Parts car aquired for the ranchero!
Posted by Adorable-Kale-6181@reddit | projectcar | View on Reddit | 7 comments
Finally found me a lil 77 thunderbird for the front end and probably drivetrain for my 79 ranchero 500!
pancrudo@reddit
Wait... Hold up... Is that the Ram with Viper V10?
Adorable-Kale-6181@reddit (OP)
No but it's a lil faster and alot lighter. Factory 5.7 hemi with all the restrictions taken off and other added options (not to sure) along with a 6 speed and 4.11 posi track rear end
pancrudo@reddit
Oof, 4.11... those first 2 gears must be so useless. I hope the gear ratios on dodge are really long.
Sounds pretty awesome though, especially a manual in such a large truck
Squidking1000@reddit
Not OP but I had the Viper T56 in my GTO with 4.11's and yeah, first was completely useless unless you were trying to pull the titanic out of the sea. Still cruised good on the highway though with that 0.5:1 OD that tranny has. I switched to 3.73, much more reasonable.
pancrudo@reddit
.05 6th is also crazy, but makes so much more sense when you've got a 4.11.
Oh... Just looked online, looks like .5 was common for dodge, but I had a Corvette and remember it being down around .67 or .62, but apparently they also had some with .5 as well. They definitely has much lower geared rear ends though, or of the T56 family anyways
Squidking1000@reddit
Yeah, that was why i picked 4.11 cause the math said 6th would be great on the highway and it was BUT 1st was useless. With the 3.73 1st is great and 6th is like over 65mph before you can even think of shifting into it (1500rpm at 63MPH) LOL. My theoretical top speed at redline is like 253mph! Guess if I want to run Bonneville I can run street gearing LOL (like I would want to take that car over 140MPH, I've gotten up to 120MPH and it was okay but probably at the limit of my confidence in the brakes and suspension.
pancrudo@reddit
So with some digging found my C4 had a 3.45 or a 3.54 diff. The 6sp was a ZF S6-40, so 4th 1:1, 5th .75 and 6th .5.... Yeah, we were in the same boat, I don't remember being able to use 6th unless I was on the highway, but had to be doing like 75mph to be above 1500rpms.
Drove it up to 120ish but hated how it handled outside of straight lines. I do miss it now living in a world of quiet cars.
I also had an S10 for a short bit, I don't know if I would ever have faith in a truck doing 100+ after that