GoFastBroncos.com

Finish it an have fun with it and "fix" things you don't like as you use it. I myself am in a similar position, my bronco has been an 8 year project. Over the last 8 years I have gotten MUCH better at building race cars. I look at things I did 5 years ago and want to re-do them. I decided about 6 months ago I am just going to finish the damn thing, and I know when I'm behind the wheel I am going to love it. If you start a trophy truck now, your going to look at an unfinished trophy truck 5 years down the road and want to start a ranger because the trophy truck is too expensive/taking too long to build/not going to be competitive.

Stick with it! Finish it! Post pics!

Did you guys read about the BJ Baldwin motor? He calims his freshened motor is dynoed prior to every race and has 80K invested for each one (I wonder how many he has?). For sure its not built off a 302 base block. No info on size, but now that Ford sells a 351w base engine at 427 I bet the Baldwin motor is bigger?
No wonder TTs cost so much. Now I am reading that Robby is using a 6 speed Auto and not breaking it. Wonders will never cease. Now all the TT guys will be scrambling for the latest and greatest tranny. Guys tell us what it is?
PaulW

ESHALLBETTER wrote:Finish it an have fun with it and "fix" things you don't like as you use it. I myself am in a similar position, my bronco has been an 8 year project. Over the last 8 years I have gotten MUCH better at building race cars. I look at things I did 5 years ago and want to re-do them. I decided about 6 months ago I am just going to finish the damn thing, and I know when I'm behind the wheel I am going to love it. If you start a trophy truck now, your going to look at an unfinished trophy truck 5 years down the road and want to start a ranger because the trophy truck is too expensive/taking too long to build/not going to be competitive.

Stick with it! Finish it! Post pics!

So I suppose it's normal the each one of us is our own biggest critic.

Yep! I started this project about 10 years ago and abandoned it to build my bronco because it would be "quicker" to build.

I remember that truck Erik. Built about the same time I was building my snowball...!
Same thing happened to me - looking back on this there is a bunch I would change. And I didn't even get that far along!






Funny. I picked up my '74 Supercab to throw a bunch of autofab parts I had lying around on & have a play toy I could actually drive until I finished the ranger and other projects. Problem is I bought a non running truck & it never came to life because of that. Too many irons in the fire as usual so it got no time. It sat here for a few years while I did a little bit on it here & there but I couldn't justify spending a bunch of time on it if I wasn't going to do it "right", so it didn't get much done...

Now it has been sold, the ranger above is going to the buddy who helped me build it and I'm chomping at the bit to buy something else and start my next brain fart!
I've got a good plan (in my feeble mind that is) and WILL get a running truck that I can build from this time, but I know it's still going to take a LOT longer than I want/plan to get built like I want.

Now if I can just keep talking myself out of buying that project until a couple others I have are done...


So with all that rambling done - I agree with this!

Kel Fab Creations wrote:I say finish it. Enough to take it out at least. Race it however often you can afford. If you get rid of it and build a TT you'll be in the same position in 10 years.

Get the thing running & have a toy to play with. If you start a TT it won't be done any time soon - no matter what you tell yourself! Or at least that's the way it works with me...

Gunit is spot on with the TT specs, we are building one right now and it's been daunting to say the least.


You should change your original question, what you what is a tube chassis play car, with a truck body. That's something you can build for 50 grand, a TT is about triple that to start!

Travisfab wrote:Gunit is spot on with the TT specs, we are building one right now and it's been daunting to say the least.


You should change your original question, what you what is a tube chassis play car, with a truck body. That's something you can build for 50 grand, a TT is about triple that to start!

Ya your right Travis. But at the same time guys remember before the 13 inch ring gear there was a 9inch, before the 3inch snout there was a 2.5. U get the point, I guess it would better fall into 7200 or some other class by comparison standards. But by what ever the correct name would be that was the question. Bulk head design, a arm, 4 link race legal play car with a truck body and solid axel rear. Limping along at 4 to 500hp max, And non dry sump ect.

Question rephrased: should I finish my 1450 or scrap it and build a toy?

Finish and use as a toy

finish it. use it as a toy or race it. sportsman or 1450.
there is nothing there that is useful for a competitive modern trophy truck.
and if a trophy truck is not competitive then it's just a toy and you already have one of those, just finish it!

Hehehe....??? It would be cool, sigh

Brenthel has never won a major trophy truck race. Stick to Geiser unless you have more money to spend than what one of those cost.
The cheapest part of racing is the race car purchase...

Playing devil's advocate here...

Brenthel hasn't been offering TT chassis as long or doesn't have as many chassis out there as Geiser though - right....?




But yes, hard to beat a Geiser built truck

I just threw that pic up cause that's the type of toy I had pondered building, I can't buy one outright gieser or otherwise lol but ya gieser's are hard to beat. I was thinking a 4 door toy truck, a lot easier to build that than work around stock anything as a starting platform.

4 doors are nice - especially if you have a family, or buddies who want to ride along.

My next build (how can I say that with 2-3 others going currently) will be a 4 door play toy, and will be based off a stock type platform. A beefy, best of all worlds one (in my opinion at least) at that.

Seems like the best way to keep cost down and fun level up. You could probably do the same using what you've got there, but it would set you back a bit time wise for sure.

I contacted Fiberwerx about building a raptor or new f150 body with 4 doors similar to the Chevy above, they said they start with their standard trophy truck body and cut and custom merge 2 panels, they said it was custom and that bodies like that they don't have off the shelf molds for. So translation big money body depending of the man hours involved in construction fit and finish.

Just finish it and have some fun with it. Then decide what you are gonna do with it.

Ya I'm going to, I'm gonna bust out the saws all n start redoing the stuff I don't like, I'm not going to rebuild everything but will correct a few things. Get the trans over to tranny mike in Beaumont n start fabbing the exhaust. With any luck I may have some footage to share this winter.

Moving forward on this? If nothing else, you can take the truck out on weekends and have an absolute blast with it.

Finish your 1450 and enter it in TT short course races for a taste ?

Parted it out and sold most of the goodies since this post. Sadly not enough space to finish it and store or use the machinery I have now in my garage. If I had shop space it would have been finished by now or I would have built a second chassis for it.