from the gas tank EGR and other things of that nature. I'm actually quite surprised because a lot of that stuff was original parts with 360000 miles on my truck. People talk all the crap they want about Ford. I also did a Blow by bypass and put a filter and cap and I have plans to take apart the throttle body grease it up real good shine it up and polish it and try to do the same with the air intake and polish the upper part redo the cam spring valve lifters and timing chain. A lot of that stuff isn't very expensive and it's easy to do on a little motor like that. It's got 360,000 and it still has tons of compression and runs great so I'm actually going to try and Spoon this thing up to 500 just to see if it'll go there. I have a feeling it will and then some. It still fires up runs like a champ has tons of compression and zero issues. These Lima 4 cylinders are meant to last. I would also like to do a chip for tuning a Hurst short shifter and a performance clutch like a stage 2 where it's still a daily driver. Then try to find a ranger that's from 2010 to 11 because they came with 8.8 rear axles with posi lock but they had drums and I don't really care cuz I think drums is just fine. Especially when they're brand new. I know people say they can get them off of newer years with disc brakes and you can rebuild axles and take them out of the Explorer trust me I've read all the threads there is to know about all that stuff. I think I'll be happy just doing those mods and just kind of holding tight right there. I don't think I would want to put a turbo on a motor with that many miles and if I did it would have to be a very simple one with only like maybe 5 lb of boost just for the sound more than anything. I would like to get a new rack and pinion. This one's pretty old now and a fresh alignment would really help to. I'm waiting to kind of do all that stuff at once when I put the new rims on. Coming real soon one thing at a time. so far I'm very happy with this truck miles and performance. it gets great gas mileage too but I don't screw around I get premium every time and I'll make sure I run the product I found called K 100 and if you don't know about it look it up it's the best stuff I've ever seen for gas. It saves all kinds of carbon build-up and you'll notice it in the first fill up.
My plan after all of this is to do an engine swap at 500 or so I've looked up every which way from Sunday and there's a million options but I think going with Ford Explorer V8 that I can build with steel internals before I have it dropped in I could have the head shaved and do other things to it before it ever even gets mounted. I know it has to be a 97 and there's a special mounting brackets and I've seen tons of videos with guys having a fun time with the V8 swap but I've also seen guys put brand new 2.3 instead of the 2.5 that I have and Spoon I'm up like the Focus ST. That would be a pretty cool swap I thought about doing LOL but the truth is the new Rangers are even better when you look at the side-by-side comparisons and the way that they designed and built that motor. I don't know if anyone's ever done it yet but man wouldn't it be cool to buy one of those turn it up a little bit get some parts and things done to it you would basically have something nobody's ever seen before. Thing is with keeping it as a 4-cylinder There's so much things you have to do to spoon up power when really all you have to do is drop a slightly-built V8 out of an Explorer in there and it's goodbye. You can throw a supercharger on that and call it a day. as long as you can keep your engine bay cool and you heat wrap your headers your straight.
Last thing is something that annoyed me for a while then I had to deal with it anyway cuz the bench seat was blown apart but I looked up through a lot of the threads on here that there's all kind of different seats that can be interchanged as long as you get the tracks out of the right year and everything like that well some of that information was wrong and basically found out that even though my truck has tracks that are riveted it wasn't that bad to drill them out and now that they are there the original tracks that go in my truck and you have a lot farther sliding Front and back then taking some out of an old model plus the ones from the old model don't exactly exactly fit. Once you do that you can mount your stuff to whatever chair and I've been always on the hunt or looking around for a Foxbody GT with the Halo headrest and all those cool bolsters or even a decent set of Mustang seats and I found some that would work just for now until I find something I really want. well just the other day I actually stumbled across a listing for a Ford Escort EXP GT. I live in South Florida pretty much Fort Myers area and this car was up in Jacksonville so it's about a six-hour drive I took to go fetch it but I've been looking since I've known about them being a thing and it really is what they say. It is next to impossible to find pretty much any Halo style headrest seat for sale for Anna junkyard or anyting and I got so stupidly incredibly lucky to have stumbled across this car. This guy had no idea what he had. Anybody who knows anything knows these are the Holy Grail of seat swaps and that you can't even find s*** for him on the internet at all anywhere. Literally the only way You'll ever get these seats is to find a car that still exists with them in there and buy the whole thing so that's what I did. This car had a leaky sunroof because somehow someway one of the rubber tubes that is connected to the gutter system was pulled out and it's sat for a couple years without being worked on or anything and had some very minor water damage. I ended up looking up about the car and realize how rare and special the car is in the first place. this thing as a hundred and twenty thousand and it has a really fun little 1.9 it fires right up and it runs like perfectly I've combed it over and there's nothing wrong with this car. It's sat for a while so it needs bearings and greased up but everything on it is tight and now I think I'm going to keep it. I started gutting it and getting all the interior out to clean it all up and fix on it and repair the two holes in the floor behind the seats where the water was allowed to gather. I'm probably going to put my Mustang seats out of the Ranger into this car it fits the interior color better anyway and those GT Halo headrest seats are going to for sure set off my truck. I'm still in shock and disbelief that this is even happening and that I even have these seats and not only that but they're in pristine condition which is ridiculous. well that's it that's me that's the project that's where things are up to now and I'll check back in in a couple of few months and post more and try to add to this thread once I figure out how it all works. Hopefully I didn't bore anybody and the pictures will go along with the way I have said the post. If anybody has any questions on stuff that I talked about I can tell you whatever you need to know thanks again guys. Looking forward to making Powell's on here and I'm going to probably buy a second Ranger and do something with that one being airbagged?
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