. My father and I got this truck when I was in high school and did a lil bit of a project, 390 springs, sway bars, headers and exhaust, 4 barrel and ingintion, then painted it a nice green and slapped some chrome wheels with good rubber on her. It was a really nice looking truck and everyone at school loved it, it also felt pretty dang peppy when you got the down shift and 4s to hit right, beating most the lowered loud hondas didn't hurt it's rep either. Fast forward 10 years the single stage paint is looking about as sad as the 360 is feeling from 40 years 100,000 miles and being beat on about ever time it was drove. So one day at work a customer comes in with a 76 F350 with a flatbed inquiring about a new flatbed dump (the company I work for builds custom flatbeds idatruck.com) and when I asked about his truck he said I could have it for 50$. Well needless to say this got the gears turning and ideas of a canned 460 thumping away under the hood of my favorite truck was all I needed to go off the deep end. So now that I had this f350 the 460 and C-6 were quickly pulled, it's amazing how fast they come out when you dont care About the truck. Now I have a warn on greasy mess of an engine sitting on my shop floor. After a quick tare down of the front cover showed a timing chain with more slack then a Vegas call girl this was a lil bit scary you could almost slide the chain off the crank sprocket. Next step engine shop hot tank and inspection showed a great black no cracks and some how the bore looked almost brand new awesome I thought. After this we sat down and talked about goals which for me was 550hp on pump gas with an aggressive but streetable cam. From this came a 60 over bore, Ford Racing crank, scat H beams rated for 900hp that should help my love of revs. Then to finish off the short block a double roller timing chain hooked to an edelbrock performer rpm cam with hydrulic litters.
Next for the engine was a set of eledlbrock performer rpm heads (held down with ARP head studs) and intake, alum water pump and new front cover, then a set of March pullies with their billet power steering pump and a chrome 1 wire alt. And to fire it an MSD ready to run billet distributor, blaster 2 coil and super conductor wires. The engine looked amazing better then I even thought when I started. I was 24 and on a limited budget putting every extra dollar to the build. Well after this engine was build the idea of sticking it in such a sad bay was just not that exciting of an idea. The bed came off first then the front clip engine trans then the cab.
At this point I'm looking at 4 wheels and a frame. The suspension came off and I took the frame to PMI in Lakewood Wa to be sand blasted. After the frame was back in my shop the lowered stance and performance nature of the build came to light. An Art Morrison 4 bar with panhard bar and Strange single adjustable coilovers installed by my brother and I now holds up the rear. When the rear end was installed I welded up every hole in the sides of the frame preparing for the boxing plate that will be installed. This is how it now sits, as I type this sitting on my fork lift thinking about how to build the front coilover mounts so the front will also be suspended with Strange single adjustable pieces with dream beams later model discs and all new performance bushings.
I'll have pics up next and let everyone know how the coil overs on the front work, I haven't seen another f1 running then with I beams.
Thanks, Kevin
before and after.....nice work 