Best Bang for you dollar Mod

Jon

Administrator
Anyone have ideas on what the best performance booster for the dollar? Money is tight these days, so a nice mod that isn't terribly expensive would appeal to a lot of people right now!
 
cheepest one i know of is taking the slack out of your throttle cable with small zap straps,by removeing the slack people are always amazed with throttle response and the way the tranny shifts.(auto trans)pull out on your accelerator and see how much slack there is.just add 1 or 2 zappers on there and presto!
 
One I've heard of people doing is they take their air cleaner box out and put a bunch of holes through it and they claim its made a difference in throttle response, I have never done that. This one would apply to the older rangers that have the air box ducting behind the headlight, what I had done it spliced into that with a large diameter hose from swimming pool equipment and routed it to the bumper and connected an aluminum soda can to it with the top of the can completely cut out and pointed toward the road and it did make a little difference in my throttle response when I stepped on it.
 
Unfortunately there's really not a lot you can do to get more performance out of the Ranger. Some options are putting a chip in it or droppin in a V8, but of course neither one of those are cheap
 
Unfortunately there's really not a lot you can do to get more performance out of the Ranger. Some options are putting a chip in it or droppin in a V8, but of course neither one of those are cheap

No not much you can do with little money. But theres the ad-ons of CAI, turbo, supercharger, computer tunes.
 
What tuners would Rangers use? I know that F150 guys tend to lean toward SCT Livewire or Edge Evolution gone Gryphon.
 
cheepest one i know of is taking the slack out of your throttle cable with small zap straps,by removeing the slack people are always amazed with throttle response and the way the tranny shifts.(auto trans)pull out on your accelerator and see how much slack there is.just add 1 or 2 zappers on there and presto!

This sounds interesting...
Any steps in particular I should follow?
[I guess I should know what the throttle cable looks like first; out to Google it!]

Wait... now that I am thinking about it, sometimes my truck feels like there is some 'play' on the accelerator... would that take care of it? I have power though, it just feels like the pedal is lacking pressure on it. I hope that makes some sense, I am new on the DIY world of mechanics
 
Jon,You refered to removing slack from the throttle cable....which end?At the pedal or at the throttle body?Am curious about this mod,may try it myself. Thanks Mike
 
Jon,You refered to removing slack from the throttle cable....which end?At the pedal or at the throttle body?Am curious about this mod,may try it myself. Thanks Mike

Its at the pedal kinda, look under your dash and at the gas pedal you will see the I'll call it a hinge where the pedel is held in, above that you see where the pedal extends up toward the dash you will see the cable running through it, then pull the pedal away from the floor and you'll see the slack within your throttle cable and thats where you put pull ties to absorb the slack, you'll be able to tell a slight difference once you do it.

Here's a tip though courtesy of gijoecam of EF :
"The FIRST thing you need to check is whether or not it's needed. To do that, disconnect the the intake tube from the throttle body and have somebody floor the gas pedal. With the gas pedal floored, the throttle butterfly should be horizontal in the throttle body. If it is, DO NOT perform this mod as flooring the accelerator pedal would then put extra strain on the pedal mounts, throttle cable, and throttle body itself."

Pic below is of the throttle cable mod.
 
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I pulled my floor mat out from under my gas pedal and waxed my headlights. The only problem is that I think I knocked my muffler bearings loose with the additional power.
 
my ranger is older but i punch holes in the air inducting box, slap a eletric fan on it, cut the a/c belt, and pull the slack out of the throttle i did all that and i out ran my friends s10 at 115mph
 
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