I agree, I wouldn't pull the idi to swap in a gasser. You'd be better off to swap vehicles than do that.
My Ambo weighed somewhere around 9400# I believe when I brought it home. Bone stock engine wise, with 4.10 gears and 235/85r16 rubber (for sale wouldntcha know). I don't have a tach but don't recall highway rpm at 65/70 being all that bad. Fuel mileage was 14-15 hand calculated driving it back to Ohio from somewhere-by-god Virginia.
By the time the 4x4 conversion was done she was pushing 10.5k and had become something of a slug, due in large part I'm sure to the 37/12.5/16.5 militaries. Besides being a huge jump in size they weigh about 188# each. A lot of tire wheel mass to get rolling.
New gears (4.88s) got her back rpm wise to about where it was with the old gears and tire/wheel combo, +/- 100 rpm depending on whose calculator you use.
Better but still a bit underpowered running all the extra weight and tire/wheel mass so a Hypermax kit was added. Finally starting to wake up and motor down the road with something approaching authority. Some tuning left to do, but it's much better than sans turbo.
Anyhow, a bit of info to chew over when contemplating your plan of attack and the affect doing certain things can have, such as weight added to do a 4x4 convert.
Just be glad you're working on a truck because I can tell you dinking around with the engine in a van must be one of the 7 levels of hell come to earth.
My Ambo weighed somewhere around 9400# I believe when I brought it home. Bone stock engine wise, with 4.10 gears and 235/85r16 rubber (for sale wouldntcha know). I don't have a tach but don't recall highway rpm at 65/70 being all that bad. Fuel mileage was 14-15 hand calculated driving it back to Ohio from somewhere-by-god Virginia.
By the time the 4x4 conversion was done she was pushing 10.5k and had become something of a slug, due in large part I'm sure to the 37/12.5/16.5 militaries. Besides being a huge jump in size they weigh about 188# each. A lot of tire wheel mass to get rolling.
New gears (4.88s) got her back rpm wise to about where it was with the old gears and tire/wheel combo, +/- 100 rpm depending on whose calculator you use.
Better but still a bit underpowered running all the extra weight and tire/wheel mass so a Hypermax kit was added. Finally starting to wake up and motor down the road with something approaching authority. Some tuning left to do, but it's much better than sans turbo.
Anyhow, a bit of info to chew over when contemplating your plan of attack and the affect doing certain things can have, such as weight added to do a 4x4 convert.
Just be glad you're working on a truck because I can tell you dinking around with the engine in a van must be one of the 7 levels of hell come to earth.
