Found Dustin's Old Truck

05wh250 · Oct 23, 2016

Dzchey21 said:
In the bed? I made plates to attach the bars to and used the factory bed bolts

Yes. Looking to put a cage in a regular cab and would like the option to lift the cab still.

powerstrokedkid87 · Oct 23, 2016

Just what Dustin said just keep in mind it won't be 100% legal if it's not welded

05wh250 · Oct 24, 2016

powerstrokedkid87 said:
Just what Dustin said just keep in mind it won't be 100% legal if it's not welded

Right, the closest track to me requires you to have a roll bar if you run faster than a 7.50, it won't be a full tech.

getstroked27 · Oct 24, 2016

It's not about passing tech. it's about making sure you don't die or turn yourself into a permanent vegetable if you wreck.

powerstrokedkid87 · Oct 24, 2016

getstroked27 said:
It's not about passing tech. it's about making sure you don't die or turn yourself into a permanent vegetable if you wreck.

this.....

well be welding this cage in over the winter time

getstroked27 · Oct 24, 2016

Back when I was starting my first lead fabricator job at a hot rod shop, the owner was checking out my first job. german cup car spec cages in brand new Porsche racecars. he asked me "would you crash this car"? I said fuuuuuuck no, this is worth more than my life. He said no, would you feel comfortable crashing this car as it sits. Would you push this car to it's limits and never even think I hope i don't crash" I said yeah, i would feel safe crashing this car. He said good. ask yourself that everytime you finish a job. if the answer is ever "no", you need to cut it apart and start over. because at the end of the day, the drivers safety is relying on your build quality. so **** making it easy to get into, **** worrying about being able to lift the cab, just worry about not dying.

Dzchey21 · Oct 24, 2016

When i put the cage in there was very little info on that. From what we found as long as we had the cage attached to the frame and the plates were bolted with 4 bolts we were ok. At the time there were a lot of trucks running the cage welded to the body and no to the frame. I felt better about mine then others that were going much faster. It might not be right now but that was shoot... 4 years ago? I get your point tho safety first. IMO the trucks are very safe anyway the cage is a big help but they are heavy so no rules are good enough IMO.

05wh250 · Oct 24, 2016

I understand everyone's concern and the safety aspect of this subject. I'm alot of work away from actually starting the cage, I saw they were still able to lift the cab, and it seemed like nice option, so I asked. If I finally get into this project it will be welded in place. But I would like to thank you all on responding and your knowledge on this subject.

lincolnlocker · Oct 29, 2016

getstroked27 said:
Back when I was starting my first lead fabricator job at a hot rod shop, the owner was checking out my first job. german cup car spec cages in brand new Porsche racecars. he asked me "would you crash this car"? I said fuuuuuuck no, this is worth more than my life. He said no, would you feel comfortable crashing this car as it sits. Would you push this car to it's limits and never even think I hope i don't crash" I said yeah, i would feel safe crashing this car. He said good. ask yourself that everytime you finish a job. if the answer is ever "no", you need to cut it apart and start over. because at the end of the day, the drivers safety is relying on your build quality. so **** making it easy to get into, **** worrying about being able to lift the cab, just worry about not dying.

very very good analogy right there!!!

live life full throttle

god bless america and the farmer who feeds your fat ass

powerstrokedkid87 · Nov 14, 2016

time for a little update on this one....

went ahead and pulled the valve covers. we found exactly what we expected which was 2broken rocker arms

unfortunately we also found what we were expecting which was oil and coolant mixing. we ripped the heads off the truck Friday night, gasket looked perfect, heads looked to be ok, they will be sent off to the machine shop this week. if they don't find anything we will most likely be pulling the block out of the truck. some time mid September I noticed some coolant seeping from one of the head studs so well be spending this winter fixing that and tweaking the truck a little bit more. sucks to have this with a brand new Ford block but were hoping for the best...

Dzchey21 · Nov 14, 2016

Just seal them up no need to throw the block out. ARP makes sealant for that. Old Chevy engines used to have coolant running up the bolt holes all the time. Not a big deal.

BOSS450 · Nov 14, 2016

What did you tq studs to?

