Many Titan lovers hang out on this site, and seem to try to sway people over to Nissan. They say that the Titan is so fast and quick. I had the opportunity to run against one the other morning on the way to work. A total of three times. My daily driver work truck is a 65 F100 stepside with a mildly built 302, and an AOD with 3.25 rear gears. I was on a 6 lane portion of a road that I travel on every day. There's several lights in a row, about a quarter mile apart from each other. Maybe a little more. After leaving the first light and running about 45 mph, I saw a Titan in my rear view mirror, coming up quick in the outside lane. I floored my truck, and it kicked into passing gear. By the time we reached the next light, it was red, and I was still a few car lengths ahead. So much for it being quick from a rolling start. The light turned green, and we both took off full throttle. I beat the Titan right from the start, and stayed ahead of it up to about 65 miles an hour. This time also by 2 or 3 car lengths. It wasn't much from a dead stop either. The next light was the last one before an open stretch of highway, and it was red. I looked over at the guy in the Nissan, and he was looking at me. The light turned green, and we both left at the same time. Within 60 feet, I was ahead by a car length and my lead continued to grow. I kept my truck floored until reaching about 90, and then backed off. A ticket for 90 in a 65 would be pretty expensive. When I backed off, the Titan driver didn't. He sped by me, flying the single finger salute. A very sore three time loser. I would have been curious to see how our trucks would have compared on top-end speed. It just wasn't a good place to find out. I have about $2000 invested in my old 65 Ford. For a truck that is supposed to be so fast and quick, I was not impressed with the Titan. If I took the difference in cost between the Titan and my truck, and put it back into Ol' Betsy.......?

 

Steve, congrats on the Titan kill. But, with respect, I don't think any stock '04 Ford V-8 half ton could do nearly as well. As you know, it's all about horsepower to weight ratio, gearing and tire diameter.

Was the Titan a 4x4? Did it have the towing package so as to have the better (lower) gear ratio in the diff. Did he have the traction control on or off? Nissan's traction control kills horsepower and torque to prevent wheel spin off the line. Did it have the 31 inch skinny tires on the low end SE or the huge, heavy 33's on most of them? Did he have 28 gallons of fuel on board or was he close to empty? All fair questions.

I have an Armada 4x4 with the same engine you ran against. I weight 5900 lbs with me and a half tank of fuel on board. I've not dynoed the thing yet, but I don't think it will match your 302 with the HiPo heads (home ported), good carb, etc. Nor do I think your F-100 has four doors, four wheel drive or weighs anywhere close to the 5300 lbs or so the Titans usually end up weighing.

You would probably really clean my clock. I do think the Armada has shown itself to be somewhat respectable during a curiosity trip to the strip here.

Here are the numbers:

15.487 at 89.22
2.304 60 ft
9.920 1/8 mi. at 71.50
12.939 to 1000 ft
7.572 to 60 mph

I know that is not much for real drag racing, but I think it is a good bit better than anything you are going to see with a stock new 1/2 ton pickup or full-sized SUV Ford V-8 that's not supercharged. Maybe I'm wrong.

This was the best of three runs (others in the low 15.5's. Temp was 90 degrees and humidity sky high (I'm on the Mississippi Coast, not far from you).

Only mod is a drop-in K&N air filter.

Ford makes really good trucks. I have an F-250 Superduty Powerstroke (7.3) and love that truck.

Just thought you might want to know that, with respect, I think you are comparing a light, pretty modded truck to a bone stock new '04. That would not be helpful to me in deciding which '04 or '05 1/2 ton or SUV to buy. I almost bought an new Expedition, but thought the Armada better for my particular use.

Again, contrats of the kill.

 

Of course Ford is offering the Torqshift now on more than just the PSD. Although it's listed as a 5-speed automatic transmission, it actually has 6 gears. There are 2 different shift patterns depending on conditions as it only uses 5 of them at one time. That will give the advantage to the Ford regardless of the slight engine advantage of the Nissan.

 

The Nissan only comes in two flavors anyways, extended and crew cabs. They don't get the truck thing. There main thing they push right now is how fast that there trucks are. What are they going to do when the new Hurricane engine comes out and blows them out of the water? In the meantime, Ford should just use the Cobra R 5.4L DOHC heads on the F150 and really teach them a lesson.

 

Congrats on the kill, it's always nice to beat new stuff with old stuff. But I do agree with the above post, I am also into drag racing, and if you took that titan motor into a truck that weighed the same amount as your old truck, I think the results would be much different. You can't have a competetive race..... say with a semi truck with no load vs a loaded one, even when the loaded one has more power. But with that said, a kill is a kill.

