My 97 SOHC 5 speed swapped sport street/drag build

I picked up a rust free 2wd 97 big flare sport with the SOHC 4.0l about a month ago now. This thing is SPOTLESS!!! I bought it for Penny's with a bad transmission in it and the plan to turn it into a 12 second turbo'd street/drag truck.
As of last week I finished swapping in a 5 speed manual transmission I built for it with the lower gear ratio out of the 4 cyl ranger. 3.73 posi rear end, I put on a custom bent Magnaflow stainless exhaust, lowered it 3" and put a set of 18x10 Ford Racing "Cobra" wheels on it.
The difference in power and acceration is incredible with the 5 speed compared to the 5r55e. I'm not entirely happy with the M5ODR1 though and will be swapping it out for a Tremec before I turbo it. I'm also swapping back to taller gears in the transmission since this thing has no issues launching in second gear with excessive tire spin as it sits now.

 

[Twisted1]

I live 15 minutes from New England Dragway. The valvetrain parts are in the UPS truck now, they attempted delivery at 5:13am but obviously no one was at the shop at that time. Hopefully I see them tomorrow.

 

[4pointslow]

Ups

5:15 am? you got to love UPS. lol.
hope you see them soon!

 

[Twisted1]

We get UPS deliveries every day at the shop too but obviously they don't check with the normal rt driver before attempting delivery. Ill start porting and polishing this week and hopefully have it ready to go back together in a week or 2. Hoping to have it at the track in about a month, that's what my budget will allow for a time frame. Haha, I still need to get a clutch that will hold, New driveshaft, full exhaust and some dyno tuning on top of the engine build.

 

[ThatExplorerDude]

We get UPS deliveries every day at the shop too but obviously they don't check with the normal rt driver before attempting delivery. Ill start porting and polishing this week and hopefully have it ready to go back together in a week or 2. Hoping to have it at the track in about a month, that's what my budget will allow for a time frame. Haha, I still need to get a clutch that will hold, New driveshaft, full exhaust and some dyno tuning on top of the engine build.

Keep us posted.. This is a neat thread

 

[Twisted1]

First shipment of parts are in! I'm starting on the port and polishing this week and ordering the roller rockers, hardened pushrods, tall valve covers, high volume oil pump and some more ARP goodies!

 

[4pointslow]

Pictures!

Pictures!

 

[ThatExplorerDude]

Pictures!

Agreed

 

[4pointslow]

Pictures

If you become "elite" you can post pictures much easier. Hint Hint!

 

[Twisted1]

If you become "elite" you can post pictures much easier. Hint Hint!

Haha, I was thinking the same. I used to be on here a lot more but got sidetracked and disappeared for a while. I plan on sticking with this ex for a while though so maybe I should bump up in status

 

[Twisted1]

Ok I'm now elite just so I can post update pics for you guys, Haha. Here's pics of some of what came in today. Trick flow Cam, crane beehive springs, ARP bolts, felpro stainless steel reinforced HD head gaskets and some other little stuff. Next shipment will be roller rockers, Valve covers, and hardened pushrods.

And a pic of some idea's I've been toying with since I have a ton of cool parts laying around

 

[vroomzoomboom]

if you make the hood, please to a thread on it. i will someday make one for mine, but i am tossing around the best way to do it so it looks clean on both top and bottom

 

[Twisted1]

if you make the hood, please to a thread on it. i will someday make one for mine, but i am tossing around the best way to do it so it looks clean on both top and bottom

I'll be making a hood for it at some point. Right now I'm just trying to decide if that's the style I want or not. I've made 3 or 4 hoods for my other cars and trucks before, but I'm on the fence about that particular one or if I want to build off my stock hood.

This is the hood I made for my 97 Explorer sport "custom" mud drag truck. It weighed 6lbs

And I made this hood for my Scion TC show car

 

[4pointslow]

Elite

You did it! You went elite!
Your threads just went from 0 to hero with all those cool pictures.

