96 Ram 2wd Build/Restoration

What's up guy's im new to this site. New to the Mopar world really, i've owned this truck for almost 10 year's now but it has been in my family it's whole entire life. I got the truck when i turned 16 from my dad and ever since then it has just been a daily driver until recently when i decided i wanted to restore the truck and make it "my own" so to speak.....

Btw, when i started pulling the truck apart she had 360,*** miles on the original motor and was still running strong!

Andddd let the pictures begin.....starting from what she looked like the week before tear-down.

And this is as far as i have gotten so far.....Currently i am in the process of body work, primer AND getting the front suspension all replaced and lowered with 2" belltech drop spindles (already have 3" drop springs on the truck)

You, sir, are a gentlemen and a scholar! Great work so far. I love seeing newcomers start off their membership with threads like this.

Welcome to RF and keep up the good work!

Awesome project! That truck is a true member of the family it's awesome to see you giving it new life.

Thanks!!! I got my PRO EFX roll pan in today and installed, i also got the tail bed back on the truck. Still need to bolt it down, i was able to get a rough picture of how much drop i got from all of this, but of course once i get the front lowered and my small tire's (going from 30" tall in the back to 28" tall) the truck will look alot lower.

And since i am actually restoring this truck and not just throwing some stuff on it and calling it done, i went all out and went as far as turning the tail bed over to pressure wash, degrease and clean the underside till it looked brand new again. Ahhhh Yeahhhh

ALSO, i am about to start prepping the truck for paint as this paint is all dry cracked and peeling all over the hood and above the door's so im going to repaint the whole truck......Upon pricing paint, i have found that the stock color (PCH) is about $100 a qt for just basecoat! SOOOO i have found the next best thing, summit racing actually makes a 2-stage urethane paint system that is damn near the exact same color as our factory PCH at $50 a gallon!! So im going this route!

That's gonna be slick when it's done. Looking forward to watching the progress.
And welcome to the forum.

Sweet!!!!

Threw the Pro EFX roll pan on her today, turned out pretty nice

I love seeing new life go into an older vehicle. Sub'd for this build. 360k miles is a good bit, must have been well taken care of.

Good lookin' work so far.

This is gonna be good.

Thanks guys! And yeah we always kept maint up to date on the truck. Only issues we me or my dad have ever had out of it was the transmission took a **** at 265k miles so we put a manufac rebuilt unit in. Then had to replace the water pump once and the oil pressure sending unit 2 times, also the thermostat replaced it 3 times. Im really interested to see what the internals of this motor are going to look like, i have never even taken a valve cover off. I will be pulling the motor within the next few weeks. I really want to get the front suspension and my new rim's/tire's mounted and done before i pull the motor so i can check the ride height to see if i need to make any tweeks here or there. Only thing holding up me now is i need to get a set of Belltech drop spindles and buy my two front tires

Don't forget to replace the plenum! lol

Yeah as far as my motor build, idk i dont think i really plan on going all out. I have built mustang's my whole life and this is my first Mopar build. Well let me tell ya, trying to make this magnum motor put out decent HP numbers is CRAZY exspensive! I guess it's just because the aftermarket world for them never really took off, or maybe it's the power robbing transmissions that we have. It's crazy though how much $$$ it would take to make these trucks put down 400rwhp though. So instead of going all out and draining my wallet for a truck that will never see the drag strip but instead just be a nice weekend cruiser, show truck. I plan on just doing a mild build with bolt-on's

Std rebuild .30-.40 over with 10.7 comp KB pistons
Hughes Whiplash camshaft (curious to see about it with the upped comp ratio)
Comp dual chain timing chain
Ported KEGGER intake
52mm ported throttle body
ford racing 24lb injectors
Pacesetter longtubes
full 3" custom made exhaust with (2) 10series flow's and x-pipe
full A/C delete to clean up the engine bay and free up a tiny bit of hp
MSD ignition upgrade


Would be nice to see 300-320 rwhp on this thing when im done but i'm not getting my hopes up too high.



I have also pondered the thought of doing the 5.7L Hemi swap, MUCHHHH better platform to build a motor off of for HP. All depends on if i can find a good enough deal soon


Last thing while im doing my motor build, i am going to try really hard to find a Manual trans swap. I hear the NV4500 is what i am wanting but they are ball's exspensive and hard to find. I have also heard that the NV3500 will hold up fine as long as i don't plan on going much further into the HP/TQ numbers..........Next fun part is trying to find everything to do the swap, i will need a the 5.9l flywheel, clutch, std pedal assem, hyd setup, t/o bearing, roller bearing AND im guessing driveshaft

Sick build. I can't wait to see this through its progression!!! Oh how nice to not live in the rust belt of the northeast too! Every truck that old anywhere here has nothing left on it to build off of!!! That thing is still solid!

Haha thanks yeah I'm down in college station TX, the truck is completely rust free. Maybe a little surface rust on the frame here and there but that's about it.

Is anyone here familiar with doing a manual trans swap on these trucks?

Lookin good! love that stance!

I've been told that the NV3500 is fine for the Dakotas with the 360, but they can't take the sheer weight of the Ram.

The power robbing nature of the 46RE comes mostly from the torque converter, you put a good TC in it and it'll fly.

Don't forget a tuner or a Mopar Performance PCM.