Hi all, I'm going to be buying a friends 96 ram with a 5.2 stick 4x4. I'm getting a great price and have intentions on rebuilding the engine and eventually swapping the engine, trans, and axles into a wrangler. My question is this thing has 200k on the odo and can use a rebuild. I'm gonna fix it up and wheel it on the weekends till it ends up ... anyways when rebuild time comes around, I'd like to end up with around 275-325 at the ground... I dont think this is an incredibly lofty goal but from what I've read I think it would be fun anything over 250. Any advice on what can be done to this beast that's not going to cost an arm and a leg...i can sacrifice an arm but need the legs. The only thing I dont have an option to change over is on the headers, the engine swap kit requires a specific block hugger header set, but other than that..lemme know what you guys think

 

im not sure about the 5.2's but the 5.9's have 255hp stock from what i read in the dealership catalog i got when i got mine. i think your aiming too low, but im not sure on the 5.2's numbers