New kickers for the old 1986 F350 + build info

Rusgo

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Love this truck. Had it for quite awhile. It's my money maker. Loaded down with 3000 lbs of equipment, 35" tires, 200k miles, I still get 17 to 19 mpg. Doesn't need a lift to fit the 35s in there.

Old tires were super beat up. Put these wrangler duratracs on there. Quiet on the road, great in the snow, and they're suppose to last 50k+ miles.

Truck has no sway bar but has a factory panhard bar. I'm always amazed at how fast I can corner with minimal body roll.

As long as I owned the truck, it had a slight pull and wandered at highway speeds. It was the old crap tires. Could never figure out why. Drove straight as soon as I put the new tires on. Crazy.

Have some substantial upgrades to it.

Came with a dog of a three speed automatic transmission. Rebuilt and swapped in a ZF5 from a $700, 1989 beat up F250 farm truck.

Installed a later model larger vacuum booster and aluminum master cylinder to check the level easy and increase braking pressure.

Dirty wheels are old 17" weld forged aluminum. They have crap chome on them, but they were cheap and are super strong.

Has the high pinion kingpin Dana 60 front axle from the factory.

The old bench seat was killer on the back. Sucked you in like a bean bag. Took some fully electric seats out of a 2008 Audi A4, fabbed a cradle in to install them. Wired them up. Super comfortable now. Has full up, down, forward, back, and recline control with 4 way lumbar and seat heaters. Still uses the awesome original ford red seatbelts.

Center console is out of a late model Chevy. Upholstered it with the rear leathers out of the Audi to make it match

Custom turbo setup that uses an old Bank's filter housing. Turbo is a new high efficiency early spool type. No wastegate. Custom 3" stainless down pipe. Had to punch the firewall back a bit. Everything wrapped to keep the heat inside.

Overtorqued head studs lets it hit 20psi at current fuel settings.

Has Isspro pyro and boost gauge, but needs a cleaner install than the current heat worked universal pillar cluster.

Had the truck up to about 100mph. Weird feeling haha. And can pull steep hills in overdrive, though I try not to.

Installed a 100% aluminum radiator with custom plate aluminum shroud and oversized dual electric fans. One fan has manual control and the other is wired into a coolant temp switch. The overtemp light was wired into the same circuit, so I know when the fan comes on. Love the setup. In the winter the fans never come on. Free energy and heats up faster. Never overheats even while towing in the hills.

More mods coming in the future and will post more details on the current technical mods when I get a chance.
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IDIBRONCO

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Welcome. That's not a bad looking truck. It sounds like you have it set up pretty well. Yes, I agree, the C6 was an awful transmission to put in these trucks, but Ford had to have an automatic option and this was the best that they had at that time.
 

Rusgo

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Thanks man. Been lurking around for quite a long time.

Yeah, no such thing as a heavy duty light truck automatic with overdrive back then. But when you're going up a hill at 45mph screaming in 3rd gear something has to be done.

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The_Josh_Bear

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That's a pretty sweet list of mods, love the seats! What's turbo/trim is it? What IP, stock turned up or something else?
 

Rusgo

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That's a pretty sweet list of mods, love the seats! What's turbo/trim is it? What IP, stock turned up or something else?
$200 craigslist seats in perfect shape! They have a short seat height and work perfect in old trucks.

Nothing fancy on the IP. Just turned up a bit. Turbo is a Borg Warner S200SX-E. Forget the numbers but it has the smallest turbine they offer for the model. Twin scroll inlet. Compressor is a bit bigger than idi stock. You can find them new all day long for $700.

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The_Josh_Bear

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That's sweet, nice work! I'd love to see pictures of the turbo install if you have them.

That's really impressive mileage with your rig, especially with the 3k of tools in the back. I'm definately a bit jealous! Sounds like you really matched up the right turbo to the engine. Love it!

Earlier you said "over torqued studs", so you rebuilt the engine? Any other goodies while in there?
Forgot to say I like the upholstered console idea too, nice work!

-Joshua
 

Rusgo

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That's sweet, nice work! I'd love to see pictures of the turbo install if you have them.

