Myself and a friend have been planning a pre-runner project for a good while now, and after spending the last few desert seasons with mostly stock 4x4’s, we finally got it started! I’ve seen some great how-to’s and excellent product reviews that have been invaluable on the forums here helping to get us started on our build, so I thought it would be cool to document and throw up some pics of the progress of the project, and hopefully it will be useful to others in the future!
Some basic goals: We’re looking for about 325-350HP from the 302, 14-18 inches of wheel travel in the front, 12-14 in the rear (for now anyways). We have a countless list of other details to round everything out, but for now it’s all about getting the big stuff knocked out.
A couple months back, we found a good base vehicle with the characteristics we were looking for. The goal was to find a decent running, original, and corrosion free truck. I know that’s rare, but that’s why it pays to shop around until you find what you’re looking for! We ended up making a pretty good deal on our project, we found a ’96 XLT V8 2WD for about $1,300 bucks. It had 228K on the odometer, but was running great and was extremely clean and complete. It was definitely well cared for, and the drive train had never been rebuilt.
The main steps will be to rebuild the drive-train, modify the body for the suspension, install the suspension, then we will be doing some various mods like roll cage, full vinyl wrap, custom stereo install, HID lighting etc..
The first step was to pull out that tired 302 for a fresh rebuild and give it some love in the HP department. It was really cool to see that the cylinders all still had a nice crosshatch and the compression was still good at a quarter of a million miles! We removed the front body panels, and sprayed the inner wheel wells, engine bay, and fender supports with bed liner material to protect from all the debris and rocks that will be thrown up in there soon.
I’ll be posting updates as the project rolls along, your comments and questions are welcome, and helpful advice is well appreciated! Below are some pictures of our project truck as it arrived, pulling the engine, and applying the bed liner material before and after pics…
Some basic goals: We’re looking for about 325-350HP from the 302, 14-18 inches of wheel travel in the front, 12-14 in the rear (for now anyways). We have a countless list of other details to round everything out, but for now it’s all about getting the big stuff knocked out.
A couple months back, we found a good base vehicle with the characteristics we were looking for. The goal was to find a decent running, original, and corrosion free truck. I know that’s rare, but that’s why it pays to shop around until you find what you’re looking for! We ended up making a pretty good deal on our project, we found a ’96 XLT V8 2WD for about $1,300 bucks. It had 228K on the odometer, but was running great and was extremely clean and complete. It was definitely well cared for, and the drive train had never been rebuilt.
The main steps will be to rebuild the drive-train, modify the body for the suspension, install the suspension, then we will be doing some various mods like roll cage, full vinyl wrap, custom stereo install, HID lighting etc..
The first step was to pull out that tired 302 for a fresh rebuild and give it some love in the HP department. It was really cool to see that the cylinders all still had a nice crosshatch and the compression was still good at a quarter of a million miles! We removed the front body panels, and sprayed the inner wheel wells, engine bay, and fender supports with bed liner material to protect from all the debris and rocks that will be thrown up in there soon.
I’ll be posting updates as the project rolls along, your comments and questions are welcome, and helpful advice is well appreciated! Below are some pictures of our project truck as it arrived, pulling the engine, and applying the bed liner material before and after pics…