Summer-lovin’ Ranger hits the surf coast.
Born on the beaches of Queensland, Jay’s Ranger lives for summer camping.
CAPABLE NO LONGER CUTS IT, 4X4S NEED TO BE COMFORTABLE AND EYE-CATCHING
IT DOESN’T take a rocket scientist to realise there’s been a large paradigm shift in Australian motoring. Where redblooded young men used to strive for a night hooning around the back streets in an A9X Torana or GT Falcon with their Stubbies-wearing mates, they’re now buying up late-model dual-cabs en masse, donning their board shorts and heading to the beach to experience what Australia really has to offer. Of course, with the shift in who’s actually buying and driving these 4x4s, the manufacturers themselves have had to drastically change.
Capable no longer cuts it, they need to be comfortable enough for daily duties (including family use) and exciting enough to catch people’s eye. “I had a 2005 Hilux extra cab before this,” Jay Gill, the owner of this adventure machine, told us. “I had test-driven the new Hilux and the Navara and had all but settled on the Navara when the old man told me to give the Ranger a try. I loved it straight away and had to have one.”
Spending his days between the Gold Coast and Brisbane it’s no surprise Jay has transformed his PXII Ranger into a beacheating adventure machine. It’s now capable of doing everything he could ask of it, and more. “The main reason I bought it was to tow boats and jet skis,” he said. “I love getting it on the beach as well and am doing a camping trip over to either Fraser Island or Double Island soon, too.”
To get the Ranger ready for its new adventure duties, one of the first modifications was a comprehensive suspension overhaul from the guys at Performance Suspension Racing (PSR) on the Gold Coast. The team stripped it down to its bare bolts and proceeded to lift it 100mm with a combination of custom-built parts and specially tuned gear. Up front there are Psr-spec Bilstein struts sitting inside King springs; the rear end uses a second set of Psr-spec Bilstein shocks, this time in a remote reservoir flavour for increased performance on corrugations with reduced shock fade. These are teamed up with Psrspec EFS leaf springs.
Lift kits were relatively simple with oldschool vehicles, but with so much geometry to consider they now require a certain finesse. To account for this, Jay’s Ranger runs a set of PSR adjustable upper control arms in the front. They’re a heavy-duty tube item that prevents fouling on the strut at droop, and with an adjustable ball-joint mount an extended ball joint can accommodate more suspension droop while keeping camber and caster specs in line. Combined with a weld-in diff drop up front it’s a proven formula for
lifting modern IFS 4x4s without introducing problems. To make the most of all the newfound real estate within the standard wheel arches, Jay optioned up for a set of aggressive mudterrains from Kumho. The Road Venture KL71S measure in at 305/70R16 and are wrapped around a set of 16x8in Pro Comp 32 Series flat black alloy wheels.
While the 3.2-litre five-cylinder turbo-diesel in Jay’s Ranger is no featherweight in stock form, a little more mumbo under the right foot is always appreciated. Starting from the throat of the intake system, Jay’s replaced the standard in-guard intake with a satinfinish stainless-steel snorkel from Fabulous Fabrications in Rocklea. From there it feeds down into a PWR stealth black intercooler with the stock rubber intercooler hoses swapped out for Samco silicone units. With additional air available the engine makes the most of it by squeezing in extra fuel with a performance chip from Dpchip, before finally expelling the spent gases through a full Fabulous Fabrications stainless-steel exhaust system.
Power is sent to the ground through the stock six-speed manual cog swapper with a factory electronically operated diff lock at the back. Jay told us the combination has netted him a little more than 200hp at the rear wheels, which is more than enough to make the space cab get up and boogie.
With the driveline taken care of Jay set his sights on making the outside as tough as the inside. Starting from the front he’s ditched the chrome XLT grille and replaced it with the ubiquitous blacked-out Raptor-style grille. The stock headlights have been cracked open and a set of Halo-style coloured daytime LED running lights from Dan’s Custom Car Lights have been installed. Protecting the new gear is a Crawler