So what year would be the right one at this point? The Van I pulled the engine harness was a 2001. I pulled everything, but I think it is just a couple of extra wires.(fuel injector and transmission) over what is in the 97 van already. I also have the truck harness... but it appears to be OBD1 and Rudolph is OBD2...
I am guessing the best bet would be a 1997 (or maybe 96) van with a 5.9 as a baseline, but I dunno if the 4x4 truck code might be a better starting point or if that will cause issues because of the older instrument cluster setup in Rudoplh.. Guess I need to do a bit of research.
The van shouldn't have a body computer, so thinking about it, you could probably use any 96+ (OBDII) V8 PCM, truck or van. Only potential concern is how the gauge cluster on the van is run. It might not be CCD bus like most of the OBDII clusters. So it might have separate feeds for temp, oil pressure, etc. and not be fed from the PCM. If that's the case, you might need to add a few wires to the 01 harness to get everything to work.
Unfortunately, I've never played with the vans, so I don't know how they handles the cluster in the pre-facelift OBDII vans.
I think it looks good on 32" tires... This is about 8 inches of lift over where the van was sitting stock. (conveniently with the larger tires that is the lower limit of stock suspension travel on both ends)
I think with some sectioning of the van frame rails I can lower the front about 1 1/2 from this lift height and end up using very little I don't have laying around already. The biggest issues to overcome is the offset of the van engine (6 inches to the passenger side) which prevents the truck frame section from being used as it would require to much fabrication to offset the engine in the truck frame and there are to many problems up front matching frame rails, issues with shock towers and more...
a slight rework of the van rails and front crossmember should do the trick just fine... Completed the goal is to use off the shelf Dodge truck parts even to the point I think I can retain the 4 link instead of using radius arms. (upper link lands directly under the van frame rail) Raising it up another inch or so and going radius arm would be the fastest path and let most of the frame rails stay in tact. I intend to make the final call once the engine is out....
