RED RACER
Ready to Speed Down the Drag Strip
Ready to Speed Down the Drag Strip
CLIFF FRIEND, OWNER OF this rather rowdy 1966 Ford F-100, lives in Sparta, North Carolina. It just so happens this is about 100 miles from Concord, home of Charlotte Motor Speedway’s zMAX Dragway. Described as the “Bellagio of drag strips,” this four-lane, all-concrete track hosts two amazing race weekends for motorsports enthusiasts—the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in the spring and the NHRA Carolina Nationals in the fall.
It’s no wonder that Friend tends to prefer the drag racer rumble in his own ride.
“I built this truck because I love the slicks and the Pro Street look,” says Friend, who’s retired and enjoying his Golden Years in style—the kind of style we ourselves hope to enjoy someday.
Let’s start our tour of this mean F-100 with a walk around the outside. Painted a smokin’-hot Race Red by Phil Somers of American Super Car Inc. (ASC) in Spring Hill, Florida, Friend’s truck features LMC grille and bumpers in shiny chrome. Other custom bodywork includes a side exhaust through the bed quarter panel.
Inside the cab, customized TMI upholstery and bucket seats in black vinyl with red baseball stitching echo the racetrack vibe. Gauges from AutoMeter keep tabs on the truck’s vitals, while a steering wheel from Grant gives Friend the control he needs to keep all four wheels on the road (when he wants to, that is). The F-100 has no stereo—who needs one when your motor’s raring, right?—but it does have an ASC rollcage, just in case things get a little squirrely.
I built this truck because I love the slicks and the Pro Street look.
Holding everything together is a ’66 F-100 frame. The mods, which were also done by ASC, include adding a chassis engine front clip and Applied Racing Technology rear ladder bar setup. Front and rear springs and shocks are all QA1, and the power rack steering box is made by Flaming River. The Weld Racing ProStar wheels, 15x6- and 15x14-inch wides, are wrapped in Hoosier rubber.
Now let’s get to the good stuĢ: that powerplant under the hood. To give this truck the torque and muscle it needs to get its front tires oĢ the ground (yes, the truck sports a wheelie bar), Friend had the good folks at Ford Performance in Detroit build the 2019 Ford V-8, 562 ci engine. He used stainless headers, 2-inch primary and 3 ½-inch collector, with front and mid plates, along with H-beam connecting rods, forged pistons with an 11:0 compression ratio and a forged stroker crank. It has a Ford Performance camshaft, Ford Performance Cobra Jet heads and Eldelbrock intake manifold. For fuel injection, Friend
installed a Holley Super Sniper EFI, and for exhaust, he uses the Flowmaster Series 10.
“Other engine mods include a serpentine belt, one-wire alternator and high-flow water pump,” Friend tells us. “But the fuel injection install was the easiest part of the build.”
The transmission in this ’66 F-100 is a Lentech AOD. To swap it out, he required a custom trans mount—but that’s not all he needed.
“We had to do a complete upgrade to all the trans internals to handle the power and torque of motor,” Friend says.
With all the transmission work done by Lentech, he went with the company’s shift kit, a TCI Outlaw shifter, a Lentech torque converter with a stall speed of 3,500 rpm, and modifications to the clutch, bands and valve body. The driveshaft U-joint mods include a 1350 front and rear with a Strange front yoke. The rear drive axle is a 4.88 Strange aluminum center section with TDS modular 9-inch housing. For brakes, Friend chose disc brakes in the front and drum in the rear, with a Wilwood master cylinder.
The one problem Friend encountered was the oil pan clearance on the front crossmember. It was an easy fix: “I just installed a new oil pan,” he says.
It only took eight months and a good chunk of retirement change to build this wild Pro Street Ford. Friend has shown it off at the Daytona Turkey
Rod Run, the Spring Opener in Ocala, Florida, and the Spring Car Show at Streetside. We don’t know about you, but it definitely sounds like a great way to spend retirement—and the 401K. Added to the shopping list!