Noted by my name here, you can see I own and love my S10. My son on the other hand has a 66 Mustang which we recently dropped an 88 5.0 into.

The 289 (not confirmed yet that it is actually a 289) is sitting int he floor of my garage just yearning to go into something after a complete overhaul. the C-4 that was behind it will be coming out of the car once he has the stuff together to convert the car over to the AOD that was behind the 5.0.

Now with the better part of an upgraded drivetrain to drop in a ranger i am looking for information. he will be off to college after next school year, and I am wanting to get him set up with a nice little truck that will get him through with minimal cost (ranger works for this due to his abundance of future upgrade parts....lol).

So my questions are thus:
What years get away from the I-beam style front suspension (I HATE IBEAM FRONT ENDS!!!)?
What years have the bigger 4 in them (2.5?)?
What about rear end swaps from other vehicles? Will the rear end out of an Explorer fit or a Mustang? Gonna need to upgrade the rear after the V8 conversion goes in and I would prefer to find a drop in solution if possible.

Doc

welcome , not being sarcastic, but just type in what you want in the search button area, it really works great on this site........

What years get away from the I-beam style front suspension (I HATE IBEAM FRONT ENDS!!!)? The A-arm Rangers start in 98.
What years have the bigger 4 in them (2.5?)? The 98, 99, and 2000 had the 2.5.
What about rear end swaps from other vehicles? Will the rear end out of an Explorer fit or a Mustang? Explorer rear-ends are used often and mount to the leafs. They have disc brakes so it is a nice upgrade but includes more than just bolting it in and going. Like he said more in depth answers can be found by using the search function. We're glad you found the sight and Welcome to RPS! Take a look in our V-8 Tech area for some more info on V-8 swaps.