Hey everyone! My name is Seth, and i am new to the ford trucks forum. I posted this same topic over on the powerstroke nation forum, and only one person was helpful, the others were being sarcastic and rude with their comments, so i decided to come here. I plan on doing a full ground up restoration on a 1997 CCSB, with no expenses spared. I expect the build to cost around 70-80 grand with every little thing done. My main question is about an engine upgrade, and supporting suspension. I will list below what i would like to do.

- dana 60 swap
- 10 inches of total lift, with some coming from a PMF RSK, and the rest from a 4 point link (possibly an air ride suspension..?)
- 40 inch tires
- swamps competition engine, twin turbos, big injectors

I contacted Swamps because i am wanting to push around 800-900 horsepower from their competition engine and a twin turbo setup with 400/400 injectors.
Will a lifted suspension done right be able to handle that much power? i obviously wouldnt be full throttle all the time but if i put the engine to max power i dont want to ruin the suspension. So if someone could help me out, is this do-able, or am i crazy for this?

 

Welcome to FTE
Your in the right forum, the rest are for kids with a degree in A-hole-ism
From the looks of things you have the $$$$ for a nice build, any Q's and most of the guys here are knowledgeable with the things your planning to do to your rig ).
We only ask for pics because a forum is not a forum without pics.
Once again welcome to the best forum around

 

no worries, once the build starts, i will start a new thread and post plenty of pictures! it might not be until summer because i want to save up all the money and then do the entire build all at once

 

Welcome to FTE!

CCSB is a great truck to do a full build on! I guess the first question I would like to ask is, how do you plan to use the truck? What I mean is, do you plan on daily driving it, show truck, sled pull, etc.? With that much horse power and those big sticks, it won't be much good for a daily driver. That much suspension lift and those big tires won't be any good for drag racing or sled pulling. I don't mean any of that in a negative way either. If we know exactly what you plan to do with the truck, we could help you go in the right direction with the build.

 

it might sound crazy, but it will most likely be a daily driver. I also would like to take it to shows/meets, and occasionally take it off road. Ive always lived by the saying "go big or go home", so im going big on this one. I would say there is a solid 90 percent chance it will be my daily driver, ill just have to deal with the consequences if it possibly being a b**** to drive. Am i completely crazy for this, and is it doable for a daily driver? My goal is to have the baddest OBS around, and make those nice new SEMA trucks look like a joke to the "old beat up" powerstroke.

 

Don't take this personal, but everytime I see a jacked up truck in general on some huge tires it's normally some bro driving it. I don't care if you have the baddest truck around, if it's on 12" of lift, and 40" tires with like 26" wheels and a six foot drop hitch hanging off the back I can't help but shake my head. But that's me, if that's what you like go for it.

If I were you and I had that much money to put into a truck id find a clean clean OBS, strip it down to the frame, sandblast it and then get it professionally painted. After that I'd buy a smashed up newer truck with the newer front suspension. Then I'd swap the coil front suspension along with the rest of it onto the OBS.

I'd also swap the axles over for a tighter turning radius, and discs on all
four corners. Then you'd have a smooth riding truck. After that I'd go crazy with the motor and transmission and tcase.

 

It is doable, but honestly, for a daily driver, I wouldn't do twin turbos and 400/400 injectors. You could dial back on it some, still have the baddest OBS around, and a decentdaily driver. The set up you mentioned would be more suitable for a full out pulling truck or drag truck. There are going to be many other things to consider also. If you have a manual trans, you're gonna battle with clutches to put all that power to the ground and make it usable. If you have an auto trans, you're gonna have no other choice other than dropping about $5000 on a BTS, or you wi never keep a trans in it.As far as the lift goes, I love the look of lifted trucks, but there is a threshold you can cross to where the amount of lift and tire size has become nothing but that....just for looks. You can loose most of the functionality of truck, and all that HP that you spend all that money on will be useless. In that case, you have derailed your whole goal of having the baddest truck around. I hope I am explaining this without coming it coming out wrong. It is your truck, and you can build it how ever you like, but with what you have in mind for your truck, I think you could go too big, and be stuck at home. You see what I'm saying?

 

Exactly what he said. You are defeating yourself with "go big or go home " mentality. There is also the "brains over brawn" mentality which might apply here. Do a more mild lift and scale back a little on the gigantic engine/trans/powertrain idea so that you can actually put the power to the ground and have a useful truck that's show quality.

 

I'm open to all suggestions and I won't take anything personally. I love lifted trucks, and I like power, but I definitely don't want to over do it. If it comes down to it, and y'all think it would be best, swamps can provide an engine with about 450 horsepower on a dyno, but only about 410 of that would transfer to the wheels. I've been thinking about that too, with a nice built bts automatic transmission. As far as the lift goes, I want something that can handle a little bit of off road abuse, and tires large enough that I can go wherever I want (except extreme rock crawling). Pretty much I'm trying to build a solid all around truck that's still mostly functional for the road. I have a 1994 f150 that I built up, and I didn't do all the stuff like huge tow rings or anything like that. I'm going to keep the body looking as stock as possible with the exception of a professional Kevlar paint job and possibly an off-road bumper. But thanks everyone for the suggestions, and I'm open and will listen to anything!

 

I totally get that. I just talked with a friend of mine and he said 800 hp coming from a Diesel engine is completely overwhelming. It would be like a 1400 hp mustang or something along those lines, and I didn't realize that. I definitely will scale back on the amount of power now that he told me that. Now I'm thinking somewhere in the 400-450 horsepower range so that the daily driving will be a lot more tolerable. As far as the lift, I would like at least 38 inch tires. The new patriot tires that came out this year really caught my attention. As for the wheels I don't think I'll go any bigger than 20's because I've never really liked massive wheels on big tires. I like the look of more tire and less wheel

 

That sounds like a lot better plan