 

I was pretty proud when I destroyed a civic with a fart can with my big ol F-150 powered by an arthritic 351. Two utterly different worlds collide, and in this case the truck won

 

steve, was your 302 transplanted from antother vehcile? I dont think Ford put the 302 in 65 picups, just curious. My HIPO 352 would kick the crap out of the titan. I am supriesed at modern "innovations". They say all the new trucks are more powerful, lighter, better, blah, blah, blah. But I dont think that new trucks are all that great. They dont seem lighter or more powerful. I have to day though the new nissian DOHC V8 does seem cool and Ill bet its a powerful engine, just in a very ugly truck.

 

Yeah, I know it isn't a comparison of new truck against new truck. It WAS a 2 wheel drive, half ton pickup though, against the same. I'm pretty sure that the horsepower between the two trucks is about the same too. It's pretty easy to get a 302 over 1 horsepower per cubic inch. I don't know if he had the traction control on or not, but that would have only pertained to the last two runs. The first one from a rolling start should have been in the Titan's favor, since he snuck up on me from way back. It just surprised me how well my truck did against the Titan. From what people have said on this site, I didn't figure I would have stood a chance. To be fair, the only new trucks that have beaten mine, are the Lightnings. I haven't come across an R/T10 yet, but I know what the result would be if I did. The other offerings from Dodge have been no problem for the old 65, as are what comes from Chevy. It's fun to see the expression on the face of a person, who just got outrun by a 40 year old truck that badly needs a paint job. With the turbo mufflers, it's a real sleeper. To answer the question on the 302, it came from a 70 F100. The original engine was a 300/6. I've had a dozen of the 65/66 F100 trucks, and the 352 IS a pretty strong engine. It's only a little over 200 horsepower though.

 

Thanks for the extra info about the matchup and your truck. I agree that the pre-smog days pickups with carbureted V-8's and good old-fashioned speed shop work seems to be better in pure performance than today's high tech stuff. But that is what the "emission control" folks are forcing us to do when we buy new.

I used to race small block Mopar stuff ('70 340) back when that was new, and miss what we could do with cars back then.

Given the way you smoked the Titan, you should have no problem at all with the Dodge boys semi-hemi, or even Chevy's Silverado SS (usually runs high 14's). Yea, the Lightning may get you, but it would be fun to watch. New is not necessarily better, is it?

 

i havent raced a titan yet, but i have raced a tundra 0-60:8.9 (Motot Trend 2/04) and beat him pretty nicely in my monster 1990 F-250 with a 460 (it has the Banks Stinger Kit). i cant wait to race one of them titans, because i too love the look on peoples faces (especially ricers) when i take them with my beat up truck, i just really wish they knew that the truck that just spanked em has 160,000 miles on the original engine and transmission.

 

you know, not to get off of topic here, but it's interesting to see how many people acutally hate imports, more specifically "ricers". I myself cannot stand the "ricer" but I do have a highly modified honda prelude, but I am very much infact "antiricer" I did all my motor mods before I even had exhaust, before I even had a paint job, and there is in no way some shopping cart called a wing on the back of my car. But to my point it's all of these ricer guys that have persuaded me to sell my car, I loved my car, and have put my heart and soul into it, and have watched it transform into something I think is really cool, and pretty quick for a four cylinder. (mid thirteens) but these other guys give true import enthusiasts a bad name, with all these funky,loud,SLOW,cars buzzing crazily in and out of traffic thinking they are so fast. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are definately a large group of import enthusiasts that are not by any means "ricers" and are to be given a great deal of respect, because we do alot with very little motors. It's a very different class than v8's, but I'm sure all of you know that there are many different speed classes in any category.

sorry for the off topic, I'm just new to this forum and see alot of threads bashing imports, just thought you might want to hear something real from the import side."True import enthusiasts are not ricers, and can not stand them"

matt

 

This dude thinks it is: http://www.titantalk.com/showthread.php?t=14101 Dont get me wrong, i think the titan is a good trucks, but listen to this guy. He was going 125? The titan is speed limited at 115 acording to my uncle that owns a titan.

BTW Hoss350, most of us done hate imports, we are just like you and hate the 'ricers'. It sucks that you got stereotyped with all the ricers, your car sounds like it was pretty cool.

 

actually, you can remove the limiter in anything now days can't you? I would imagine the titans power would probably squeek up to 125 or so, I couldn't imagine much faster though, any truck is pretty much a brick on wheels and would hit a areodynamic wall at that kind of speed. just my opinion.

 

You will also find most of the Titan owners over there thinks this guy is a tool and full of it.

 

That guy is obviously out of his mind. He must bow down and pray to the Nissan gods at night or something, or maybe he had a little too much to drink, or maybe he was smoking some controlled substances?????