CUSTOM: FAVOURITE FORDS
HERE ARE EIGHT OF THE FINEST CUSTOM FORD BUILDS YOU’LL FIND ROAMING THE COUNTRY.
THE FORD Ranger is a favourite among Australian fourwheelers, ever-popular on the sales charts – going tit-for-tat with the Hilux for best-selling 4x4 for a good part of the last five years. It’s no surprise then that there’s a smorgasbord of aftermarket equipment readily available for the Blue Oval fourbie, and no doubt you’ve seen plenty of accessorised Rangers popping in and out of your favourite campsites. Over the past couple of years, we’ve drooled over some of the finest Ranger builds in the country – so we decided to list a bunch of our favourites. In addition, it’d be remiss of us to catalogue our favourite Ford custom builds without mentioning a couple of ridiculously good F-250s, as well as a neat and tidy Everest Trend.
WHEN this Ranger rolled into the Diesel Leaders garage, its standard 3.2-litre inline five-cylinder engine had seen its last day. An option raised by the rig’s anonymous owner was to slot in a V8 as a replacement, so the Diesel Leader team – led by Gary Coleman – got to work.
One of the only stipulations enforced by the owner was that the new V8 had to look factory in the bay, so that meant a Ford engine was the only option, with the team nodding toward a supercharged Ford Coyote V8 good for 335kw and 570Nm in stock form. As that engine had been powering a number of hi-po Falcons in Australia, it was easy to come by. To prevent a mountain of additional work, the Falcon’s sixspeed auto was the transmission of choice.
Perhaps the biggest challenge of this build was fitting the large V8 petrol guzzler in to the Ranger’s space-limited engine bay, and then fitting the Falcon transmission in to the Ranger’s transfer case – a job eventually performed by Rage Engineering in Queensland. Another huge challenge was fitting the custom exhaust system, a job ticked off by a different local company. It was this cutting and matching of aftermarket parts with standard fitments that consumed plenty of time in the shed.
On a dyno run the V8 was said to smash out 344kw, with the potential to generate considerably more power if desired.
The V8 may be the hero of this build, but the Ranger has some serious modifications for off-road work including lifted suspension courtesy of heavy-duty springs and Bilstein dampers. Other kit includes a Rhino 4x4 bash plate, 35X12.50R20LT Nitto Grappler M/TS wrapped around KMC Wheels’ satin black XD820 Grenade rims, and a Rhino 4x4 Evolution 3D front winch bar (with aluminium bash plate).