Hi, I recently purchased a 1996 dodge ram 1500. It is a 4x4 base model with a rebuilt 360 and tranny in it. The guy I bought it from claimed it to have a 7inch suspension and a 3inch body(I dunno how you tell) which is which. (New to owning my own truck thing) I have done a lot of work on it(alot of bearing replacements), but I wanted to know if there is a way to get some more power out of it. I have done heads and dumped the exhaust, but I am looking for some damn acceleration. Was thinking about supercharging it but it appears that that is few and far between.





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what size tires does it have on it? check if he changed the gears on it because if he didnt it will drive like a dog. with that size lift i almost guarentee he regeared but if he didnt it would make a world of difference in ur acceleration and performance in general.

 

Just my opinion, but I would seriously doubt that rig was regeared. Looks like a good ol' boy who was more into the looks than the performance.

We shall see.

 

Alright talked to my mechanic he doesn't think its been regeared either. So I m sure this is the case, now to regear it I need to buy different gears, friend said to get "spider gears" and that with the dana gears in the front I would only need to do the rear. I am not sure what that means, what exact gears do I need to get. Also if you go off the diameter of the tires they are 33in and the rim is 16in rim(sound right?).

 

SPider gears? I dunno what he was talking about. When you re-gear the rear, you have to match the front, or you gonna have some trans case problems in 4wd... looks like a beast. Maybe he meant weld the spider gears, to get posi? idk, don't do that.

http://www.yukongear.com/

http://www.ringpinion.com/

 

Stop listening to your friend.

 

+1

 

you need the same gears in the front and rear. if you only have 33' i dont know if thats 10 inches of lift on there... take it to someone and see exactly how much lift is on there. it looks big but i dont see why he would lift it that much and only run 33's. Once you find out how much lift you have i would find out your gear ratio. prolly has 3.93. I would go 4.10 or 4.55 or maybe higher depending on your lift size

 

Lift has nothing to do with what gears you use. I guess unless you’re planning on running bigger tires because you can fit them. What you need to do is decide if you like the tire size that you have and wither or not you want to go bigger. Once you answer that question you can decide what gears you want to use. I believe that for 33” tires 4.10 is the best to go with. It’s a little low for that tire but then you could run 35’s no problem. The other question to ask is how much off roading you do and is most of your driving is around town or on the freeway. Changing gears will affect your top speed and at what speeds the tranny shifts.

 

Well first things first...
That truck is NOT lifted 10 inches if it has 33 inch tires on it. It looks lifted about 3 inches.
And if it has 33" tires you do NOT need to re-gear. Regearing your truck is going to cost about $2000 if you can't do it yourself and most people can't. It isby no means worth doing it at all unless you plan on going to bigger tires. and be sure of how big you're going before you put the money into it. Nothing like putting 4.56 in for 35" tires then deciding you want to get 38s and now you're out re-gearing again because you should have went with 4.88 which is the lowest you can go with the chrysler 9.25

Now the issue of your friend talking about things he doesn't understand...
Rear end gears determine how many times your driveshaft spins per every rotation of your tire. You have a 3.55 gears which means your driveshaft spins 3.55 times perone rotation of your tires. With4.88 gears your driveshaft spins 4.88 times per each rotation of the tires. Now if you were going to keep the same size tires you'd be trading maximum top end speed forquicker acceleration and torque. But because you're putting on bigger tires you have to gearlower just to keep the same performance you had with smaller tires. If you don't quite understand you can PM me.

Spider gears on the other hand are what make an"open differntial" operate. Whenever you turn the wheel thespider gears allow the tire on the inside to spin slower than the tire on the outside allowing you to make the turn easier and with less tire wear. In an open differential the tire recieving the least traction gets more torque. This is why whenyou have one wheel off theground it is the only one that spins. To counter this youcan replace your spider gears with a locker. This will force both wheels to spin at the same time.

Congratulations on your new truck, It lookslike a beauty, and welcome to the Dodge Forum.