FULL BUILD: Upgrading A 1974 Ford F-100 With Track Power

today truck tech starts another new project a 1974 f-100 with big plans but first let's see what's left on it [Music] today is my favorite kind of day because we get to go shopping for a new project truck over the years we built a ton of different rigs everything from chevy ford and dodge we built two-wheel drives and four trucks that are slammed on the ground and raised up in the air but today we're gonna look for a truck that we haven't done much with but is quickly becoming popular set the road let's do it well i've been searching on the internet and i found a truck that looks pretty clean that may be what you're thinking of well you know my ideal situation would be something that's rust free number one that's most important you know paint i could care less if it's got good paint or not because we can always do a color change but as long as has a good solid foundation you know for me the main thing is just getting right down the fun stuff whether it's you know adding a whole bunch of power maybe swapping them out or changing suspension out you know that that would be ideal for me anyway well i agree with you there but you know how it goes you find something on the internet the pictures look good and then you get there to see it the thing is horrible but i have a pretty good feeling about this truck so i'm hoping we load something in that trailer well let's keep our fingers crossed oh there she is man man that's a nice looking truck right there well we've built a lot of early model c10s and well we want to change it up a little bit and build an f-100 and this is a good example of a 1974 model now typically when you go buy a brand new car truck you just pick out a nice color and go with it and you don't worry much about body and paint but with this era of truck they are notorious for us so we want to check it out and make sure there's nothing here and a good place to check is this cab corner it is notorious for us as you can see there's really nothing going on there no bubbles i don't see any shrinkage from filler the backside feels good so that's a really nice and looking down the bedside that thing is really straight but one thing that is really awesome check out the inside of this bed there's not a ding a scratch anywhere to be seen so obviously this truck has been restored along the way and i must say whoever did the body and paint on this did a fantastic job now that we know we have a good body to start with we need to take a look underneath the hood now this is probably the most original 1974 f-100 that i have ever seen it's kind of scary i mean check this out it even has the old-school snorkel tube that's still attached to the air cleaner the original ignition system and even down on the valve cover has the old sticker showing how to adjust the ignition for best emissions even the original ac compressor condenser and evaporator is all still intact on this truck now you might be wondering why the heck are we starting out with a project truck that's basically complete i mean it is a completed restoration after all now we do have something pretty special in mind for our next project we'll tell you a little bit more about that later on now the paint looks awesome the bottom side of the truck looks just as good as the top so let's check out the interior man this is awesome original seat cover headliner they've even refinished out all the paint work in here it looks great but what's cool is everything that's normally broken like these ac vents are still intact man this is an awesome truck every project vehicle has a backstory and this truck is no exception there's been a lot of effort and love expended into this truck to get it where it is today so we're going to meet the owner dwayne and find out just a little bit more about this f-100 we've owned the truck since 1984 my dad bought the truck drove the truck a few years before he gave it to me when it turned 16. took the truck all the way down to the chassis uh took the frame had it sandblasted and we painted it and the floorboards on the truck was had a little rust in them so we got floor pans i had them replaced uh truck was painted in a friend of mine in white county at that time all over inside and out engine was rebuilt we've had it since then that was done probably in the early 90s redone the truck back more original it was more accessible parts in the original style than i could find than there was in the aftermarket at the time and it was kind of hard to find so i just went back original with it so you've had the truck for a long time why are you selling it now i had a little discussion with my dad about the old truck we don't really use it like we did before and we decided it was just time to move on to something else and a new project and something we could do together while you know while he's here so well i like everything i've seen so what do you say we take this thing out for a ride convert some rubber well we went ahead and pulled the trigger on this truck right away because it is so clean but we wanted to get it into the shop get to know her a little better we've seen the exterior of the truck and it is in excellent condition but the bottom side is what's going to tell the story and this thing is fantastic we can see that it's probably never been in a collision because the frame is super straight there's no kinks anywhere in it or in the sheet metal the floors are super solid the bed floor looks really good and there's no rust to be found in the rocker so i think with this truck we're in business we took this truck on a very brief test drive before we just decided to purchase it and bring it home we're about to take it out and thrash it so i want to give it a quick mechanical checkup to make sure we don't have any surprises and have any parts fall off at like 100 miles an hour so i'm going to start by checking out the brakes so really the first thing that i'm checking is the brake pads i want to make sure that i have good thickness on the front in the back which i do so we're good to go there next up the rotor want to make sure that there aren't any heavy grooves or pitting or rust and this truck basically looks like it's had a pretty recent brake job next up is the steering i want to make sure that all the ball joints and tire rod ends make sure everything is pretty tight which it seems to be so as far as steering and suspension and braking is concerned i think this truck is ready to rock even has some brand new shocks on it the next thing i'm going to do is change some of the fluids on this thing mainly because i'm not sure how many years the truck has been sitting i'll go through all the major systems and make sure they are fully lubricated i'll pump the fluid from the rear diff and fill it with some new oil back on the ground i'll suck the fluid from the trams and top it off with some royal purple max atf and fill the engine with some 10 w30. now this truck is definitely going to be a fairly comprehensive build for us so a lot of these parts that we're checking today are going to end up being replaced or upgraded at some point so why do we go through the effort of checking all this stuff out well we're about to go to a track and we're going to thrash this truck pretty hard so we want to make sure that we don't have any mechanical surprises when we're out on the track doing laps you know the last thing you want is for a wheel to fall off or your brakes to malfunction so it's about our safety now even though this truck is in 1974 a lot of the steering and suspension and braking parts have been replaced during the restoration so we're fairly confident that we won't have any major mechanical problems so we brought it here to the dyno today we kind of want to obviously get a baseline because we're about to do a bunch of stuff to it so here's the details it's a 351 windsor no idea on the compression but i think it's stock has a small cam in it i don't know the specs has an aluminum intake again not exactly sure what the combination is but what do you guys think it'll put down well oh and it has one of those you know those old things that they used to use on cars to mix the air and the fuel um what would they call it carburetor it's a car carburetor it has a carburetor on it too i'm probably a bit optimistic here but i think it's going to make around 160. 160 wow i'm a little lower than that i'm thinking like 140 145 maybe well with a it's got a cam in it and a manifold and a carburetor on it and uh it's 351 inches it could make you know 160 170. wow i haven't seen anything yet but i'm changing my guess to 75. this thing has a tall tall gear in it so 146.48 horsepower at 3 700. 225 pounds of torque this time at 2800 rpm hey but you guys are about to go out and just kind of thrash on this thing a little bit aren't you well i i mean it's nice to know we have 146 horsepower to work with now let's get this thing out on the track jeremy and uh pat thanks for letting us use your dyno appreciate it man good time nice job guys get that thing out of here the f-100 passed our tech inspection has some fresh fluids in it and we know what it puts down on the dyno so we came out to the ncm motorsports park in bowling green kentucky to see how well the rubber meets the road and we'll start out on the paddock with the basics now this truck definitely was not designed to be out here at a race track it has twin i-beam suspension manual disc brakes no power assist no sway bars and 15-inch radial tires so if there was ever such a thing as a fish out of water this definitely fits the bill so why would we bring a truck to the track that is so unsuited well we haven't yet revealed our plan for what we plan to do with this truck but i've got a feeling you're probably catching on we plan to build a corner carving truck so we came out here today to get a baseline spurs of rubber so this is a standard 060 test yeah i say go you say 60. in three two one go nice little peel out there 60. 