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The original steering box needed attention. I found a low mileage steering box from a NBS 4X4 truck and it bolted in place of the old style box. The steering shafts for the NBS box and OBS box were different. I cut both shafts somewhere in the middle and welded them together to make an adapter shaft. The NBS box feels much nicer to drive, and it saves about 5 pounds of weight.
I used an OBS pitman arm on the NBS box. The splines of the box which mates to the spline of the pitman arm has either 3 or 4 clocking splines. I don't remember which combination I have, but its something to be aware of.
A steering rack swap would be fantastic. It looks like a tough swap in an OBS truck due to the shape of the front frame crossmember. A member on this forum (Bellflower?) had a steering rack in his OBS and he sent me pictures, but they were so unclear I couldn't see what frame mods he had done. That's the only example of a rack and pinion OBS swap I'm aware of.
The stock steering components on these trucks are very heavy. A rack would have so many benefits. If you do it, post it up.
This summer I committed to the local Outlaw 10.50 racing series at New England Dragway. True Street.(12.50 Index). Its been more fun and competitive than I could have imagined. Great group of racers in this class. Two more races this season and then I'll put the truck away for winter. I have a few mods planned for the winter of 2018/19 and I'll definitely be back for the 2019 season of Outlaw 10.50 at NED.
For the 2019 season of Outlaw 10.50, I plan to stay in the 12.50 time index. The "10.50" in Outlaw 10.50 designates max tire width of 10.50 inches.
Mods for this winter are pretty simple. TBSS intake, 90mm throttle body, 36 pound/hour injectors and returnless fuel system. If I have time, I would like to mount the fuel cell under the bed.
Man, what a cool build. I had never run across this build thread before, and I just finished reading through the whole thing. Very jealous of your machining capabilities. Those kinds of details are the things that make builds stand out. Keep it up!
I just finished reading this thread through also. Love it! I really liked those SS454 trucks when they came out; loved the look yours had with those rims; but the new ones look really nice also!
Back in June I was struggling with making consistent 1/4 mile runs which is critical in Index racing. The data logs showed a bit of knock retard and very high intake air temperatures. My air filter was behind the headlight, yet still drawing the majority of its air from the warm engine bay. On a 85F degree day, my intake air temps would be 115F at the starting line, and decline to ambient as I approached the 1/4 mile stripe. To combat this, I made an aluminum airbox around the air fliter to force the inlet air from infront of the radiator support. I used weather stripping from a Ford Explorer liftgate to seal the aluminum to the radiator support, inner fender liner and fender. The blue seal between the box and tube is an old electrical safety glove cuff.
I opened up behind the headlight as large as I could and drilled 8, 1.25 inch holes in the rad support top to bottom. Headlight is removed for racing.
The results of this were very positive. Before the airbox, My IAT was about 30 degrees above ambient when sitting at the starting line. With the airbox, My IAT's are no more that 5 degrees above ambient and knock retard is zero. This has reduced my 1/4 mile times by 2 tenths and gained the consistency I need. We all look at the weather data before a pass, its meaningless unless you can control the air temp at the filter.
Looks impressive! I have a'97 C1500 project going on currently. Will be doing a 4 bar suspension this winter but will most likely get a back half weld in kit. Not a crafty as you in designing and fabricating - very nice!
Do you still happen to have the dimensions of that dash cluster you made? I will be doing a conversion similar to that this winter as well.
Again, nice work my friend!
Attached find the drawings for the gauge cluster. Lots of people have asked for them, so here they are. Old 2D drawings from back in the day and I scanned them into PDF with my phone.
All the dimensions are from center datum, Cartesian coordinates.
09-22-2018, 08:12 PM
NBS Steering Box
