'95 F-150 track ready street beast

[Sbeck09]

I've been busy as ever on this thing so I owe you guys an update.

Since I completed tacking all the front suspension onto the truck I was able to move onto prepping the cab for a cage and starting that whole process. At the same time I was waiting for my custom aluminum tie-rod adjusters. Shawn over at Panther Frameworx in NY whipped them up. Super cool guy and he knew exactly what I wanted since he and his son are doing a PT style mustang. All he needed was the thread on each end and the overall length. He did perfect. The front end ALMOST looks like something I bought, but we all know better. Haha.



In the cab I needed to tackle the firewall mod first since I was expecting the cage to make it harder to access than right now. Have I mentioned how much I hate sheet metal work? I've tried to learn to like it, but it's not working. Nonetheless I made it through and it meets my needs. Moved the main section back 2.75". And that's only to make room for sensors and fuel lines. The engine itself didn't really have fit issues even though I moved it back almost 4" from stock. Sure it's ugly as hell, but I'll just lay some thick paint over it and you should never notice it under the dash.



Side note: I don't have any photos of the incident, but I didn't pay attention to having a sheet over some engine parts and a rogue spark caught it on fire while welding the firewall back together. It melted a $150 sensor and 2 small wires on my brand new engine harness. I'm kicking myself in the ass for that one, but luckily it wasn't worse and I was able to quickly put it out.

Bonus tip for you guys. I follow Kyle on The Fab Forums Youtube channel and a few weeks ago he shared the stuff call Ram Board. It's a floor protector for moving appliances. It is basically slightly thicker than cereal boxes so it makes fantastic templates. 3ftx50ft was only $30 at Lowes. I HIGHLY recommend it.



I was excited to finally get to bending up tubes for the cage after that. Once I was ready to prep the floor for where the 4 points would attach I realized that some of the factory sound mat would need to come out. No big deal. But being me it can't be that simple. After noticing that most of it was cracked anyway and knowing that I'm spraying in Lizard Skin soon I figured I should just remove it all. So 2 evenings of scraping later it was clean enough to move on. All told it was just shy of 10lbs that got removed and I've heard the Lizard skin is pretty light so the weight should be a wash.





THEN I could actually get the cage started. Remember, I'm following the general guidelines for cages of this weight class, but I'm not building it to anything specific. No classes I can ever see myself running require any cage at all. I have seen how easily these trucks crumple in wrecks so I just want an extra barrier. I've added almost 3x the horsepower and I'm making it handle, but I know I'll be pushing myself to be faster every time out. Sometimes it gets away from you so this is for those moments.

As it stands this was the 4pt structure



Right now I have it dropped through the floor to weld the top of the tubes and spray some paint before it is welded to the floor permanently. I also got the glass all removed, but forgot to snap a pic.



Hopefully I'll be able to share an update in a few days with the cage and additional tubes in their final place. I want to build the seat brackets so I can properly sit and make racecar noises.