11.08 seconds oh man that's moving let me tell you not really i'm just that's horrible it's a starting point right it is definitely a starting point with the acceleration figured out next we'll see how well this truck stops [Applause] now you know we have to measure that in a straight line not a curve right i like going crooked i was 100 feet but we're at 45 miles an hour we'll back her up just a little bit further this time and see if we can get up to the full 60 miles an hour and give it another shot yep so we got 11 seconds to 60 yep and it took 150 feet to stop from 60 to zero yep so it doesn't go and it doesn't stop basically bad well we got these cones set up you know what's next you feel like driving through some cones let's do it [Music] oh this is something we totally should not be doing not in this truck here we go no penalties that was like 22 miles now what were shooting for again this time 50 miles an hour here we go there you go [Applause] oh man i'm surprised we're not sitting on our lid right now so far this 44 year old truck is solid but we're not done yet the road course is next well we've gotten to know our f-100 a little bit out on the paddock and now it's time to put it all together get out of the kiddie pool and um jump into the deep end we're on the short section of ncm's road course now this is a very tight and technical portion of the track there's a lot of decreasing radius turns and elevation changes so our truck really has no business being out here you know it would be fun in a camaro or a corvette but i don't know what's going to happen so we're going to take a couple of quick practice laps and we'll go from there let's go oh man what do you think it's this is a truck that probably doesn't belong out here but we're about to do it it absolutely does not belong out here but it's still going to be a lot of fun and it's still amazing how original this truck is and we haven't really gotten into it yet but it doesn't handle all that bad but you know these trucks weren't designed to handle either so it should be interesting come to this corner a little bit see see what it takes don't kill me though a little body roll i guess a little bit now this this right here this is the most interesting part of the track this is the test right here yeah you come down this thing too hot man we're gonna be one in front of the other it's like a roller coaster holy cow oh you can hear him squealing yeah i don't think it i don't think it'll take much to get out from under you oh man oh it's right on the right on the you're good to feel it just push at least it's not over steering though you'll wind up in a fence quick with that well it's by no means fast but for what it is i guess it's well tell you what here's the start line here why don't i hop out um i guess you go ahead and do your time lap and then we'll swap later on and see how i can do hey i'll um i'll try to bring it back in one piece so you can drive it hey you know what you're the bodywork guy so you put it in the wall i'll stay out of the wall that's fine with me you ready for this all right here we go in three two one go i hate to say it but i think lt may beat me because i ran right off i spun right off the track into the grass come on hold on baby boom and he's a cross well i don't know if that was a good time or not but sure fun to watch man what was that man i have to tell you something if you don't beat me it's sad because i ran clean off the track into the grass down there so i'm telling you it's bad if you don't win ready yep three two one go [Applause] [Music] bad [Music] get you some of that richard rollins all right two more corners hit the apex bounce over one more yeah [Music] [Applause] i don't know if i beat him or not but that was her fun hang on a second one one 18 48. 121. it's close man i put a whooping no no no no no that's no that's not close that's taking a while okay you beat me i'll admit that i'm a big enough man to admit that we've got a stock truck yeah that doesn't handle very good no it doesn't it doesn't break very good doesn't accelerate very good it doesn't do it so what are we gonna do force induction more power better handling stickier tires bigger brakes yep we need to stop corner and go all right well next time you guys see the truck we'll start making that happen you wanna do another lap let's go get your time route again [Laughter] oh i'm never gonna hear the end of this this week on truck tech our stock 1974 f-100 pickup project gets the first round of much-needed modifications with a complete suspension upgrade say goodbye to body roll [Music] you guys probably remember our 1974 f-100 that we picked up not too long ago now she's wearing about a 15 year old restoration but hey overall she's pretty nice at first glance you might think we are just getting finished up with this project but actually we're just getting started so why begin with a truck that is so nice like this one is well we are deep in the middle of two restorations at the moment our model a and the k5 and also i'm just sick of block standing so we figured why don't we start a project where we can get right to the fun stuff making the truck go faster i can't say i really blame you for that i'm kind of tired of it myself but not too long ago we took our f-100 out to the road course and had a little fun with it and also did some baseline testing to see where the truck stands as far as braking acceleration and handling and i'm here to tell you 1974 technology has no business being out on the road course twin i-beams may have been fine for a smooth ride back in the 70s but definitely leave something to be desired out on the track when we pushed the truck hard through the slalom the body roll was extremely bad and when we pushed the truck through a corner hard the tires were begging for more grip luckily the truck only made 146 horsepower at the rear wheels so we couldn't really get into much trouble even if we held the throttle pinned to the floor so we have our work cut out for us if we're going to make this truck act like it belongs on a road course because let's face it it's a truck we're actually going to accomplish this in two separate stages and number one is going to be more of a budget-minded build we've set ourselves an all in parts budget of about 7 000 bucks and we're going to try to modify all the important areas of the drivetrain to make this truck handle quite a lot better and once we finish stage one that's when we really get to have some fun because we're going all out we're going to put this f-100 down on a new chassis equipped with larger brakes coil-over suspension and big sway bars then we're going to cram in a modern engine with a power adder we're going to try to make four or five times more horsepower than the f-100 puts down now and our end goal is to have a pro touring classic f-100 now all that stuff is great but it's gonna have to wait just a little bit because today we're gonna be bolting on a suspension setup that'll lower the center of gravity of this truck just a little bit and we'll throw on some sway bars so hopefully we can make this thing handle just a little bit more like a corvette and a little bit less like a canoe like always we'll start by pulling off the wheels then the rear shocks have to go because they'll get replaced stands are brought in to support the axle then the leaf spring bolt to remove a plant has a flaw in it i know it does next comes the task everybody hates dealing with frame rivets our preferred method is to use a cut-off wheel to make some slices in the head of the rivet then an air chisel can easily remove the head so the rivet can be driven from the frame [Music] well i had a feeling that this lower rivet was going to give us just a little bit of trouble because there's actually a cross member that runs in between the frame rails and there's another piece of metal and they're all sandwiched together and the rivets going through all of them so i'm going to get lt over here get him to heat up the back side of this rivet until it gets cherry red and see if we can free this thing up hey man put some heat on this thing for me i think that's enough i don't think that'll get it that was cute though we're using an oxyacetylene torch with a brazing tip which quickly heats the rivet up cherry red need more heat on that thing you know what man i think i've almost got it all right yep with a little more persuasion we can move on to the last rivets and remove the spring hanger from the frame with a few more seconds of hammering the last rivet is cleared like we mentioned earlier we're going to be lowering this truck with a basic bolt-on suspension setup for our first round of upgrades and since parts for these f-100s are getting just a little bit harder to find we went to lmc truck for all of our suspension upgrades today we're going to get started out back with a different spring hanger as you can see the mount point for the leaf spring has been raised up quite a bit this will lower the truck especially when we combine it with a longer shackle this gives us a total of four inches drop out back now of course we're going to combine that with a new shorter shock for a nice smooth ride being closer to the ground out front it's actually quite easy to lower one of these trucks all we're going to be doing is bolting on one of these dropped i-beams we can still use our stock coil springs radius arms and our hubs lowering the center of gravity of this truck will definitely improve its handling and all these parts together would be considered a 3-4 drop but we still won't do anything to fix all that body roll so we also picked up a sway bar kit for the front and rear this will let