Help regarding gearing

[jolliffem]

My son has a '96 Ranger 4x4, 5spd, 4.0, supercab with 3.27's. He will be going with a lift but we are trying to get the tire size figured out. I believe he can get away with 31's without regearing but I'm not sure about 33's. If he have to regear either way then he wants to go with the 33's, this then assumes he could run it for like 6 months and regear. Any input on this would be great.

[4x4.0]

I don't have any experience here except to say I have 31's with 3;73's, same engine and tranny, It doesn't work too bad but if I went to 33's I would definitly look for at least 410's. I just might look for some from an exploder ,some had 410's.Just my 2$

[Bush_aholic]

I would not worry too much about it if you put on 33's, I ran 33's and now I'm running 35's with my 3.55 gears and I notice some but not much difference...I also have an edge tuner running level 3 and tire size set for my 35's so that helps a bit.

IMO I would get the tires I want and deal with gears down the line when your budget agree's, unless you go bigger than 33's then I would change those gears rite away.

Remember your spedo will be off with bigger tires and it can effect RPM's and shift points. New spedo gear or tuner with tire size option fixes that(probly other ways too) I ran the 33's no speedo fix for a long time diden't bother me much just had to remeber speedo was 8km slow(check with GPS)

[SKRWZ]

First welcome to fordtough

Second

If it was mine I would definitely put in gears along with the lift if you are on stock tires now they should be around 28" tall if and if you put on 33's with a 3.27 gear ratio it most likely wouldn't pull a sick pig off a toilet too far, and if it was an auto it would be worse ...for gears i would look at going 4.56 or 4.88's would be close to what you would be looking for I think

as for 31" s you would be around 1710 Rpm @ 100K ideally what ever tire size you choose you want to be around 2000-3000 RPM @ 100K so 3.27 on 31" is borderline in IMO

[jolliffem]

Darn I was really hoping he could keep the 3.27's with 31's. I'm trying to keep money in his pocket for other things.

[bcfx4]

How big of lift you planning on going with? If you plan on only doing a small lift (2") go with a nice 31 mud terrian. Looks wise and drivebility wise it would work good. Regearing isnt cheap, so if you can improve the looks some and keep it functional go with that.

[jolliffem]

The original plan was to go with Superlift's 5.5" with 33's. But if that means spending $1000+ for gearing then it may not happen. If he can get away with 31's then it will possibly be a 4". A decision needs to be made in the next week as the place we are getting his tires/wheels from has a $100 rebate ending. He's decided on the Kumho KL71 mounted on black Unique 297. The plan is to do the stealth look on the truck, its black.
Right now I'm leaning towards pushing him to the 31's but I'm going to have to make some calls this week, not sure if the lone wrecker in town will have axles to swap and haven't found anyone real interested in doing the gears either.
Any insight would be great. He is willing to go with 31's but he is afraid that they will look small. And if the money hs to be spent on gears for 31's then we might aswell get the 33's.

[Northern Supercrew]

i put 31's on my 93 splash. it was still pretty peppy. it also had the 3.27's. don't know why ford puts gears that high on a 4x4, especially with a v6. 4.10's are perfect with a 33.

[jiminns]

When I was fooling around with gearing I used a formuls to determin end results. It went something like this trans GR ,x rear end GR x tire diameter ,x rpm. search the net to make sure that is the correct formula. My 327 with 336 gears in high gear 1:1 ratio and 28" tires; @ 7500 rpm = 128.5 MPH. We did't have GPS we just knew that @ 7500 on the tack our speed was 75 mph! If you know your HP and Tork rpm range, play with those figure out what gears and tires you would best suit your driving needs.

[jolliffem]

Well we took the 31 TrXus MT's off the Jeep and put them on the Ranger and here is what we got. MPH was done with a GPS in 4th gear. The 31's definitely made it a little more sluggish.
235's @ 65mph(GPS) - 2700rpm speedo showing 64mph
31's @ 65mph(GPS) - 2500rpm speedo showing 59mph
Now using the gear ratio chart from the tech library it is saying the ratio is 3.55, unless I'm missing something. So is it possible that maybe they have been changed by the previous owner.
Does this change anyones thinking? Maybe 31 or 32's. He doesn't haul anything with the truck and it is driven around town 98% of the time.

[Bush_aholic]

Like I said before I'm running 35's with 3.55 gears and I don't mind it. I do plan on regearing eventually to 4.56

[SKRWZ]

Like I said before I'm running 35's with 3.55 gears and I don't mind it. I do plan on regearing eventually to 4.56

Right, but your engine gear and tire combination works differently than his