That's really impressive mileage with your rig, especially with the 3k of tools in the back. I'm definately a bit jealous! Sounds like you really matched up the right turbo to the engine. Love it!

Earlier you said "over torqued studs", so you rebuilt the engine? Any other goodies while in there?
Forgot to say I like the upholstered console idea too, nice work!

-Joshua
Yeah thanks! The potential gas mileage in these rigs is way underrated. I think people often have alignment issues, old injection systems, clogged fuel filters, or just worn engines, and assume 15mpg is normal. I've seen 2wd trucks pushing into the mid 20s.

19 mpg is consistent highway miles at 60 mph and 1500 rpm...boost fluctuates at steady throttle between 1 and 5 depending on hills. No downshifting, just let the turbo do the extra work. 17mpg is alot more city driving and a heavy foot. Almost never get below that. Towing 3000lbs dropped it to 16mpg.

I'd never want to sacrifice low end power for top end on these engines. Gotta get that early spool. Sometimes I'll lug a hill at 1300 rpm with 2psi boost. An oversized turbine gives you more smoke and less power when lugging it. I dont need to tow 15000lbs up an incline pretty much ever, so the grunty engine with electric fan setup works.

Crazy enough putting the electric fan setup on there gave me 1mpg. Installing injectors and IP gave me 1mpg. The manual with overdrive gave me another 1mpg. Lost just 1mpg going to 35s. Think because of the lower cruising rpm. Keeping all the heat in the turbo system and out of the engine bay helps. Using the brake a small amount helps. The harder rubber of high treadlife tires helps.

The old Banks filter housing has a K&N filter. Not sure if that helps, haha. The turbo didn't give me any increase obviously, but considering the much wider and taller powerband, it's still a net efficiency increase.

Have about $7000 into the truck including the original purchase price...and a few hundred hours of labor.

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Rusgo

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I cheated on the head stud install. I installed the studs only for the increased turbo pressure. I had replaced the head gaskets a year prior and didn't want to do it again. In sequence I loosened the old headbolts to about 30% then removed them one at a time and replaced them with a stud and torque it to 30%. Went through the normal sequence after they were all replaced.

I dont reccomend this to anyone else! It was a test as much as anything. But it seems to be working out!

No rebuild. Original 200k pistons in there. It has a moderate amount of blowby though. Will be rebuilding it completely in the coming years. Maybe get another 1mpg out of it.

I'll take some pictures of the turbo install next time everything is apart. It's a fairly simple system though. I used the hypermax bracket and up pipes. Had to reroute the up pipes a good amount to clear the zf5. The firewall was cut up and pushed back to clear the 3" down pipe and give me extra room for everything. I used an aftermarket power stroke stainless downpipe, partial half moon cuts in a couple places to reroute, cut off the turbo flange and tacked on the correct type, and brought the whole thing to a buddy to tig weld it together nice and clean.

The Banks filter housing is neat. It acts as a turbo hat and perfectly lines up with the stock intake tube. I had to cut off the turbo inlet into it and weld on a better longer 2" pipe since it's angle wasn't well suited to the new setup. Used a standard carburetor gasket to seal it onto the intake instead of the original thick oring..for clearance issues.

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Rusgo

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Some installed pictures.
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Thewespaul

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So you installed studs with the heads in place? How did you fit the studs past the firewall and ac box, or did you just retorque the stock bolts? Those s200sxe frame turbos are great, extremely responsive and loud!
 

Rusgo

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So you installed studs with the heads in place? How did you fit the studs past the firewall and ac box, or did you just retorque the stock bolts? Those s200sxe frame turbos are great, extremely responsive and loud!
Yeah really like the sound of it. Very throaty with the turbo mufflers and nice low pitched whine. Though with all of the weird looks from Portland people, it might be a bit much for delicate sensibilities.

I had the engine out to reconstruct the firewire. Made the head stud thing alot easier.

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riphip

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Just remember that the intake on the 80 - 86 trucks will suck a lot of water quick IF the water is deeper than it seems & hydrolock the the engine. Mount it higher with later intake hosing to prevent this. Will save your rods. (EXPERIENCE)
 

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