us really push the truck hard into the corners for nice flat handling so our installation starts by bolting on some spring hangers the new drop hanger easily bolts in place of the stock one with four bolts then the spring is raised into place and the original hardware secures it coming up we'll swap out that shackle up next there's a lot of old outdated technology that needs to go and plenty of new to replace it with we've got the front spring hanger installed which means it's time to move on to the longer rear shackle which will finish up lowering the rear end of our f-100 but i'm running into a bit of a problem when trying to take out the lower pivot bolt and it's actually kind of common when you're working on older suspension parts let me show you what i'm talking about well here's the deal we can hit that thing as hard as we want and it's not budging and that's a 14-pound sledgehammer basically what's going on there's a steel sleeve inside the end of the bushing on the bottom of the shackle now the bolt slides in and it's a pretty tight fit but over the last 40 some years rust and corrosion has formed inside that sleeve basically freezing the bolt in place so no matter how hard we hit it all we're doing is bending the tab and that's not going to come out typically you could take and heat up that steel sleeve with a torch but it's encased inside a bushing so you'd have to melt and burn away the entire bushing before the heat could get to the sleeve now that's just going to stink up the shop and make a huge mess so really that's a last resort option so we are going to have to get just a little bit creative to get that stubborn bolt out of its home i'll take advantage of the gap that was created with a big hammer and use it to cut through the exposed part of the bolt i'll have to stop halfway through and turn it to get deep enough to complete the cut with a little more grinding and a quick twist the first half of the bolt calls out there we go next i'll cut the head of the bolt on the other end pop off the washer and even the washer is rusted on [Music] then grind the remaining bolt flush with the hanger after that all it takes is a few taps of the hammer and the shackle is free gotcha then i'll take off the nut for the upper bolt let's feel a little bit looser than the last one so maybe we'll get lucky next the fender brace has to be moved aside to get the spring high enough to remove the bolt all right we're running into another little problem not that big of a deal though the leaf spring is all the way up and i need to push the bolt out backwards but unfortunately there's a bed support brace right behind the head of the bolt so it's going to hit now usually in a situation like this there's a couple things you could do you could unbolt the bed and raise it up or you could completely unbolt the leaf spring from the vehicle both of those take a lot of time but i do have one shortcut that might work remember as you compress a leaf spring it actually gets longer so i'm hoping that i can jack up the axle a little bit more and it'll compress the leaf spring and push it backwards just enough to get that bolt out it's worth a shot anyway as we raise the axle up it does exactly what we need it easily moves far backward enough to get the bolt out with no more cutting or removing parts the new shackle slides into place with a new shorter bolt that allows it to go in from the opposite end the old upper bolt is now used on the bottom of the shackle all right we're gonna get these things snug but fully tighten them up when the truck's on the ground [Music] to finish out the first side of the rear our new shorter shocks are installed we're starting up front next with hopes of less demolition there we go now that we've got the back finished up we can move on to the front of our f-100 now these came from the factory with an i-beam suspension setup you can see on the end of each beam there's a pivot point we've got a coil spring that rides on top of the beam and a radius arm that bolts on to it that holds everything in place front to back now these setups actually ride really good and off-road guys love them because you can get a ton of suspension travel out of these but when it comes to performance on the pavement it's not so good and unlike a c10 that has a control arm style setup there are a ton of options out there to make those handle like a sports car there's not so many options for the f-100 but luckily for us lmc truck had exactly what we needed so we picked up a set of these drop i-beams it's going to get the truck a little closer to the ground and then once we add that sway bar we'll be headed in the right direction on a budget the first order of business is removing the cotter pin from the tie rod nice and crusty then the castle nut comes off and by whacking the end of the spindle the taper breaks free and the threads on the tie rod are preserved next we need to scrape off the grease and the dirt that's collected around the kingpin dust caps and they can be removed with a 7 8 socket there's a cap on the bottom and the top the caliper retainer is punched away with a brass drift and the caliper is hung from the frame with a zip top so we don't stretch the brake line all right the next thing for us is to knock this kingpin out it goes through the spindle and the i-beam and it holds the two together now i've worked on quite a few of these i-beam trucks and that kingpin typically doesn't come out very easy but we want to reuse it if we can so i'm going to give it a few light taps with a hammer see if we can persuade it out of there but if not we may just get to have a little fun with it lt you may want to get that torch ready we're using our trusty friend the oxy acetylene torch to heat the end of the ivy and it needs to get hot i'm keeping the heat away from the spindle because we are going to reuse that one very important thing to remember when you're working with a torch and grease that stuff gets really really hot and when you bang on it with a hammer it likes to fly around so protect your face all it takes is a few good whacks and the kingpin comes out undamaged then the hub assembly can be removed oh hey there we go now the cotter pin and castle nut are removed from the back of the radius arm then we'll try and loosen the bolt that goes through the radius arm and ib but it's not budging so we'll break out the torch all right man give that a shot then we can pull off the nut next the lower shock bolt comes off and we can loosen and remove the i-beam pivot bolt and remove the whole assembly from the truck got it yep did you know there's another nut under that well i remember that there's a nut under there now that i see it again but i know that bolt was frozen up in there so we went ahead and broke it loose i'm glad i could refresh your memory the second nut is unscrewed and the radius arm is removed from the i-beam and we can install some new bushings onto the end these two new i-beams are actually identical to each other except for where the kingpin mounts on the end and they're attached at opposing angles this is actually what controls the caster in your steering setup so you want to make sure that you choose properly on all vehicles you want to have the top leaning towards the back so that means this is the arm for the driver side stay there no one leaves till the suspension is done we're back to work lowering our twin i-beam f-100 the beam attaches with the original pivot bolt and we'll temporarily remove the coil spring then the i-beam is swung up and slid into the radius arm and the long bolt connects the tube with the first nut tight the lower spring cup goes back on and the coil spring can now go in the retaining clips go back into place and then the suspension hardware is tightened back up there she goes lastly the hub is slid on and the kingpin is driven back into place it's held with the original tapered retaining bolt and it's the same process to complete the other side we've got the suspension all done and now the truck will be able to sit lower to the ground so now it's time to work on these sway bars we grab them from lmc truck and they come with everything that we need to complete the installation and they'll actually go on pretty easily all we'll have to do is drill a couple of holes something like that first of all these rivets have to go so i'll slice through them with a cut-off wheel grind them flat then knock them out with an air chisel the urethane bushings go on and the mount bolts through the old rivet hole and we'll have to drill one more hole for the back i'll roughly mark where the end link sits on the i-beam and grind away the powder coat the truck is lowered and set on some jack stands at its final ride height and the lower mound can be tacked in then fully welded with the bushings out of the way then the end link goes back in and we're done [Music] out back we'll have to chop off the tailpipes to make room for the sway bar like a hot knife through butter and we'll modify those later on the end link brackets mount to the lower shock tabs and the bar can be raised up on some stands the end link bolts through the bracket and into the sway bar and the bushing goes on along with the frame mount two 3 8 inch holes are drilled and with the hardware tight boom the rear sway bar is complete she's done we've completely transformed the looks and function of our 74 f-100 and it really wasn't that hard because everything that we've bolted on today you could do in a typical two-day weekend now if you guys remember this is a budget bill so where do we stand as far as numbers all right on the suspension parts to get the truck closer to the ground we spent a thousand seventy dollars and on the sway bars that'll tighten up the handling we spent 370. so all in we spent 1440 that means we've still got a little money left in our