2002 Ford Super Duty 7.3L & 1989 Dodge Truck - Project Garage

  |   2002 Ford Super Duty ford Front View Ultimate Super DutyOriginally built for the '02 Ultimate Adventure that 4-Wheel & Off-Road magazine puts on, our '02 7.3L , four-wheel-drive Ford is one of the few big diesels out there built for extreme off-roading. Right now, that's the problem: the truck has developed a serious death wobble that happens randomly at speeds of about 40 mph and above. The truck bounces so badly our vision starts to blur, and you can actually look out the back window and see the truck bed shaking to the point where it looks like it's going to come off. The Ultimate Super Duty is being upgraded in hopes of future trail duties, but unfortunately, it's now sitting until we solve our suspension woes. Project 12-valveIn our first article, we installed a new transmission so we could pump up the power without throwing parts and pieces everywhere. The next phase of our mission is fueling, and we just received boxes with a new fuel plate, governor springs, and injectors, so look for all that stuff to go into the engine on page 170. We'll be way overfueled, but we'll have fun, and we should make some good power. After that, we'll do it right and add a new turbo and intercooler. Stay tuned. Project Rust BucketRemember when we said we were eventually going to swap a 12-valve into something lighter to make a drag truck? That plan was ditched for various reasons. The cost of such a project wouldn't have been cheap, and we also had to deal with emissions because we were going to do it in California if we wanted to swap the engine into something newer. Eventually, we decided to just get a regular cab, first-generation Dodge and ended up finding a three-color (if rust and primer count as colors)'89 Dodge for a measly $2,700.