[bondvagabond]

First off, don't worry, I have a 55mpg motorcycle, and a 30+mpg as my main vehicles. But I started thinking.....(uh oh)

A buddy of mine has offered me a scout traveller (the stretched version of a scout 2) for like scrap metal prices. it has a 304 v8 dodge 727 3 speed non overdrive tranny bad stuff as far as mileage goes.

Frontal area on the scouts as long as you don't jack them up super high is similar to the the ranger.

4x4 ranger with the 4cyl and 5 speed with extracab weighs 3700lbs
4x4 scout traveler weighs 3900lbs with an industrial v8 engine that they put in dump trucks and stuff that weighs 750lbs!

Since rangers are a popular first vehicle for teen guys, you can get them cheap neer me running well with body damage.

I am contemplating doing an engine/tranny/transfercase swap into the scout body.

My question for the engineer types is: If the drivetrain is the same, and the aerodynamics are similar, and the wights are similar, will the mpgs be similar? It would be a hoot to have an old convertable 4x4 that had decent mpg.

Am I crazy like a fox? or just crazy? I am confident that I could rig motormounts and tranny mounts, and the same Scouts came from the factory with this massive 3.2liter 4 cylinder engine that only had 5 more hp than the ranger one, but 20 more ft/lbs of torque.

The drive line swap would make their weights almost identical, and I would probably eventually go to an aerodynamic soft top which should drop a few hundred lbs. too. It might end up being lighter.