It's really not about the truck, or a diplomat or Duster. It's about trying to go 10.9's on 5k. But that's cool, trucks aren't for everyone and a few filed out when they saw it. More elbow room in the cab :)
I love my truck for getting firewood, for taking the snowmobiles up to the mountain and for pulling my car trailer..
So how tightly is this budget getting watched? I assume that nothing you've done so far goes against the budget? no gas no licensing no testing different parts to see if you get traction with them... give me the five grand budget kind of loses its luster when you buy all kinds of other Motors and parts and try other things with it instead of getting right to the heart of the goal. knowing it's going to have to get weight loss and knowing it's going to have to get much more horsepower and not heading straight into that direction.. course it's your money you doing what you want to do and again it's all about enjoying the time with your family... It really that should be more of the theme of this than trying to do some certain time on some low budget..