Hey everyone, since only a few of us build our trucks to tear up the canyons and crush the autocross. Thought it be fun to share my build of O'betty's transformation from and old work truck to a handling machine!

 

First thing did was lower her about 3inches all the way around. 3inch blocks in rear and relaxed the torsion bars up front. I will say I was worried about there being issues with the handling by lowering it this way. But unfortunately she is a low budget build so was best financially.

 

I have went ahead and replaced all the shocks with shorter larger bore shocks. I went from 19inch shocks (stock) to 15inch shocks. when truck was lowered 3inches is caused the stock shocks to pretty much bottom out. This ment they were not doing there job and made for an incredibly harsh ride. Not mentioned she didn't handle very well either. I did however run into some issues (minor) when installing my front shocks. Because of the larger bore size I had to install the shocks on the top of the control arm rather then through the bottom. (See pic) But once I changed the shocks wow what a difference. Brought the handling to life. Suspension is stiff and very responsive.

 

Just replaced my old two piston calipers with some new 4 piston calipers. I did some research and found the 4 piston 4x4 calipers was a direct bolt on. And new I got them for only about $30 a caliber. Great low budget upgrade. I have in the mean time just put new stock rotors and pads but saving up and am gonna replace them with some stop tech rotors and ceramic pads soon.

 

Not a performance upgrade but still fun and awesome. I sticker bombed my driver front fender. Long time ago before I got her the driver side fender was damaged and so when my buddy replaced the fender and just sprayed canned it red so it didn't match the truck lol. So I was watching a youtube video on making a car have street cred and they sticker bombed different parts of the car. So I decided what the hell gonna sticker bomb my fender. I think it looks pretty cool and gives her character. Used a matte finish over the stickers to help with the elements.

 

Put a new shift knob and threw a panda sticker on her. Panda are my thing lol. She now has an awesome 5 star dragonball shift knob.

 

Looks like a pretty straight body. Shouldve left the mismatched colored fender. These trucks have enough street cred without the sticker bombing lol.

 

Lol I didn't do it for street cred I did it because I think it looks sexy. Body is decently straight but she has her fair share of rust and speed holes.

 

Love this dude! The end goal for my truck is an autocrosser to an extent so it's nice to see!

 

Got my rims in today. Crager Soft 8's, fronts are 17x8 with 4.5 inch back spacing wrapped in 215 45 and 17x9 in rear with 5inch back spacing wrapped in 245 45. Also put 2 1/4inch piping from the cat back with a old Flowmaster muffler I had from my mustangs old exaust.

 

Some better pics of the wheels

 

Nice truck totally dig the sticker fender. Where did you get those shocks? I'm looking to lower my 78 and looking for ideas for the front as for the back i'm going to use some blocks. And the caliper?