budget so we'll add some new rubber that more suits the truck we'll re-gear it and we'll get under the hood see if we can pull a little more power out of that engine and persuade those numbers a little bit at the track but hopefully we'll get back out there soon well there's a lot of stuff to do between now and then so that's another day hey she looks good though [Music] hey guys welcome to the shop today we've got a few cool things in store for you and i'm going to be working on our 89k5 blazer we've got it all body worked and then primer and it's ready to start sanding for paint we've got the body mounted to the frame for good and all of our suspension work is taken care of i would say we definitely have enough clearance for those obstacles out on the trail now we've also got a cool set of wheels and tires but speaking of the trail i think we need to see if we can get a little more power out of that big block so i've got a few new parts over here we'll work on getting them unboxed and i'll be over here working on this our 1974 ford f-100 now if you remember our goal is to make this truck handle just a little bit better out on the track for a budget now we just went through the suspension and we got us sitting closer to the ground and we added some sway bars to stiffen things up i'll also be working on performance but not underneath the hood i'll be talking about the rear axle today it has a really high gear ratio in it we believe it's a 273 and it has an open differential so it only spins one tire no drifting for us so today i'm going to take care of that by re-gearing and adding a posi we need to remove the third member from the axle so we'll put our truck up on the two post lift then remove the rear wheels the brake drums can slide off and the hole in the hub is used to access the wheel bearing retaining hardware [Music] once the four bolts are off a slide hammer is attached to the hub and a few hits loosen the wheel bearing from the axle tube and the axle is pulled away next the rear drive shaft is unbolted and slid out the series of bolts that hold the third member in place are removed the seal is cracked the water works and all the fluid drains out so have a pan handy it takes a bit to pry the third member off all the studs and then it's off to the workbench yep open differential no good welcome back to the shop we're working on our f-100 and we have the rear axle completely tore down all that's left in the truck is a bear housing and a couple of brakes if you're used to working on gm trucks then you'll probably notice this came apart just a little bit differently because typically the ring and pinion will mount in the axle housing itself where on this four nine inch this whole assembly is removed now we call this a third member and even though it looks a little bit differently it operates the same exact way isn't the standard ring and pinion gear set now we're going to completely tear this thing down and the only part we're going to reuse is the housing the pinion support and the pinion yoke so as always when working on gear sets the very first step is to mark the bearing caps this is done to ensure they go back in the same place they started giving us accurate bearing load we can first remove the side adjuster lock tabs then the four bearing cap bolts and the old carrier and ring gear can be removed next we'll flip the housing and remove the five pinion support bolts it's a tight fit so it takes a bit of hammering with a thin chisel to separate the two halves and the third member is set aside lastly we'll loosen the pinion nut take off the yoke and remove the front housing from the pinion gear we're going to clean everything up in our new crc smart washer which uses an environmentally safe alternative to traditional solvents called aussie juice it heats the fluid to a comfortable 105 degrees and it makes quick work of the dirt and oil on all our parts with our parts all cleaned up we need to talk about what we're going to use to put that third member back together and if you'll remember we have two problems that we need to solve here number one is the gear ratio and number two is that open differential that only spins one wheel so if we count the number of teeth on our ring gear we have 39 and the number of teeth on the pinion gear comes in at 13. so if you do the math we actually have a 3.00 to 1 gear ratio now that gives the truck a nice comfortable cruising rpm when we're going down the highway but it really doesn't do us any favors in terms of acceleration so we went to summit racing and we grabbed one of their 389-1 gear sets for the ford 9-inch now this will definitely give that truck a lot more leverage and help it get off the line quicker but it's not too aggressive of gear ratio so we can still drive the truck down the highway without a too high cruising rpm we also picked up a summit racing installation kit that comes with all the bearings and shims we need to properly install and set up that gear pattern the second half of our equation is traction and to solve for that we went and grabbed this detroit true track which is made by eaton this is actually a helical style performance differential and it works with an internal array of gears now that means there are no clutches that are going to wear out and there's no harsh engagement like you get with a typical mechanical locker now this will give us maximum traction when we're out on the track but it still allows for that difference of wheel speed to make for a nice smooth cornering when we're driving in the city now that means the tru track is definitely the ideal differential for a multi-purpose street and track vehicle and in just a little bit we'll get this thing installed hey guys welcome back to the shop the very first step to rebuilding this nine inch is actually driving these bearing races out of the pinion support and we'll accomplish that with a simple punch and a few blows of the hammer this is the one [Music] new races are driven back in with a soft-faced driver as to not damage the parts next up we'll move to the press and install the first pinion bearing you'll notice there is no shim on the nine inch and then it's back to the table all right with the first pinion bearing on we're going to put on the crush collar i'm going to install the pinion support and we're gonna slide on the second pinion bearing now we have to press it down into place so we're gonna use this pipe then the front seal is driven into place this time using a scrap piece of axle tube the old yoke goes back on followed by the pinion nut next we'll move on to the vise to set bearing preload i'm using a pinion holding tool and a breaker bar to slowly tighten the nut which compresses the crush sleeve until the desired preload is reached with new bearings and a seal in place i'm happy with 30 inch pounds next we'll head back to the shop press and install the carrier bearings onto our new tru-track back at the table we'll start to pull the ring gear onto the carrier with some long bolts back them out and install 10 new bolts with blue thread locker first i'll run them down with an impact gun and finally torque them to spec in an alternating pattern i'll throw in the original shim for now the pinion support goes in and i'll tighten the bolts then flip the housing the bearing races go on the carrier and it is set into the third member the bearing caps are threaded on and the side adjusters are screwed in and i'll rough in the backlash i'll clamp the third member in a vise so we can run a pattern check a special waxy paint is brushed onto each side of a few teeth and i'll turn the ring gear back and forth a few times the paint will rub off where each of the gears touch well the initial pattern check is actually pretty close not perfect but we can work with it now there are two adjustments that you're going to have to make to center that pattern perfectly in the ring gear now backlash is going to move it on an axis running through the center of the carrier and the pinion depth is going to move the pattern closer to or farther away from the root of the gear on ours the pattern is much closer to the top of the tooth than it is down to the root so we need to shift that pattern down here to accomplish that we need to push the pinion closer to the ring gear and on a ford nine inch we need a thinner shim all it takes is a few minutes to pull the pinion see support original shim was 25 so i want to take about 10 off of that it's 20 15. that's what we'll go with a quick touch-up of the paint and we'll run another check yeah it's getting more where i want it take maybe just a little more out of it this time i'll throw in a ten thousands gem and i'm happy with the result pinion depth where i want it yeah that's way too tight we've got less than a thousands of backlash and i'm looking for about five to seven luckily that's very easy to fix on a nine inch i have to increase the backlash by shifting the carrier away from the pinion gear so all i have to do is loosen up this side adjuster and tighten this one and we should be within spec [Music] right on the money lastly i'll install the tabs that lock the side adjusters in place and this nine inch is done there is one last change we're going to make on our nine inch i ordered a 31 spline tru track but our axles were originally a 28 so i went to summit racing and grabbed a pair of new axle shafts that are a 31 spline to match our carrier now we're going to be pumping a lot more power through this rear end so it's a much needed upgrade now if you guys remember the f-100 is a budget build so where do we stand after today well we spent 960 bucks on all the rear end parts and previously we spent 1440 on all the suspension and the sway bars all in 2 400 bucks that'll definitely improve how that truck performs that's not too bad as far as the k5 goes we still got