Dude, that 97 Explorer Sport Custom is bad ass! I would have loved to try that thing out in the mud!

Nice hoods too, how did you make them? Fiberglass? You said that one only weighed 6 lbs.

What is that dark blue front bumper off of that you have propped over top of you Explorer?

Nice pics!

 

[Twisted1]

95 explorer limited front bumper smoothed and painted. It was the first option for my mud drag truck but I went with the 99 sport bumper on that instead. The hood on the mud Ex was a 98 Ranger hood which is factory aluminum with a fiberglass cowl molded in. I removed the hinges and hood latch and held it with 4 pins.

 

[4pointslow]

Mud Ex

Did you get rid of that Mud Ex? that things looks awesome.
I like the ranger grill and headlights with the Explorer bumper, then the back of the truck is cut so it looks like a pick up truck / ranger.
Do you have any pictures of the back of that thing?

 

[Twisted1]

And yes it was fun! Here's some pics of the chop top and front end conversion with the hood.

 

[Twisted1]

Those are the only pics of the rear I have in my cell phone. I have a few hundred pics of that build on my computer though.

And yes you could say I got rid of it. Lol

 

[4pointslow]

what?

OMG!
What a tragic ending for the poor truck!
What happened that made you kill it off like that?

Love the little bit of mud you got on it. lol.
What an awesome ride that was.

 

[Twisted1]

Long explaination of the demise of the mud truck

I got tired of the ego's and crying of others in the sport. The entire time I was building it I had nothing but negative feedback and **** talking about my choice in truck, front axle, engine..... I knew what I was doing so I finished it how I wanted. 300hp OBD2 EFI 302, C6 auto, welded sterling 10.25" rear end with 4.10 gears, D44/D50 hybrid front end with a Detroit locker and 4.10 gears. I built it light and balanced so I could stay on top of the mud and jump it, weighed 2,640lbs without me in it. Once it was finished and competing it performed better than anyone else expected so now here comes the crying! lol, any time I'd make a clean pass people would complain that I was a gutted race truck and needed to be classified with the 1,000+hp skimmers even though body swaps are allowed in my class. I swapped the Ex body onto an 84 Bronco fullsize chassis to use that legal loophole. Basically it became no fun with the V8 because of all the crying so I surprised everyone and showed up to the next event with a bone stock OBD2 300/6 engine and ran in the 6cyl class as well as the V8's (your allowed to go up a class with a smaller engine being at a disadvantage) In the 6cyl class the rules are much more lenient and gutted bodies, forced induction, ect are allowed. Surprisingly the straight 6 had more torque and the truck seemed to go even better in the mud. So here comes the crying again..... I got to a point where I openly stated if everyone didn't grow up and set their trucks up to compete instead of complaining when someone was faster I was just going to cut mine up and part it out (it is racing after all) Well the highschool BS continued and a couple of the biggest complainers said I couldn't afford to cut it up because I had so much tied up in it. 24 hours later I put up those 2 pics on the mud run pages with a simple "F Off, I'm out" message attatched. hahaha, best decision I could have made to get away from all the drama. What they didn't realize is I did every last bit of work myself and the entire build was made up of scrap vehicle parts I bought then cashed in after bleeding them dry for parts. I had nothing into the build and still beat them in their $15,000+ rigs.

 

[Twisted1]

my payback. lol

After I crushed the explorer I got a call from an event promoter friend who told me they were putting on an event and he wanted me to show up last minute unannounced and ruffle some feathers. I bought a bone stock 96 V8 Grand Cherokee for $400 Saturday morning and spent a few hours slapping it together into a race truck, including paint and graphics. We showed up 5 minutes before racing started with VIP escorts and watched the reaction. Lol. I ran the jeep as hard as I could and squeezed out a first place freestyle run beating ALL the purpose built race trucks with a $400 beater. I was also one of very few who drove back onto my trailer. And Monday morning I posted the pic of the jeep in the junkyard being crushed with the trophy. That was the last event I went to but I was told some ego's were sore after that. Haha