Probably shouldn't of called my build thread 3.low, since a 5.0 swap is on my list of things to do but this will work for now! Bought this truck a few months ago from a buddy of mine to use as a daily driver, and take the wear and tear off of my other project, which is a 1993 Ford F-150 prerunner.
Well as expected, I can't leave anything stock, so I decided to lower a truck for the first time instead of lifting one like I always have done. Always wanted one since high school and so far it's been a good direction for the Ranger. Been around prerunners and such all my life and have always heard the 3.0 (also called the 3.SLOW) get such a bad rap for being slow, unreliable, and inefficient motors; and so far I can't find proof in any of these rumors.
Anyways, truck is a 2000 Ford Ranger XLT; has about 175,xxx miles in the 3.0 V6 and auto trans as far as I know that's all original. First week I owned it, the water pump went out. So I took that opportunity to not only replace the radiator, but upgrade it to the Explorer V8 dual core radiator. Swap went super easy and really all that was changed was the fan shroud needed to be trimmed and one of the bolt holes to be ovaled out slightly.
Then a few weeks after that, I had another one of my buddies parting out an 01 ranger that had the newer front clip than I had, so I jumped on that as soon as I could as well. Also managed to find a front and rear bumper off the same truck than were damn near brand new
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Drove it around like that for about a month and got the bug to finally pull the trigger and order all the lowering stuff from summit. Saw a few lowered Rangers on this forum with the Mustang bullitt wheels and knew that's the route I had to go.
Scored a set from Craigslist, one was trashed from a curb smack so bought the 4th one from American Muscle on the east coast. Then found some 235/55/17 Goodyear Eagle tires also from CL, and mounted them up on the wheels.
Ended up going with just a 2" DJM lowering spring up front and an axle flip out for the rear, which lowered it about 4" or so.
Had to use 1" wheel spacers up front to have the hub centric Mustang wheels clear the ranger hub size, and overall pushed the tires perfectly to fit in the fender.
And today I threw on some side mirrors from the 06+ rangers. Was a little tricky since I have power mirrors and the new ones had different colored wiring, but a simple test with the test light let me know which wire went to what. That's about all I have done for now, future plans are to maybe put lift shacked in the rear, add rear air shocks and add shorter bumpstops for the front.
Goal here is to have a Daily drivable truck that will handle well on pavement and yet something that I don't have to avoid every pothole in the road with. One of my co-workers is into autocross and hauls ass in his 67 Dodge Dart, and would love to eventually give it a try in my ranger after a few mods. Heres the specs and wishlist of the truck so far
2000 2wd Ford Ranger XLT 4-door
3.0 V6, 4R55e auto trans
DJM 2" Lowering springs in front
DJM 5" Flip kit in rear
99-04 17x8 Factory Mustang Bullitt wheels
235/55/17 Goodyear eagle one tires
2001 Front end conversion
Full Rockford Fosgate stereo with T1 12" sub
Stock exhaust
Stock Motor, 175,xxx miles
Wishlist/possible future upgrades
Front and rear upgraded sway bars
Belltech Front shocks
Rear air shocks
Rear lift shackles
Ford Explorer 8.8 swap for gearing and disc brakes
Ford expo 5.0 V8 swap
Enjoy the hell out of it