And what was your bp?

powerstrokedkid87 · Nov 15, 2016

Dzchey21 said:
Just seal them up no need to throw the block out. ARP makes sealant for that. Old Chevy engines used to have coolant running up the bolt holes all the time. Not a big deal.

this was the original plan, we sealed the three middle studs on each side, but I found coolant coming up the rear stud hole on the driver side, back and forth between taking a change and sealing all the studs again or pulling the motor and checking the entire thing. heads are headed to the machine shop first but well have to make a decision soon on what we want to try and do. but our biggest issue was the oil and coolant mixing under the valve covers. only thing we can see as the possibility is the bottom of that stud hole has a crack in it which is hard to believe since we filled the bottom 1/3 of the block to help alleviate this some frustration setting in, but were not stopping with it.

BOSS450 said:
What did you tq studs to?

And what was your bp?

studs were torqued to a1 spec, I believe 190 id have to go back and check I don't recall off hand but it was done as per the a1 specifications.

as far as back pressure, never got a chance to put the gauge on it but I will say this truck has dripped after a heavy run every time since we put it together.

Wayne · Nov 15, 2016

That stinks on the cracked block thing. I had a string of bad luck on that with my old red '08. The original block did it when I did studs one at a time, then when I built the new motor, the same thing happened, even with sufficient teflon paste on every stud. I was incredibly careful too. The only reasonable solution I found was BG p/n 511 cooling system sealer. A couple bottles of that, following directions exactly did it for me. I still have the motor. The oil cooler is still good, and the cooling system is still sealed. I've only put 25K on it since then, but since you've already got it torn down... It is possible Ford will warranty the block unless you did a bunch of machining on it.

powerstrokedkid87 · Nov 15, 2016

Wayne said:
That stinks on the cracked block thing. I had a string of bad luck on that with my old red '08. The original block did it when I did studs one at a time, then when I built the new motor, the same thing happened, even with sufficient teflon paste on every stud. I was incredibly careful too. The only reasonable solution I found was BG p/n 511 cooling system sealer. A couple bottles of that, following directions exactly did it for me. I still have the motor. The oil cooler is still good, and the cooling system is still sealed. I've only put 25K on it since then, but since you've already got it torn down... It is possible Ford will warranty the block unless you did a bunch of machining on it.

all I have so far is the heads off, im torn back and forth I would had to put this whole thing together and still have a problem, on the other hand if I pull the motor and send the block out, its possible they wont be able to find any crack.

Right now im leaning towards sealing the studs and putting it back together and see what happens. in 500 miles it didn't mix that much, oil looked almost clean slight milk look but to someone not looking for it, never would have seen it. only real mess is under the valve covers.

its either that or line hone and bore another block I have fill it and try this whole thing again.

with the fill and being .10 over I don't think they will even consider it.

sootie · Nov 15, 2016

on the next one why not try standard ARP studs torqued to the values that dont crack blocks, and do o-rings for insurance?

powerstrokedkid87 · Nov 15, 2016

sootie said:
on the next one why not try standard ARP studs torqued to the values that dont crack blocks, and do o-rings for insurance?

heads a ported and polished with O-rings, thought about the ARP studs these were suppose to be a little better from what I was told when we laid everything out for this build, since the torque on these I believe is somewhere around 190 compared to the 270 that ARP wants, I figure these would be better ontop of sealing the middle 3 studs I figured we had all the bases covered.

it seems a cracked block here is the issue, not bad gaskets. as much as we have tried to no cut corners on this build and it was essentially built without a budget.

sootie · Nov 15, 2016

powerstrokedkid87 said:
heads a ported and polished with O-rings, thought about the ARP studs these were suppose to be a little better from what I was told when we laid everything out for this build, since the torque on these I believe is somewhere around 190 compared to the 270 that ARP wants, I figure these would be better ontop of sealing the middle 3 studs I figured we had all the bases covered.

it seems a cracked block here is the issue, not bad gaskets. as much as we have tried to no cut corners on this build and it was essentially built without a budget.

ah makes sense. I think the ARP studs may be a softer material than the ones you used. Believe me-i can understand the frustration as I had the same thing happen to the block in my old truck. Morgan @ Midwest put a new block in and followed his torque sequence and there were no issues (with blocks cracking lol) after that. May want to see what he does.

BOSS450 · Nov 15, 2016

My arps have been tq to 250. And are on their 5th tq. No problems at 1500 hp

bigrpowr · Nov 15, 2016

BOSS450 said:
My arps have been tq to 250. And are on their 5th tq. No problems at 1500 hp

yikes .. shouldn't have said that !

yeah i had a set of h-11 last thru a bunch of builds .. only 1200 hp though . switched to 625's for safety and those bastards cracked the block .