My truck got smashed

[Blaster K]

Hello Everyone,
Here is my situation. My truck recently had half a tree fall on it, It is a 95 XLT 4 door 4x4 . I am waiting for the insurance company to get everything square with my body shop. It is a stock vehicle with 121,00 miles on it. I really haven't done anything to it except replace the transfer case( thanks to Crankcases write-up). Even though the vehicle is 10 years old I am sentimental about it. I don't want to get rid of it. My body shop guy is a bar buddy who has a great track record of doing great things with collisons and damages to other vehicles.( he is the #1 rated repair guy in the Pittsburgh area). The damage is the windshield, front right 1/4 panel and the passenger side mirror was sheared off. My thought is that while the vehicle is down for the count getting cosmetic things done, why not do a few things to improve the vehicle in general. Here is what I came up with:

K&N Cold Air Induction system
Gibson Catbacks
Rancho RSX all around

I understand that virtually everyone on this site has probably done these mods, but my personal mechanic(my father ) recently retired. I guess I am just trying to see where I am going to do the first modification to my Ex. People think I am crazy when I say i want to save a 10 year old car, but they just dont understand. Any comments concerning your ideas or thoughts about the first mod would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Brian

 

[97BlackX5.0]

that almost sounds like a total to me. if the A pillar is smashed at all thats alot of labor and not very many insurance companys will fix somethign like that.... now if its not as bad as im thinking (big tree or small) then you will be alright. Based on cost and effectiveness most people on the site reccommend a MAC air intake kit. I believe its about 100 dollars cheaper than the K@N and does the same thing. With K@N you are paying ALOT for advertising.

 

[spta97]

Did you have collision on the truck? I wonder if the blue book value with that many miles will cover the cost of the repair? Either way, if you are happy with a 10 year old truck God bless you...I get sick of my vehicles and get rid of them after 2-3 years (at most). It's a costly habit

 

[410Fortune]

pffft whatever. My BII has 280K miles on it, was built in 87 and will outlast and outperform any new Ford truck you can buy (ranger based, I am also biast with my opinions)
I have not had a car payment in over 11 years, think of all the $$$ you have spent in 11 years on car payments. My insurance is cheap, parts are cheap and plentiful, and well they just dont build them like they used to. I took the 11 years worth of car payments and put about 1/5th of the total into mods and upgrades for my BII.

Your list of mods sounds fine.
When looking for performance by adding a cold air induction system and a free flowing exhaust system, remember you are only as good as your smallest bottleneck.
So until you remove all the restrictions you will only see minimal gains.

Rancho RSX shocks kick ass

 

[Ray Lobato]

Since this is about modifying your truck, I moved it to the appropriate forum