to throw on a couple of belts finish up some clamps but hey we're getting close next time we hope to paint it and get this thing assembled but to check out more on our builds go to powernationtv.com did you grow a little bit i like it what do you do when your cool classic truck has a tired worn out windsor you tear it down for some big power adders plus from concept to canvas how to visualize your dream truck that and more right now on truck tank [Music] you've seen us build a lot of different projects here on the show often we're building more than one at the same time the bad thing is it can be very easy to lose motivation when we're halfway through a project yeah you can get overwhelmed with it or i mean you can even get flat out board but today we're going to show you something that i promise you will give you a little inspiration this is concept designer daniel maffett owner of maffet motorworks hey man how's it going good to see you how are you he can take your ride and with a few swipes of a pant create your dream car on canvas i was 12 years old and overhauling first came out on tv and i was just blown away with what chip foose could do and i knew right then and there i i wanted to start drawing cars and learning that skill whether it's an idea you have for an interior engine bay custom body mods or just an overall build his drawings help clients visualize their project and he's not just an artiste mafia is also a custom builder painter and photographer when people come to you for like a design consultation or to have a do a rendering like where do people typically start do they have like a finished product in mind or do they just say hey man i get this idea you know i want to work around a particular style or a theme like how does that work a lot of times when someone comes to me they usually have an inspiration or an idea or some kind of a loose concept of what they're looking for and they bring all those elements to me and then i work to kind of put them into a cohesive design something that they can be happy with for a finished product they can tour and show so someone might come into something and think they know exactly what they want and then once the design process starts happening they can see it visually their likes and dislikes can change i have an example of that here so with this customer he thought he wanted a full fender 32. okay then we started drawing it and showing him different options he could have his style kind of changed from that so we ended up doing a couple different renderings so we did a standard hard top we did a roadster okay and we did an open fendered hard top and then we did a complete slammed hot rod style okay and he he wasn't sure what direction he was going to go in but once he saw all these he ended up going complete opposite of a full fender car with a roof and he ended up doing the roadster with uh yeah i mean that's two totally different you know end results but without without seeing it i mean you really can't make that decision because something you have in your mind i guess it just totally changes huh it does and this this process saves you a lot of money in the long run because if you build a car with offenders and you get it all done you decide and you're done i don't really like it you can't do you have to start all over again yeah exactly that's another 100 000 build where this you can see it visually and make your decisions on paper yeah paper's cheap right yeah you can erase it well we've got our truck over here in the shop while we take a look at it and get started yeah i'm excited well here she is it's a 74 f-100 you know we've done a few things to it but it's really just a blank canvas so we can do kind of whatever we want with it yeah it looks like a solid truck it's a good truck to start with for sure you know there's a whole lot of different things we could do to this truck you know we threw around the ideas of maybe doing like a factory-style two-tone you know just not having to paint it but maybe just put some accent colors on it yeah this truck you know this year they had some really great lines so those two tones will look really good if you decide to go that way i really need to know what your goal is with the truck what's what's the final outcome what are you gonna do with it okay well yeah we're going for like a pro touring style truck you know low to the ground wide sticky tires something that will handle really good have a good aggressive you know good looking stance maybe not change so much on the outside but just low mean these trucks always look good laid out just as low as you can get them as long as they'll perform right they're just perfectly flat but it's perfectly flat okay so you guys gonna do some vintage flare wheels or you can do all modern style wheels yeah i think we really want to keep it in a 70s style maybe not modernize it too much because like i said we're not going to change a lot on the outside of the truck so maybe a wheel that has like a assault flat style or maybe like a vintage spoke looking wheel but you know in a modern pro touring size you know maybe an 18 or 19. yeah that's gonna go maybe even stagger them a little bit too yeah absolutely i think i've got enough to get going so i'll get to work well i'm excited to see what you come up with [Music] awesome as you can see i'm starting with a line drawing i work uh hand-drawn sketches until they're a nice crisp line drawing and then i take that line drawing and i can transfer it onto a couple sheets of different paper so i can do some quick different color changes without redrawing line drawing from scratch every time [Music] next the guys ponder their choices hey welcome back to truck tech we're over here in our power nation studios where concept designer daniel maffet is working on a few renderings for our f-100 i believe he's got one finished up there you go man man that looks killer yeah a little uh ford victory blue yeah that looks awesome man i really love the stance how low it sits to the ground and the wheels i dig those because that really fits the style of build we're going for and the blue man i love it because blue's one of my favorite colors but since that truck is so nice and it's already red is there any way we could tie that in anywhere yeah we can do uh i'll do a factory style two-tone maybe a real aggressive two-tone to kind of match that pro touring feel man yeah that'd be really cool well i'm excited to see what you come up with all right man i'll get to it now we did consult on the wheels before i drew them they had a talk with jeremy and lt and they kind of had an idea of the style of wheel they wanted but they left it up to me to decide what i ended up putting on paper so i went with a a vintage salt flat kind of style you guys are spoiling me here i usually don't have the truck available when i'm drawing something i usually have to work off photos having it in real space here is actually really nice chip foose actually introduced me to these markers and he gave me a small set and said these were the ones that i needed to be drawing with it's a lot of tools you can use to render a car professionally but these are ad markers these are alcohol-based markers and they just they blend really well they flow nicely on the paper and they give you real nice crisp colors doing a rendering a concept rendering of a piece a part or a vehicle is one image and it's a style and it's got my flare on it it might not be theirs but we meet in the middle daniel's all done with our renderings and we've thrown them up on our video wall so we can take a good look we have lots of great options to choose from so we can move forward inspired with our f-100 build well man you've definitely given us a variety to choose from and i'm really digging the two red ones especially the cream that's really clean i just don't think we can go wrong with any of them i mean the f-100 would look great in any of those color combinations yeah it wouldn't it's just variety of workload you know the blue is going to be a full repaint the red one with the black trim is going to be you know a little bit of two-tone paint and black gloss trim the cream one's just going to be a nice factory style two-tone well like i said they all look good and if you guys need any design or rendering services be sure to check out maf at motorworks daniel thank you so much for coming in thank you we really appreciate it hey man i've got a side project maybe yeah you need to talk about 67 c10 yeah crazy full-blown building body drop no diesel diesel quit talking now you guys can see why we love doing renderings this gives us a good foundation to see where we're headed especially a guy like me who's a painter i can pitch some of these ideas like these two tones to my rendering guy he can lay him out on paper and that gives me a good idea of what i need to do when i start working on the truck we're not quite ready to get this involved in our f-100 project we still have a little bit of budget left and some work left to do on our first round of upgrades looks really cool up next our f-100 moves across the shop to begin its top-end transformation one of my favorite things to do is change up the power plant underneath the hood of a truck or a car recently we put this f-100 on the chassis dyno where it put down an embarrassing 146 horsepower that's just awful so today we're going to spice things up a little bit in the engine department before you ford guys change the channel don't worry we're not going to be putting in an ls this time we are going to be building on this 351 because it's a pretty good platform to start with it just needs a little or a lot of help in the induction department so today we're going to tear down the engine so we can install a new set of heads a different cam and intake and as always work begins by tearing it