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Well, it seems the pinging is gone and the truck pulls really hard all the way to redline now.
All I did was clean the MAF sensor near the airbox and the problem stopped.
I found threads in the ranger forum refering to dirty MAF sensors causing a lean condition and hence my pinging.
My sensor was quite dirty, it had this black residue all over the side facing the incoming air. I cleaned it with contact cleaner and a small toothbrush very very gently.