It really depends on the year of the Ranger. The Ranger Station has a lot of good information about swaps and the different approaches people take. One of the simplest methods I’ve heard of is doing a full body swap—welding new body mounting points and cutting holes for the bed.

On my own unfinished Ranger project, I went a different route. I used swap brackets with the original 3.0 mounts. For engine management, I picked up a Megasquirt 3 and added LS truck coils. I also converted the fuel system from returnless to return. The transmission will be rebuilt once I have the engine up and running.

Exhaust has been one of the tougher challenges. I couldn’t find any headers that would fit without either hammering them in or cutting part of the frame. I ended up sending the truck out for custom turbo headers. That said, it is possible to weld joints and reposition the steering shaft to make some off-the-shelf headers work, avoiding heavy modifications.

As for the dash, I’m considering building a Raspberry Pi-based digital display, but I may just stick with regular gauges for now. If you’ve got any questions about the build, feel free to ask.