Lowered the Ranger with light weight rims..

[FX2.3]

Before:

after:




New rims weigh 12lbs each The tires are not pizza cutters lol.. they are 255/60r15s, I wanted the old school look, and few tires fit 15x8 rims..

I sent the old tuner out to get retuned for economy so that should help alot too..

The next aero mod will be an air damn for the front bumper.. any ideas where to get abs plastic?

[meemooer]

looks good man. Try what i did last week, i got a bunch of the plastic license plate inserts from a dealer[well my work] luckily mine were already black so i didn't have to paint them to blend. I just zip tied them into the honeycombs. i'll post a pic tomorrow

[adam728]

Looks good,now just ditch those fender flares!

I don't know what size plastic you are looking for, but I was at Ace Hardware this weekend and they had some pretty heavy duty signs for cheap. I'd say they were at least 3/16" thick plastic, some as large as 18"x24".

Are you correcting the speedo for the smaller tires?


I kinda went thru the same thing with my old S-10. Started stock, then ~1.5 inch lift with 235-75-15 tires on HEAVY steel wheels. Then it got a makeover and dropped 2" lower than stock with stock aluminum wheels and 245-60-15's, and put an airdam back on it. Acceleration at low speeds improved very noticably just from reducing the wheel weight. Mileage went up from 27ish to around 30 mpg. And I quit beating it up trying to off-road it.

[trikkonceptz]

Worse case scenario, google select products. They are local to me and are electronics suppliers, they sell ABS plastic by the sheet in varying dimensions and will ship if necessary.

www.selectproducts.com

Hope it helps, plus they sell all kinds of other tools that some of you guys may find useful.

[FX2.3]

Originally Posted by meemooer

looks good man. Try what i did last week, i got a bunch of the plastic license plate inserts from a dealer[well my work] luckily mine were already black so i didn't have to paint them to blend. I just zip tied them into the honeycombs. i'll post a pic tomorrow

Might try it, need pics!

Originally Posted by adam728

Looks good,now just ditch those fender flares!

I don't know what size plastic you are looking for, but I was at Ace Hardware this weekend and they had some pretty heavy duty signs for cheap. I'd say they were at least 3/16" thick plastic, some as large as 18"x24".

Are you correcting the speedo for the smaller tires?


I kinda went thru the same thing with my old S-10. Started stock, then ~1.5 inch lift with 235-75-15 tires on HEAVY steel wheels. Then it got a makeover and dropped 2" lower than stock with stock aluminum wheels and 245-60-15's, and put an airdam back on it. Acceleration at low speeds improved very noticably just from reducing the wheel weight. Mileage went up from 27ish to around 30 mpg. And I quit beating it up trying to off-road it.

Why does everyone hate on the flares?

I took her offroad more when she was stock, but because she is my dd, I didnt want to break her.. I had some 15x8 soft 8 steelies that weighed 28lbs EACH

I hope I can get 27mpg city, and the tuner will fix the speedo..

Originally Posted by trikkonceptz

Worse case scenario, google select products. They are local to me and are electronics suppliers, they sell ABS plastic by the sheet in varying dimensions and will ship if necessary.

www.selectproducts.com

Hope it helps, plus they sell all kinds of other tools that some of you guys may find useful.

Sweet, never knew google did that!

[FastPlastic]

Cheap picture frames at walmart work ok. Keeps the original look of the grill if you don't paint it too. I had a broken one I chopped up and mounting on my grill. Don't know how well it holds up if a rock hits it. But so far haven't had any problems with them.

[aerohead]

I like how you got the Ranger out of the ionosphere.If you can't find ABS and can't find something off another model pickup to fit the the Ranger,some of us have used black plastic lawn edging.Its a bit flimzy,but can be reinforced at the back side,out of view.Sheet aluminum is also good and with a good self-etching primer,can be painted matching body color.

[adam728]

Originally Posted by FX2.3

Why does everyone hate on the flares?

I had some 15x8 soft 8 steelies that weighed 28lbs EACH

The flares were fine with the bigger tires and off road look. Now, not so much.

I had 15x7 Bart wheels from Summit Racing, made for circle track racing and sucked! Super heavy, I want to remember them as being 33 lbs a piece (1/4" steel centers, my stock wheels came in around 17 lbs each in the all-accurate bathroom scale test). And they were not round. Had a small vibration than no balance would fix, and it was still there after swapping tires. Broke down one wheel and put it on a brake lathe, showed probably 3/16" runout! Was glad to go back to stockers.

[meemooer]

i know i can't mention pics, without being asked for them, so here we go

[FX2.3]

Originally Posted by meemooer

i know i can't mention pics, without being asked for them, so here we go

looks odd.. how does it do in heat?