curtis73 wrote:
Yeah, I figured. I thought someone made offset kingpins but I can't find it. That would just let me swap springs and reset camber much easier than two whole new I-beams.
If you were really clever, you could source some balljoints with the correct length and taper and a smaller diameter body that goes into the torsion beam and make up some eccentric bushings for the upper and lower balljoints that would let you clock them to get desired camber and caster. If you were super duper clever, you could change the taper on the knuckles to use any balljoint that would fit. Of course by that time you would probably be money (and definitely time) to just get the proper drop torsion beams.
curtis73 wrote:
Lower profile, yes. Smaller diameter, that's a tough one. As soon as I drop any smaller than these I'm instantly into D-range tires. D would be fine for most things except when towing, say, north of 7000 lbs. I thought about doing big truck tires with adapters on like 19.5" wheels, but that just screams ghetto to me... plus nobody that I know of makes 19.5" truck wheels in anything but dually. But, F and G range medium duty truck tires are a good way to get low profile with high load capacity.
Do visors really kill MPG that much? Most of the ones I've seen have multiple slots in the back where it meets the roof. They don't look like they'd kill MPG, but maybe you're right.
I don't know if you would have to go a smaller diameter. I think the stock diameter would fill out the wheelwells decent. Just gotta get rid of some of the sidewall.
Rickson used to be the premier supplier of 19.5s that fit a standard light duty 8 lug pattern, but I see by their website that most of their good stuff has been discontinued. You may be able to find a set of Alcoa wheels that would work, but to run 19.5s that look decent you are looking at some serious money and probably some 8 hole to 10 hole adapters. Not a lot of 8 lug 19.5s in the Ford Superduty pattern, which brings up another topic. Do vans of the superduty era share the same metric bolt pattern that the superduty trucks had, or do they use the more tradition 8 on 6.5 bolt pattern? I don't know, but I would look into it before buying wheels. I would look into late-model 18 and 20 inch 8 lug take-offs since you can get heavy load range tires in those sizes, and a set of take-offs is a good way to update the look of a vehicle on the cheap.
My experience with visors is as follows: I had two work trucks, one was a 95 Chevy 2500 with a Vortec 350 with a visor, and one identical truck that didnt have a visor. I loved the way the visored truck looked, it had a narrow bush pusher, not a wrap around, was all black, and had a black visor with the marker lights on it. Looked great, but routinely did 1-2 MPG less than the other truck and was noisier on the highway. My 96 Dodge Ram CTD also had a visor when i bought it. I had it taken off when I had the truck repainted and I never regretted it. It did look awesome though.
