nice update! love the truck too!

Lookin good! I love that rear diff cover!

Very nice Rob, you put a lot of work into it the past couple of months.

God I love that truck!

truck is lookn good! cant wait to see it in person

Wow there is a lot more done to that truck than i thought lol.
I always thought it was nice but now i know it is haha.
Truck looks good.

I just came across this thread. Awesome truck!!

Michigan too, that's cool.

Well I haven't posted any pictures in a while. Haven't done to much to the truck lately. Did get a new set of tires recently Good Year Silent Armors in a 31x10.5R15. Like them alot, have a real stiff sidewall which is great for banking through turns. Also put on my painted wheels with the tires. I like the look alot, something a little darker. Another new thing is a Steeda Triax shifter for the T5. MUCH better than the hurst shifter I had. Much tighter and short shifts, works great.
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I do have some things in the works. Been collecting parts for disc brake conversion in the back and going to be doing some motor work by next summer. Not exactly sure what all yet but we will see. All I know is I don't like the Ford F-cam I have now, just doesn't work well with my head/intake combo.

trucks lookin good man idk if i will have my heads and intake off next year or not but ill let ya know if you still want um.

Sounds good man. I have been searchin the junkyards for that head and intake combo but haven't found anything so its kinda looking like the stock E7's are going to get a little work over.

that things a beast i had an 88 red ext cab on 33's i always wanted to do some work on it but i was always to busy playin with it lol but props to a clean lookin truck

Damn I love your gen 2. If my engine ever goes bad I wanna put a 351 in it with a t-56.

^Thats a pricey combo you have in mind! T56's are easy to come by around here, atleast not cheap. I have had some progress on the truck recently, hopefully get some pics soon.

Time for an update.

First I picked up a set of F31 Deaver leaf springs for the back of the truck. Put them on a couple of weeks ago and wasn't happy with the ride. They werent quite soft enough with the rest of my setup. I talked with Nick at ORW and he set me up with a set of Fox Emuslion 2.0's that were valved for my setup. Adding this along with disconnecting the rear sway bar finally gave me the ride I was looking for. Very smooth ride on the freeway, and much smoother ride around town. Won't lose any towing capacity either since I have air bags, just need to remount them to the leaf back now that it sits lower. No good installed pics yet but a couple of the Fox Shocks.
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Been planning out a new motor for the truck over the past couple of months. Have finally locked down the compo and collected enough parts to justify a post. Hopefully over the next few weeks I will be able to get started but at the moment i'm trying to finish up a new drivetrain for my fathers work truck. I completed a Turbo 350 for the first time, and am about half way through building the small block 350 that will be going in with the trans this spring.

As for my motor build here is a list of what I have and will be picking up over the coming weeks along with a couple of quick pictures.

GT40 Heads - Will be ported and have the valves cleaned up. New high lift springs, retainers, keepers and seals. Pulled from the junkyard for 100 Bucks!
GT40 Intake - Ported lower with a 1" phenolic spacer to help clear the fuel pressure regulator. 59 Bucks from the yard!
Comp Cams Extreme Energy 270 - Will be 544 lift with 1.7 roller rockers, 114 LSA.
70MM Throttle Body with Matching EGR Spacer.
76MM C&L Mass Air Flow Sensor
24# Injectors - Scored a complete set for 20 bucks!
New Main Bearings, Rod Bearings, Cam Bearings and Rings.
Rebuilding spare T5 with new synchros.

Will be doing a bunch of other little things while the motor is apart. Spent alot of time researching to try and match all of the components so that one of them wont significantly limit the others. Should give a pretty good HP increase with a nice broad torque curve and bring back alot of the low end torque that I lost from the F-cam.
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Sounds like a nice motor combo,should be very torquey down low.
I just picked up a new motor and some ported E7 heads for my truck today and the heads have new screw in studs and guide plates which I dont plan on using...any interest?

No thanks. I won't be using any studs either. The roller rockers I have are pedestal mount. Glad to hear you found another motor though, hopefully this one doesn't have a crack in it, I would be pretty peeved to find that. I've been suprised by how many CFMs E7's can be made to flow with some port work. Theres a company called Thumper that has them flowing over 200 CFM at 5000 RPM if I remember correct. Pretty impressive for a stock head that's normally only used for scrap.

DAAAAAAAANG rob!!! looks really sweet man!!! nice work work and very clean lookin!!! i really like how you did your fogs in the front bumper...new tires look gud and the black bottom does too!! can't wait to get back up there and hang with you guys and get another bates burger!!! promise i'll come hungrier this time!!!! LOL!!!

Thanks Josh! Definitely make sure to let us all know next time your up in Michigan!

I got a couple more pieces for the motor. Got the paint for the block, just a little teaser. Got a lapper and some lapping compound so I can clean up the valves before they go back in permanently.
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And I scored a killer deal on the exact throttle body and egr spacer I was looking for! Its a BBK 70mm TB with matching spacer. Even came with a new EGR valve, IAC, TPS sensors!
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niiice. got my lapping compound in yesterday too!

Should be a good runnin motor.

Looks great!

Little bit of progress tonight on getting parts cleaned up. I tore the heads down completely. Here is a pic of the bare heads and all the junk I took off that won't be going back on!
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I started cleaning up all of the valves from the carbon deposits. I have read of people flow benching heads and gaining up to 5 cfm just from removing all of the carbon build up. There was quite a bit but after a little cleaning all of the valves look great.
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And a couple of pictures of the intake as it starts out. I removed all of the vacuum lines, many will get plugged up and the GF helped wire wheel the intake down to get all of the loose paint and junk off. Next i will work on grinding down the casting marks and sanding down the upper intake until its fairly smooth. I will also remove the explorers throttle cable bracket since it won't be used.
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Well i've been slowly working on the truck almost every night. I have all of the major components for the build now and I didn't have to buy anything for full price! Even got the new cam cheaper off ebay brand new! Tore the dashboard apart in order to take out the pedal assembly so I could change it from a clutch cable to a hydraulic setup. Also need to patch the hole in the firewall that is left from the clutch cable.

The motor and trans are out of the truck and sitting in the garage now. The engine is down to the short block and rotating assembly. The upper and lower intake have been ported and painted with the vac lines and new sensors hooked up. Had to drill and tap a couple of holes to get the new intake to work on my motor. Should be able to get alot of work done on it this weekend. Onto the pics!

Empty Engine Compartment. Fred Flinstone?
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UH someone broke into my truck....
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Shortblock
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Parts prepped for paint.
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No more red.
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Valve train parts!
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Ported and painted lower
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Clean Parts with old parts.
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how hard was the v8 swap? and about how much did it cost to swap it to a v8?

In short, not easy, not cheap. All depends on the setup. It can be done fairly cheap but i've taken alot of time to try and get everything right. I have had numerous problems with this truck and only in the last year has been reliable. Once this setups is done it should be great, lots of torque on a fresh setup with everything hooked up and decent mileage.