I'm pretty much already doing that. I don't drive my 1994 Ranger daily, but I do drive it regularly (multiple times a week). It has no air bags at all, no seat belt pre-tensioners, rear ABS which may as well be no ABS, not much as far as a crumple zone, and zero consideration for pedestrian impacts. I didn't buy it for its lack of those features, but their absence wasn't a concern either. If you're looking at old pickups safety features generally aren't a priority.
The truck does have some interesting attempts at safety, such as cables that run from the seat belt buckles to the frame, I guess so that if the body of the truck is ripped off, at least your seatbelt will be securely anchored to the frame.
As far as engine management, it was actually a little ahead of the curve for 1994, so it's not extremely different from a modern vehicle. There's the usual sensors including a MAF sensor. The relatively dumb OBDI computer just can't tell you as much and isn't doing as much on the fly. There's also no pre-cats and no cam sensor. The lack of a cam sensor and associated synchronizer assembly is a little bit of an advantage over a later model of the same truck since parts that don't exist won't break, but again I didn't buy it specifically for that reason.