down working on an old-school engine like this windsor is a nice change kind of brings it back to basics we won't be needing any special tools a laptop for tuning or things like larger injectors or a wideband o2 sensor engines are essentially massive air pumps and the more air can suck in the more power it will make vehicles built in the 70s often have extremely low power per cubic inch due to the tightening emission regulations of the time by changing out our smog air heads with a modern high flowing set we can expect a huge jump in power tear down continues with the alternator coming off then the upper radiator and heater hoses with some masking tape and a marker i'll label the pertinent wires going to different sensors the distributor comes out next and the hole is plugged to keep any dirt or hardware from falling in up top the fuel line is disconnected along with the throttle linkage and the old carb goes away [Music] the valve cover bolts get removed and with a little persuasion the old gaskets let go the intake manifold bolts all have to come out and a pry bar easily breaks the seal and the intake manifold comes off [Music] this nifty tray from goodson helps to keep track of the valve train all 16 rockers and push rods are removed again a shop rag is used to keep dirt and debris out of the engine the exhaust manifolds are next on the chopping block then the head bolts are removed in the reverse order of tightening to evenly unload the clamping force on the head [Music] with both sides removed we're down to a bare short lock it's always a little bit nerve-racking taking apart an older or higher mileage engine it's just like that famous shrimp boat captain says you never really know what you're gonna get our short block is in pretty decent shape but there is a small ridge at the top of each of the cylinder walls basically what that means is our engine is a little bit worn and it has some miles on it but the good thing is this engine didn't smoke and it didn't burn any oil so it'll be a good candidate for a mild build now if we wanted to pump this thing up to be five or six hundred horsepower then yeah we should probably pull the engine out machine it to accept an oversized piston and clean up those cylinder walls but again this is just a mild build for us plus it saves us a little bit on our budget you might be wondering why we didn't just yank this whole engine out and attach it to a stand well to do the type of work that we're doing a heads in the cam swap well it really wouldn't save us that much more time but it wouldn't take that much more time either so it's just preference we decided it's just easier to leave it in there and save us the hassle now coming up we do need to get that cam out and we'll do that after the break we are well on our way tearing down this 351 windsor in our quest for more horsepower the next thing to come out is the camshaft and to make that happen we need to make some room up front because of the length of the cam we need to move a lot of things out of the way up front so it has room to slide out so the fan shroud and radiator have to go it has trans cooler lines connected to it as well as the lower radiator hose once the mounting bolts are removed it can be lifted out of the way [Music] i'll disconnect the ac lines and we'll also need to remove the condenser back on the engine i'll undo the bolts and remove the water pump next the four lower crank bolts come out and the pulley gets gently tapped off to remove the balancer a special puller is required as to not damage anything don't use a three-jaw puller on the outside ring because you'll wreck the balancer a series of bolts up front and some on the oil pan hold the front timing cover to the block the fuel pump gets disconnected and the timing cover can come off the cam sprocket bolt comes out and the upper gear and chain are removed up in the valley all 16 lifters come out we'll rotate the cam until each lifter pops up then we can pull them out finally the cam can be removed from the block completing tear down we need to clean up the deck surface to prepare it for the new heads so we'll start with a metal scraper to remove all the leftover gasket chunks and rust then we'll soak it in wd-40 and use a rigid sanding block in 180 grit paper we'll wipe it down with brake cleaner and make a final pass with more wd-40 and 220 grit this time when it comes to cleaning up a block i see guys often reach for this a red scotch brite on an angle grinder now there's no question it'll make quick work of the job but the trouble is these are actually very aggressive and they'll take away a lot of material often it'll be uneven which can lead to head gasket sealing issues now this is one of those instances where quicker isn't always better so that's why i like to do it by hand rebuilding the top end of your small block is easier than you think this week on truck tech degreeing a camshaft lashing valves and more that's all right now on truck tech [Music] yeah she's all cleaned up ready to go back together it's looking good man hey guys welcome to truck tech where today our 351 bottom end will be getting some new top-end parts and hopefully we can double our engines horsepower if we wind up with 400 horse at the crank out of this windsor our f-100 will be transformed you know man i don't know if we'll get 400 horsepower out of any ford engine i mean you're right that may be a bit optimistic but i got a couple extra ls's in the corner we could always swap one of those in man that's a great idea hey before you guys go anywhere we're just joking with you we love ford just as much as the next guy but there's always been that ford chevy debate so we just thought we'd throw that in there and mess with you a little bit this is our 74 f-100 that we picked up for 12 000 bucks now it's been a little while since we've built a classic ford and these trucks are becoming very popular right now so we figured it's time to build one this truck did go through an original restoration but we took it out to the track just to see how she handled anyway and what we found was a serious need for stiffer suspension better braking capabilities and a lot more spunk we lowered it three inches in the front and four in the back installed some sway bars and threw in some 389 gears and a true track together those three things have our ford well on its way but still lacking in the power department the engine was stock other than a small cam and an aluminum intake and the truck made 146 horsepower on the chassis dyno since then we've torn the engine down we've removed the intake the stock cylinder heads and the cam we've got everything cleaned up and this engine's ready for a few new parts last time we gave you guys an overview of some of the parts we'll be using to put our windsor back together now you get the details the majority of an engine's power is made up in airflow of the cylinder head so we knew that if we wanted to step it up we'd have to ditch those old cast iron heads these are edelbrock performer rpm cylinder heads they have a 190cc intake runner a 60cc chamber that's filled with a 202 intake and a 1 600 exhaust valve plus they have a 60cc exhaust runner when we bolt these onto our short block we'll have a calculated compression ratio of 9.33 to 1. we picked up a cam shaft that has 224 degrees duration on the intake and 234 degrees duration on the exhaust valve at 50 thousandths lift and when we combine this with a 1 6 rocker we'll have just about 500 thousands of lift at the valve we picked up a set of 16 lifters a double row timing chain and an rpm air gap intake all these parts together make up an edelbrock top-end kit that we grab from summit racing and has published power figures of 400 horse and 412 pounds of torque plus it'll have a really nice broad torque curve that makes the truck fun to drive our installation starts with the camshaft initial lubrication is very important on a flat tappet cam we're using simple assembly lube on the bearing journals but the most important thing is to use the provided high pressure lube on the lobes this will ensure that they're well lubricated for the initial startup and break-in procedure next up the cam retainer bolts onto the block and gets torqued to sped [Music] then with a little heat the lower cam sprocket goes onto the crank in the straight up position then the timing chain upper sprocket and fuel pump eccentric all go onto the cam and get torn next hat pops in to give us the third degree one of the most important steps that people often skip over when assembling an engine is degree in the cam shaft especially when it's in a vehicle since it can be kind of a pain to get to everything so to help us out i grabbed path from engine power since he's done this about a million times now i wouldn't be able to sleep at night if i didn't know where the intake center line is on a cam of anything i've touched so we're going to go through a few steps but first we're going to set true tdc the first operation is to find true tdc which takes into account the dwell of a piston up there and you can't have that for degreeing has to be at true tdc so we put a piston stop in and install our degree wheel we turn the engine over till it gently impacts the stop and take a reading then we turn the engine the opposite way until it impacts it again and take another reading we average between the two and adjust the wire to read the same whether the engine stops on either side of where it touches the piston that is true tdc 34 and a half then we install the tool that measures the lobe lift on the cam and it goes in on the intake lobe we turn the engine over until we reach peak lift on the intake lobe [Music] after we find peak lift on the intake lobe we'll back it off and bring it back to 50 thousandths before peak lift and take a reading on the wheel in this case 63 