Pro Street 1st Gen Build Thread

[Cummins12Club]

A few people have asked/told me to start a build thread on my project. Up until recently I haven't felt I had enough progress to spark anyone's interest, much less keep them interested. Ill try and do my best on keeping the thread from being too boring. Basically what I'm trying to build is a true "pro street" truck. Something I can putt around with on the street a few nice weekends a year, and take to the track as much as possible. I understand that this is very hard to do, set up a truck to work well at the track and still be street able. Everyone has a different concept of the term street able, so I use it loosely. I am at the realization that there may come a point in my goals that will make the truck no longer "street able" and I am fine with this. Ill cross that bridge when it comes. For a little back ground on the build, I'm essentially starting with 2 trucks to build one.

This is my original truck (and in my avatar) coming from New York, rust plagued the truck from day 1. After nearly 2 years of owning it I decided it was now or never to pull it apart for rust repair. Unfortunately I was already too late. When we pulled the bed, the back half of the frame looked like Swiss cheese and the rest of the frame wasn't far behind. The bed was a total loss and open stripping the interior we discovered the cab was too problematic to try and repair. I then set forth to find a rust free body and frame, which was far from easy. I spent weeks looking on the internet, craigslist and called every junk yard in my tristate area only to come up with nothing. I finally found the body and frame that I now have out of an old mom and pop owned junk yard in Forrest City North Carolina. My good friend Tim and I made the 7 hour journey with no pictures or idea what shape the body was in, just going off the word of the owner ensuring us it was nice. Well we lucked out and it was what he said it was, rust free and relatively straight for a 91 body dodge

Enough back ground, the build starts from here.


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[Cummins12Club]

I completely stripped my black truck and saved any and every part I might thought nesessary to swap to the new truck. Differentials and the old steering went in 1st, to get the truck off the trailer.

Once in the garage I began stripping the truck off all the old weathered interior and pulling all the glass out to make way for the roll cage and new interior. The truck had set since 08 in the North Carolina field with no doors on it, I was worried about the way the floor would look once I got the carpet out. Luck was on my side and this is what I found under the carpet.

a completely rust free floor! While accumulating funds for the roll cage and other parts I sold the old baja ATZs for just under enough to buy 4 of these

Mickey Thompson ET streets II 345/45/R18. I'm a little sceptical of the 28" height but it should do ok with the 3.54 gears. They should hook pretty well also. Went ahead and got them mounted on my old rims and could resist putting them on to see how they looked.

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[dotson90]

Looking forward to seeing this thing come together, looks like you found a diamond in the rough. :Cheer:

 

[Cummins12Club]

Fast forwarding to a few months ago I got my racing seats, covers, belts, fuel cell, and shifter

The seats took forever to come in and by that time they were the only thing holding me up from getting the roll cage put in. I got to work on fabricating brackets for them. Beings that I still plan to drive this a little and that Tim and other people who I would want to drive/race the truck are much shorter then me I spent quite a bit of time narrowing and shortening so not only would they make the racing seats look more like a factory option but to retain the ability to have the driver seat adjustable to accommodate a shorter driver.

this is the factory seat bracket cut up and tacked together. Just need to make a rod to unlatch both track latches equally and it will work perfect. While waiting to get my truck down to the local chassis guy I decided to see how my shifter would look.

I quickly realized it was entirely too short and that I would have to do some modification to it. I didn't want to run a console style shifter like most do for the pure reason that this is an old looking truck, with a very muscle car era feel to it and wanted to keep that nostalgic race car feel to it, so I opted for the TCI street fighter. It seems to be a quality shifter for the price and there is no way I can miss a gear or throw it into neutral while racing. After some thinking what I ended up doing to taking the long handle from Tim's old crappy B&M floor shifter and cutting and drilling to make it work in my TCI frame. The results were this.

much more comfortable with no awkward reaching or angle. Much nicer then before. I just have to fab up a reverse lock out lever for it and its done.


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[24vCTD20]

Maaaaannnnnnn, Subscribed

 

[Cummins12Club]

Shortly after messing with the shifter I was finally able to load up and drop the truck off at the chassis shop

the guy who did the cage is a good family friend who builds lots of fast race cars and chassis in our area, he cut me a heck of a deal on the 10 point cage and garanteed it would certify to 8.50. The bars are all tucked very tight and make for easy in and out. I wanted to keep the cage all inside the cab for looks and I think he did a great job with it.

we decided that with the weight and torque the engine was going to make that this old C Chanel frame defidently needed the bars going out front to the frame rails.

He opted to run them to the engine crossmember area because he felt this was the area that would experience the most flex during launching. We think the turbo will clear the bar but if it does not it won't be a minor issue, for Tim and I plan to build out own exhaust manifold anyways. I'm pictured out for the time being waiting on parts to get here and more progress, I loosely covered 7 months of work in 4 post so it will go alike slower from here, just trying to catch everyone up on where I'm at.


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[oldestof11]

Watching this!


Sent via USPS 2 weeks ago

 

[jasonc]

Cut up the truck featured in diesel power 6 months ago, I like it and good luck.

 

[Cummins12Club]

Cut up the truck featured in diesel power 6 months ago, I like it and good luck.

Lol thanks,

 

[GreenMeanie5.9]

Awesome!!!!

 

[Cummins12Club]

Awesome!!!!

Thanks!

 

[1stgensleeper]

How wide are your rims? I'm curious if those tires will fit on my 18x10's.

 

[Cummins12Club]

How wide are your rims? I'm curious if those tires will fit on my 18x10's.

They are 18x12s, I'm pretty sure those tires are made to fit a 10-12" wide rim

 

[jlbayes]

gonna paint it black or a different color?

 

[Cummins12Club]

gonna paint it black or a different color?

It we be black again, pretty identical to the old truck is the plan.

 

[jlbayes]

cool. the black looked killer in the mag pics.

 

[1stgensleeper]

They are 18x12s, I'm pretty sure those tires are made to fit a 10-12" wide rim

Sweet. DOT approved right?

 

[Cummins12Club]

cool. the black looked killer in the mag pics.

Thank you! Black is my kind of color on a truck, can't go wrong with it.

 

[Cummins12Club]

Sweet. DOT approved right?

That is correct, I'm not to sure how long they will last with street driving though. Devon Lock has the same brand/modle on his truck and he said he's only put 500 street miles on his along with racing and they are already down to the tread indicators.

 

[1stgensleeper]

That is correct, I'm not to sure how long they will last with street driving though. Devon Lock has the same brand/modle on his truck and he said he's only put 500 street miles on his along with racing and they are already down to the tread indicators.

That sucks! Man 500 miles is hardly anything. He must me doing lots of burnouts...