weight reduction isnt a bad idea if it wasnt so costly. steel rims are 75 a piece roughly and aluminum ones start at 100 or better, multiply by 5 (we all need a spare sometime!!!) and that hurts ones wallet. gateless isnt a bad idea for weight but horrible on economy. was loading a 300ex to work on in my spare time dropped it on the tailgate rather than the bed and tore the latch assy out of the gate on my truck and ive been gateless for a while, ive lost on average 3mpg. considering an air gate since i remember seeing on mythbusters that it has been proven the best form of balance of aerodynamics and drag and doesnt weigh that much to improve mileage. (tonneau covers and no/dropped tailgate led to the worst economy, leaving it up was better and airgate was the best surprisingly.) fiberglass body panels...here we go, looked all over the sites that showed fiberglass body in our tech library and a few other places, all i can find are flared fenders, not offroading my 2wd trk so thats not going to look good, plus the price hurts too to save a few lbs. thought about doing fiberglass bed panels and converting my front end to a 99 model so i can run hid headlights (my 92s are broken and front end beat to hell as the pictures later in the post show...) the 99 upgrade front end that includes grille, hood and front quarterpanels looks really nice, but 4 inch fenderflares and 900 bux really hurts, altho a cabover front hood would be cool and make my trk easier to work on. (esp that dam oil filter!!! hate turning my front wheels to the right and screwing on it from underneath at work on my lunchbreak...) back to stoke me, cam discussion, what cam and where you getting it from would like to see the specs, and also keep in mind we have the newer hydraulic roller cam head so make sure the cam is for our head, they changed from flat tappets in 89. header discussion, ford on one of the 4 cylinder ranger models offered a tubular manifold that supposedly yeilded a 15% flow increase, was going to look into them, then i noticed i hav an egr valve i hav to figure out what to do with...some say there is a version with the egr pipe attachment on the manifold, i want to do away with my egr entirely (no emissions in louisiana and im burning oil, just wat i want down my intake, its already black inside my intake ports...) that and i prefer fresh air in my engine not blowby from the rings or half burned exhaust gas, just runs better from my experience with other vehicles. i have never experimented with headers for exhaust tuning, mostly because the only other vehicles ive owned are a 91 acura integra that i only got to put 10k miles on (timing belt gone and bent 12 valves, sold her for 1k moved to fla for a bit on that money) and a 93 4wd ranger (i still own it) that i retired at 291k miles (no oil pressure and uses a qt of oil every 1k miles and throttle hangs wide open sometimes...) that had a 3.0 v6 a4ld automatic, and that v6 was crammed and wasnt going thru the headache of changing them out. i may be wrong when i say this but if im not mistaken longer tubes increase velocity from the exhaust and move heat away from the engine, increasing hp at high rpms, whereas short wrapped tubes increase pressure and heat closer to the engine making it strain more initially and makes a more complete burn, increase of torque perhaps? what i do kno is pipe diameter and how well the rest of the system flows affects how well the header/factory manifold scavenges. less choking equals more power. in the case of my old 3.0, the only thing noticable when installing a high flow larger diameter shorter cat and a higher flowing muffler single system or dual system was the exhaust note, not much more power to be had. the four cylinder (according to my assdyno...) is more responsive with a free flowing exhaust. i have the factory manifold installed, 2 1/4 pipe (opposed to the factory 2 inch) leading to a 40 inch classicchambered glasspack, then to a vx 40 (flowmaster 40 series copy, even the part numbers are the same just painted grey instead of black) to a tip all 2 1/4, my cat was removed by the previous owner and had a piece of rusted cast iron pipe in its place and the old factory muffler was full of what appeared to be where the factory cat blew out choking it up. i had a set of fart cans (2 inline welded together dumping in front of the axle) installed it wasnt too loud but ricy, moved to the 40 inch classic chambered that went the whole way out with the increased diameter pipe, nice and smooth was obnoxious so i added the 40 series copy to knock down the noise (no tkts plzzz....). its pretty smooth sounding but i will probably modify it more in the future, as far as my recommendations are concerned im not sure how long the factory precat/cat setup is on my 3.0 trk i had 3 feet of cats had them changed to a catco (magnaflow makes a good one as well) 2 1/4 diameter high flow converter (screen type could see daylight thru it) that was a foot long to help flow and id recommend increasing the pipe diameter to 2 1/4 and whatever muffler you want, packs are noisy fartcans are ricy turbos and chambered mufflers (flowmaster/magnaflow etc etc) have a good sound. keep in mind its not a v8 its not going to lope if anything itll be like a straight 6 monotonous smooth even tone just not as many cylinders (thank you mister obvious...). i do not recommend 2 1/2 inch pipe heat builds up too fast as the exhaust tends to hold the gas not expell it, the 2 inch is a lil constrictive, most guys dont recommend 2 1/2 pipe until your 4.0 or above in displacement for flow reasons. tuning...fun fun, we hav obd1/eec4 motors, were limited to standalone fuel management (feel like being an electronic engineer?) or chips. hav read on this site that bamachips offers custom chips based on what youve done to your engine, what the website is idk hopefully one of the other guys can help you. jet offers a chip as well seen it many times on jegs and summitracing not sure what its capable of, havent looked into the four cylinder much but i kno for fact superchips does not offer a chip for the 3.0, wouldnt hurt to look into a 2.3. since we are not obd2/eec5 flashtuners are not available to us (at least i havent found one yet...) so plugging in a box and pushing buttons like you could a bullydog tuner on your f350 isnt available (very sadly in my opinion....) the other issue is knowing if your tuning it right, my nearest dyno is in texas (200 miles from me...) i dont kno about you and your location maybe you are luckier than i am but if and when you go to do it that would be your best bet to make sure its done properly. later on when i get my new engine built and installed im going to put in a wideband o2 sensor w/ a gage to see how she runs and go from there on my own. for others to laugh at my expense i hav included a few pictures of my trk just to show how much of a project she is, but its slow and steady. aforementioned i hav pictures of my exhaust including the classicchambered 40 inch pack and the vx muffler, i have also included a picture of my custom shortram hot air intake system and the easiest way to rebuild the top cap of the transmission. new shifter bushings and the pipe plug shift rail plug replacement have been done as the picture shows. trk was picked up for 400 bux w/ busted tranny (stuck in 4th stripped gears and synchros). the other modifications including the 160 dollar jy transmission, jy doors and mirrors (passenger side from ranger/driver side from 94 f150) rebuilt rear end, new brake rotors pads shoes and drums including front wheelbearing rear axle bearings and seals. has new power steering pump/pulley, idler pulley, serpentine (a/c removed by previous owner) and timing belts, and new radiator. (broke hose neck when wrench slipped installing new power steering pump pulley...) in the backseat i hav 4 shocks carrier bearing 3 ujoints front sway bar bushings radius arm bushings axle pivot bushings leaf spring/shackle bushings and stainless steel braided brake lines and traction bars (courtesy james duff) to be installed in warmer weather (what a vacation it will be!) the rest is still in decision and as the money comes process...all my gages are stuck so prob going to go the custom route and cut my own dash out and go w/ autometer gages...well see...
Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and 
idk yet..depends on what i can get out of it without going boost..
