Ford Ranger Mods So Far...

[landscaper52]

Hello,
I'm new on the forum, so here goes. Here are some of the mods I've done to my current ride. It's a 96 Ford Ranger with the terrible V6 4.0 liter engine. It's supposed to get only 16 or 17 mpg combined, but with the mods so far gets 20-22 city!
I started by reducing the overall weight, removing all sorts of useless junk, that came in at 250-300 lbs. (jump seats, consoles, spare tire carrier, mudflaps,other misc. parts)...Next I added the airdam on the front...I had to endure a week or two of being called a tree hugging hippie freak by the guys at work, but for the better mpg's it was worth it! Today I started on the aero shell, and should have that finished by this weekend. I'll probably have a wood lid, with a plexi window in it, but it's not finished yet. It only weighs about 50 lbs, and is quite strong, so we'll see how the mpg's go...no exact figures yet!
I just paid the damn thing off, so I'm still enjoying not having a car payment for a month or two, and conseq. reluctant to invest major $ in ecomods...however I may drop some soon for one of those scangauges...looks like fun!
See y'all
Rich
sorry still no pics...this site says my filesizes are all too big...I'll have to do some work on reducing them...then resend...

[07b2300]

Great results - from a 4.0 V6 no less! I'd love to see pics as I'm considering an air dam and aerodynamic canopy too. But had great results from low rolling resistance tires.

[Big Dave]

Air dams and fastback canopies are powerful tools for MPG.

[FX2.3]

pics!

[Tango Charlie]

Post your pics to photobucket.com then you can link them to here.

[FunkSkunk]

I'm really curious the mods you're doing to the truck, I'm currently driving a 92 Ranger with that horrible engine too!

[landscaper52]

Yeah,
You've got the 4l manual, but mines auto and 4x4...so consequently the best I've been able to get is 20+- on the highway. After much driving, and writing down my mileage I found that I was only getting about 2 or 3 mpg better than EPA / Ford stats. In other words, not that great. I put a rubber mat airdam on the front, which seems to be helping, but I'm not sure if I spent more effort on changin my driving style, after installing it, or if it was actually doing anything itself, it's hard to say. I began working on an aerodynamic shell, but decided it would make the truck pretty much useless as a truck, I couldn't open the sides, load any large tools, or bulk materials, so I removed it.
I think I might just go with a simple flexible tonneau cover for the back, and see if that helps. I'm reluctant to do much else to it, since I've just paid it off, and I'm enjoying not having a car payment for a while.
Basically, it comes down to this, If you convert your truck to an eco friendly aerodynamic shaped vehicle, it's no longer a truck, and consequently, you might just as well spend some money and buy a more economical vehicle. If you really are getting more than 20 mpg out of your truck, be happy, cos that's probably all you will get out of it. The Ranger that Ford advertises with 29 mpg is for a stock, brand new engine with no options, no AC, 4 cyl 5 speed manual no 4X4, with nothing in the bed...so if it's not hauling anything, what's the point? we might as well as be driving a little hatchback.
Good Luck
Rich

[beatr911]

Agreed. I don't understand why some people use a truck primarily as a commuter and rarely as a hauler. Depending on the load capacity required, a light 2000lb capacity trailer can be pulled quite nicely fully loaded by a smaller car. On saturday we used a dialed in 240SX for autocross or track days, then hook up the trailer and pull 2 yards of yard bark home on sunday.

I commute in my truck about 3 months a year when it's freezing in the morning and too scketchy for riding the motorcycle. Otherwise the truck is strictly for haul mode. When the landscaping on our new house is complete and the need for a truck is less, I'm going back to a fun to drive small car and the light utility trailer, oh and the motorcycle.

For fun and aerodynamic profit, google "aerodynamic pickup". Fluent has a nice image of the aerodynamics of a pickup that show the pressures and flows. Good information for cleaning up a truck. I'd post the pic but the file is too large and I'm not savvy enough to figure out else to get it on this post.

Regards

[FunkSkunk]

Did a little more research on my Ranger and actually its the 3.0L engine... opps!... But the crazy thing is that based on Fuel Economy the 3.0 and the 4.0 both get the same EPA numbers! how strange! I did manage to hit 26mpg myself so it is possible to squeak out a few more drops of liquid gold savings!