degrees we keep turning going past peak lift and stop at 50 000 after peak lift and take another reading which is 150 on the wheel we add the two together divide by two and that is the cams intake center line which is 106 and a half degrees now that's a good place to have it for this particular application three and a half degrees advanced but that's not the case for other applications yeah the cam card really has nothing to do with where you actually should install the cam depending on your engine build you may advance it or it now typically the more you advance the cam the more it's going to favor low rpm torque and the more you the cam is going to favor high rpm power you're starting to solder like an engine guy i like that we'll get there now we can get back to reassembly last night we soaked the new lifters in some oil to pre-lube them and with the cam where we want it they can go into the lifter bores we'll apply some rtv onto the back of the timing cover then slide on the gasket and bolt on the timing cover to the engine then the harmonic balancer can be installed with a special tool resist the urge to smack it on with a hammer once it's fully seated install the balancer bolt and torque to spec [Music] and now the fuel pump can go back on all right man i got the front of the engine more or less buttoned up so i guess you're up cool all right well next thing for us is to get our aluminum heads on and we're going to get started with the head gaskets [Music] all right with our arp fasteners you want to pay close attention to the washers because there's actually two different sides on one side it's completely flat and that's what goes down against the head but as you can see on the other side it has a small bevel that's what goes down against the bolt head because the bottom of the bolt head actually has a small radius that meets with that bevel now if you were to install that washer backwards there's a good chance you could damage the bolt but before we get all these washers on get a little bit of our ultra torque assembly lube applied so these threads don't gall up on us as we send them down through the block i'll start by zipping down the bolts with an impact but i'm not tightening them this is just to speed up the process [Music] the bolts get torqued in edelbrock's recommended sequence starting at the center of the head and going in a circular pattern until i reach the end i'm doing three different passes starting at 30 foot pounds and then a final pass of 100. now i know that's not a sanding block did you need me to double check the torque on that for you uh do you think you can even fit in here i bet i could i got room right next to you i don't think you can fit in here i think that's the only reason i got this job up next slick new speed parts complete the top end we're well on our way to adding some more power to our 351 windsor and our 74 f-100 we've got the heads on they're torqued down so next up are the push drives now making sure to lube each end of the rod with extreme pressure lubricant we want to make sure that any new part that we're installing in our engine where there's metal to metal contact it's very well lubricated that'll help prevent any friction wear on that first startup i'm going to be topping off our new heads with the summit racing 1.6 rockers these are actually a dual roller design what that means is the pivot on the body as well as the tip that rides on the valve have roller bearings the factory style just slides back and forth on the tip of the valve and on the pivot there is a lot of friction in this design so you're actually going to gain some power just by switching to a true roller just by minimizing friction also these are made from lightweight aluminum which means they're more stable at higher rpm the rockers drop right into place on the studs just make sure the center pivot is right side up i'll lube up the threads of the stud with a little assembly loop and the lock nuts easily spin into place next we have to lash the valves i'll start with the number one cylinder and both cam lobes on base circle then i'll slowly tighten the nut until i feel all play is removed between the push rod lifter and rocker this is called zero lash then i'll tighten the nut an additional half turn and lock it in place then i'll crank the engine until the next cylinder is on base circle lash that pair of valves and complete the same process for the rest of the engine next up is the intake we'll start with a bit of silicone around the water ports then lay on the supplied gasket a silicone bead is applied onto the rails on the front and the rear of the block then the rpm air gap can be carefully laid into place as to not disturb the gaskets then the bolts can be installed and torqued to spec i usually like to do a second pass just to make sure they're all evenly torqued alright next to go on the engine are our new cast aluminum valve covers we picked up from summit racing now we chose the tall version to make sure we clear our new rockers and we went with the black with the red accents because that matches the theme of the truck but you can also get these in polished then to go on top of the engine is our new holley brawler 750 carburetor now this features a high flowing aluminum body billet aluminum metering blocks and mechanical secondaries now this carburetor comes in a street and race version so we went with the race version now this carburetor comes in everything from a 650 cfm all the way up to 950 but the 750 should work perfect for us and seeing that we're on a budget this carburetor is awesome because it comes in at under 500 bucks then to top off our engine our new matching air cleaner next goodies to fire up our small block we've got our engine all buttoned up and all the parts are in place to make about 400 horse at the crank out of our 351. basically it's a stock bottom end with different heads cam intake and carburetor now we need an ignition system that'll keep up our truck originally came equipped with a point style distributor and just a plain old fashioned coil now that worked fine for the stock 146 horsepower but to keep up with the increased cylinder pressure we need more spark energy to light off that air fuel mixture the brains of our ignition system will be this a digital hp ignition box that we got from protronix now it may be small but it is jam packed with features most importantly it will produce multiple sparks throughout the entire operating range of the engine even up to redline has a digital three-step rev limiter and this thing will control an rpm output for a shift light or a nitrous solenoid also we're going to be installing a flamethrower coil this thing puts out 45 000 volts will give you more spark energy to your plugs leading to better combustion and we'll be complementing that with a drop in flamethrower distributor this has been designed to be plug and play with the digital hp ignition system and we'll be topping it all off with some spark plugs with the ceramic coated boots for heat protection i'll get started by installing the distributor the easiest way i know to find tdc on compression is to put your thumb on the spark plug hole and crank the engine until you feel pressure building up stop once you hit your timing mark we'll start by pointing the rotor towards the rear of the engine drop it into place once it's almost all the way down i like to turn the crank just a little bit and it drops right into place line up the notch on the distributor cap and this is gonna be the number one cylinder i went ahead and mounted the coil on the firewall and the ignition box on the fender well away from any sources of heat now there are a few small things left to button up underneath the hood but our stage one build is done now with a total budget of seven thousand dollars we wanted to transform how this truck drives it sits lower to the ground has less body roll and with new gears it will definitely improve acceleration so far we spent 2 400 bucks but i know some of these parts under here look a little bit expensive so where do we stand well you've got that right but that was kind of the point we wanted to spend our money where it counts making this truck quicker uh today we spent four thousand ninety dollars underneath the hood 24 of that was the top end kit and the rest was rockers ignition stuff you know and a few belts and hoses up front but we are 500 under budget well not really i may have spent that 500 bucks we definitely needed a new set of tires because those were dry rotted so i went over to summit racing and grabbed these and we'll throw those on before we head back out to the track well for more information on this f-100 or any other build we do on truck tech be sure to visit powernationtv.com [Music] it's judgment day for our 74 f-100 what did seven grand worth of mods buy us we'll find out both on the dyno and on the race track that and more right now on truck tech [Music] today is for all you ford guys out there because we're about to spend a little quality time with our 1974 f-100 now the chevy c10 has its love in the aftermarket and we've built our fair share of those but lately the f-100 is just starting to take off in terms of popularity especially the 70s models now we figured we'd jump in and see what all the fuss is about now these are really good looking trucks especially in a standard cab short wheelbase configuration and with this truck being a little bit lower to the ground it definitely gives it that sport truck look now a little bit later on we're going to test it out and see how our sport truck handles but first let's take a look at where this build began just up the road from us in cookeville tennessee we found our 74 f-100 in really nice shape in fact it had undergone a restoration in the mid-90s so it was the perfect candidate for a mild build other than