You got me man, I've been asking myself the same question.

 

The Ranger is over 1,000lbs lighter for starters. Also no offense whatsoever meant to the OP but driver experience and skill plays a part too.

 

I can vouch for that. I have a 12 second truck but I'm a 13 sec driver, lol.

 

So how in H**L is his '08 slower than a damn Ranger?

Weight makes a HUGE difference. My Ranger weighed 3600 lbs. My Dak weighs over 4200. My Ranger 4.0 liter had 4.10 gears, CAI, a cat back exhaust and a 91 octane tune. Also the Ford 5R55S trans is far better suited for launch and acceleration. The converter stalled at 2500, 500 more than the Dak and it made a big difference off the line. Also the gears in the Ford 5R55s are a LOT more closely spaced. There was NO lag after a gear change like the Dak has.
The extra power the 08 and up 4.7 motors have is at the upper rpm range which doesn't help it at all after the huge rpm drop that the Dodge transmission has. So with all those things considered it makes sense at least to me. I figured the Dak would at least be as quick as the Ranger and not 2 tenths slower though. As far as driver error goes I would agree if both trucks were manuals but they're not. Just stab it and go and let the auto do it's thing in both cases. If anything the Dak had an advantage because it doesn't spin. The Ranger would just fry the tires if I tried launching at anything more than an idle.
At any rate it was a pretty fair comparison. Same track, ambient temp was about the same along with humidity and other environmental factors.
With all that said the Dak is a significant upgrade and it does what I need it to do really well so I'm gonna hang on to it.
Thanks for all the replies. The help is appreciated.