[Binger]

If you replace your rear bumper with a sheetmetal roll pan that will drop alot more weight off.

Also you could look into some light weight wheels. I know that some of the offroad wheels are very light and avaliable in stock or even smaller than stock sizes.

[beatr911]

Yeah the 3.0 is a holdover from when the older 4cyl motors just had no poop at all and the 4.0 was not offered yet. It was in production and used in other vehicles and was relatively cheap to produce to offer the V6 option to the many that wanted it. 26 mpg is a pretty good number.

These days the duratec 2.3 4 cylinder makes about the same power as your 3.0 V6, and much more efficiently, so they discontinued the 3.0.

To boost your mpg consider changing your rear axle ratio. Entire rear axles are plentiful and pretty cheap for a good used one. Rangerstation.com or .org or whatever has a good listing of all the available axles for these rigs.

Mine has a 3.73 but could stand a little higher ratio on the freeway. Fully loaded, going up my twisty 17% grade driveway in 1st it will just barely pull it from a rolling start under 1300 rpm, so I may just stick with it. Wish I had a dual range trans, one for haul mode and one for MPG mode.

[TestDrive]

Originally Posted by beatr911

For fun and aerodynamic profit, google "aerodynamic pickup". Fluent has a nice image of the aerodynamics of a pickup that show the pressures and flows. Good information for cleaning up a truck. I'd post the pic but the file is too large and I'm not savvy enough to figure out else to get it on this post.

Regards

Is this the image you're talking about?
Found it at Fluent NEWS - Fall 2004 - Streamlining Pickup Trucks

Here is a large pdf of the issue in which it appeared.
http://www.fluent.com/about/news/new...i2/04v13i2.pdf

In the hunt for the above, I found
an interesting post about AERODYNAMIC MODS
(lots of pictures and links)
in a forum at moparts.org

Cheers.

[beatr911]

Good links. The one I was refering to was the color picture in the first article.

Good info on the other links! Gee, maybe Ford was ahead of it's time with the aerodynamic late 90s F150. Get one with the v6, 5speed, lower it, airdam, underbelly tray, sloping canopy and one could see 30+ mpg fwy. Using only some of the more important aero features, a truck that looks and acts like a truck should still be able to see about 27 in a full size.

As there are so many trucks on the road seems maybe there should be a forum for trucks. One exists for motorcycles, trucks are as well very different than cars.

[TestDrive]

Originally Posted by beatr911

As there are so many trucks on the road seems maybe there should be a forum for trucks. One exists for motorcycles, trucks are as well very different than cars.

Sounds like a great idea to me.

[FunkSkunk]

Yeah I know all about Ford 8.8s ... I've got one under my Jeep YJ! It's regeared to 4.56s and is rolling on 37" MTRs. (it's the play toy that sits in the garage most of the week) Good tip though!

[meemooer]

the 3.0's couldn't get out of their own way back then, or in recent years. The Vulcan engine is just junk. powerband is just way off to make it useful

[whokilledthejams]

Originally Posted by FunkSkunk

Yeah I know all about Ford 8.8s ... I've got one under my Jeep YJ! It's regeared to 4.56s and is rolling on 37" MTRs. (it's the play toy that sits in the garage most of the week) Good tip though!

Originally Posted by meemooer

the 3.0's couldn't get out of their own way back then, or in recent years. The Vulcan engine is just junk. powerband is just way off to make it useful

Not that I'm actually adding much to the discussion, but my brother used to have a '95 Ranger, that he also called the Danger Ranger. It's funny how that works, isn't it? Of course, his was a 2wd, 4cyl, 5-speed, so it wasn't hard to get decent FE out of it.

[greenitup]

I have a 97', v6 (it struggles enough, imagine if i had the 4 cylinder) and i get 30 mpg (it says i should get like 18 mpg), all city driving. (i am aiming for higher though)

And i haven't modded it yet, still adjusting the "nut".

[beatr911]

Excellent numbers from a v6 Ranger!

My 2.3 manages 29 mostly freeway so aerodynamics plays a big role. BTW power is actually not bad as long as I'm not overloading 1000lbs over the recommended weight+towing capacity. Of course I'm trying to hypermile as much as possible as well.