a few basic speed parts under the hood this truck is as stock as it gets and before we did any work we wanted to get some baseline data on how the f-100 performs as she sits so we hooked it up to the chassis dyno next door in the engine power shot where the 351 windsor put down an unimpressive 146 horsepower to the wheels next we brought her up to ncm motorsports park for the truck tech performance test the results 0 to 60 in 11 seconds braking ability 60 to 0 and 150 feet in our makeshift slalom course the truck showed major body roll running through the cones [Music] then we each took it for a lap on the short part of the track where it averaged a minute 19 for a lap with our data in hand we made a game plan to transform this truck for a total of seven thousand dollars in parts we started with the suspension and lowered it four inches with some bolt-on shackles and hangers out back and new i-beams in the front and we stiffened up the suspension with new anti-roll bars front and rear next to give the truck some help getting off the line we tore apart the rear nine inch to give it some new 389 gears and a detroit tru track was installed to put the power down to both wheels then we spent the majority of our budget by tenoring the 351 windsor down to a bare short block topping it off with a new cam a pair of edelbrock 195 cc cylinder heads an aluminum air gap intake and a larger carb so what did all this work by us well everything we did here was a simple bolt-on installation requiring no special tools and individually these jobs could be accomplished in a weekend and we didn't hurt anything so if we ever decided to convert this truck back to stock we could do that pretty easily so we wound up with a good looking sporty classic truck should be a lot of fun to drive and hopefully do a lot better out on the race track but the big question is how did she do on power well we couldn't resist we had to throw it on the dyno to find out all right fellas this is like the moment of truth right well you know i i'm glad i'm here because you know i i wouldn't be able to sleep if i didn't know where the camera was and and you degreed the camera i'd agree so i don't know if it's going to be good bad or it'll be good it'll be good well i guess here's where we find out if all that money we spent was worth it or not right i think you're going to be quite pleased fired up it's never a good idea to give your engine full power until it's warmed up so we'll make a few easy passes to get the engine oil transmission and the rear differential up to temperature all right 2 30. uh it's not bad that's a big gain over what we had then we'll hit it a few times see what she puts down all right right there 245 man yeah that's what i'm talking about 261 pounds of torque that's awesome yeah man check this out look at these gains way up here this is why peak numbers don't always tell the story look how much further it pulls and how much power it makes just at you know 4 800 rpm it's like you have two other engines in it because if you're 80 and now you're at that's awesome absolutely you know we went from 79 horsepower on our old setup to 234 horsepower at the same exact rpm that is huge that is an immense gain that you will feel look at the difference even look at the torque difference now let alone the horsepower this thing's gonna pull like a monster compared to what it was hey i'm happy i'm happy you happy i think so we're all happy i'm really happy next we're off to the track to carve corners and lay down rubber we're back on truck tech back at the same track we got our baseline at on our f-100 ncm motorsports park in bowling green kentucky this 200 acre facility is adjacent to the national corvette museum and has four miles of pavement in four track configurations last time we ran the 1.1 mile technical loop plenty of room to fly our ford now remember we did not build a full-blown race truck we built a truck that we could take out cruise on the weekends but we could also bring it to the track if we wanted to and remember this is a budget build so we don't have a lot of money invested in this truck yeah we're really not trying to chase the ultimate lap time here but when we do upgrades to the suspension and the performance and the handling we really shouldn't test those things out on public streets so to the racetrack it is let's get at it you have something to hold on to over there oh nothing at all this is going to be fun then it's all enough for me you know i like how you let me drive and i don't have to sit over there you'll get your turn i'm not riding with you come on man this is just an easy laugh is this not easy when you're sitting on a bench seat i can tell right away the power that little bit of extra horsepower we've gained is you can feel it full now i mean really my favorite thing about this truck is you know it is a budget setup so we've said it before i'll say it again this truck is not meant to be out on a road course but look how much fun we're having fun we got next to no money in this truck uh you know we probably should have invested in a proper pair of race seats especially for this side that would have been a good idea yeah you roll around in here i'm just glad i have the steering wheel but it may be a little warped after i get out of here especially when you go around a curve like that that wasn't about going fast that was about having fun [Music] so what's your what's your initial impression compared to last time i mean it it still rolls a little bit but i think we made a pretty good improvement well out here on the road course i i can actually behind the wheel tell a big difference there's not near as much body roll i'm able to get into the corner a lot quicker than i was before and then i'm able to get out of it a lot quicker due to the power we have now so all in all i think it's a great improvement um you know it'd be nice to have 800 horsepower right now but that'd be a little bit much honestly i mean i wouldn't want to add a whole lot more power you know we'd have to completely redesign this thing but again it's all about fun [Music] before jeremy and i attempt our solo timed runs we drove over to the paddock area for some additional testing our last 0 to 60 time was 11.08 seconds before our engine box this should be much quicker all right set go the wheel spin not bad all right three two one 60. i'd say it's much better that was 7.45 holy cow so we've improved that a lot ahead redemption for what was a worn-out windsor if you have a classic or collector vehicle you know how hard it can be to get an insurance policy that'll meet your needs and if you take your car out to a track and wreck it most other auto insurance companies won't cover you ncm insurance offers a wide range of coverage options for your classic or collector vehicle plus if you come out to a high performance driving school at a track you can get coverage for that as well and one very unique thing about ncm insurance that i really love is they'll actually cover your old project or hot rod while it's undergoing a restoration so to find out more about them or to get a quote check out ncminsurance.com it's track day with a few more runs in the f-100 left to justify our seven thousand dollar budget pre-built the ford showed major body roll when handling the cones [Music] i think it's going to do better i can do worse right i don't think there's any way i can do worse but let's find out [Music] oh that's so much better yeah i mean body roll i mean it's not i mean it's much much flatter than before that's what i noticed right out of the gate is before i felt like i could reach out the window and touch the pavement and now now it's staying pretty flat with the tires nice and sticky are you ready man it's back on the track for our time solo runs on this 1.1 mile short station two one go all right now while i'm driving a course like this even though there's a lot of turns one thing i want to do which sounds crazy is go straight as possible so i want to find the straightest route through all of the turns and make sure i hit all of my apexes so i'll stay wide and as i come into a turn like this then i start to hug into the apex as i start to come back out to another corner i'll drip to the outside and then that's my quickest line in and here we go for the technical part it's always my favorite time just kind of keep it turned as hard as you can until you hear those tires just about to give up i think we're there and here we go uphill you know i'm just still really impressed for an old truck like this running a little bit rough but i mean slinging around a real force like this man is the blast [Applause] [Music] all right man so how did we do on our seven thousand dollar budget track well you've got to say it's a lot of fun now it may not still be the fastest thing in the world but she's a ton of fun out here all right well let's get to it what did i do well you did a 113 13. okay well the good news is that's probably six seconds quicker than last time close yeah um the bad news is you did a 1 11 20 now so i beat you again yeah but i got the style points so in all what's that seven or eight second difference than last time you know what on a racetrack that's actually a really big difference if you guys want any more information on this truck or any other vehicle that we build on powernation be sure to check out powernationtv.com thanks for watching truck tech we'll see you next time

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 1,242,358

Keywords: Car, PowerNation, howto, how-to, diy, automotive, cars, trucks, automobile, do it yourself, automobiles, auto, powerblock, ford, ford f100, f100, truck restoration, truck rebuild, full build, restoration, full rebuild, truck, ford f100 restoration

Id: 9mT01-VU4M8

Length: 87min 56sec (5276 seconds)

Published: Wed May 26 2021