GATEWAY DRUG
The Gateway Performance Duo
The Gateway Performance Duo
WHEN DISCUSSING THE FORD F-100, most conversations tend to start with the mid-’50’s body that has been done successfully time and time again. However, custom builds are slowly trending more toward the trucks that came decades later: the bumpside and dentside bodies. These now-popular forms span two generations for Ford, and we find ourselves with a prime example of both gracing our special dual Gateway Performance cover this month. For a “static low” concept with performance and pro-touring style in mind for this issue’s theme, we couldn’t think of a better pair of restos to show off to the world, and these two really hit the target in more ways than one.
Let’s start with Nick Alfano’s 1973 Ford
F-100 Ranger XLT; Ford’s sixth generation F-series happened to be introduced in 1973. This generation continues on the foundation brought into production by its preceding two generations, but with some refinements. Most of these improvements, however, were made to the cabin of the truck. Meanwhile, chassis and drivetrain features stayed stale through decades of production, and perhaps that’s why Nick Alfano’s Ranger XLT draws us in.
For some of Nick’s older friends and family, it is no surprise to see him cruising around in an old dentside F-100. In fact, he’s always had a soft spot for these trucks and mentions it may come from his younger days of plowing snow for his uncle’s landscaping business. At the age of 16, Nick had a pretty stout truck to
drive around in. Rocking a 1978 F-150 outfitted with a plow and flatbed, Nick had been a truck guy from the beginning, but due to his day job as a product developer for Classic Design Concepts in Milford, Michigan, he found himself building muscle cars instead. Well, all that changed in the fall of 2017 when he picked up his long overdue truck project from a friend in Alabama.
As soon as he got the truck back to his home shop in Highland, Michigan, he started the restoration process, which he thought was going to be a quick, budget friendly build with mostly rebuilt parts and a few upgrades. That plan didn’t last very long after deciding to talk the build over with friends from Pypes Performance Exhaust. Before Nick knew it, he had signed on to build the truck for the SEMA Show debuting in less than a year’s time.
Knowing the goal, Nick spared no time tearing into the truck and started the chassis build with a whole new front suspension. Eliminating the primitive twin I-beam suspension and gear box in favor of a lightweight IFS and rack-and-pinion from a donor car, the front end of the chassis was treated to a complete Crown Vic swap. Most of these donor front assemblies are found on the 2003-2011 Ford full size sedan. Since these cars share a similar frame width, they are a highly popular swap for the F-100s. Along with those upgrades you also get a coilover shock, swaybar, disc brakes and a built-in 4- to 5-inch drop. Nick sourced a front-end install kit from Three Pedals to help make this swap much easier. Planning for bigger power, he also decided to conclude the front-end upgrades with a large set of Baer Pro Plus 14-inch rotors with six-piston calipers.
Moving to the rear suspension, a wellmatched upgrade was made to this F-100. The stock leafs and rear housing were dumped in favor of the new Gateway Performance Suspension F-100 threelink kit, which consists of a 9-inch Ford housing, axle shafts, JRI coilover shocks and, of course, the adjustable torque arm. Again, Nick upgraded the stopping power to Bear
Pro Plus 14-inch brakes to round out the look and feel of the performance machine he had in mind. Being a muscle car guy now, he knew he’d want a truck that could handle anything he could throw its way.
As soon as the chassis was finalized, Nick’s attention went directly to the body of this old Ford. The first thing he did was send the sheetmetal off to get chemically stripped and e-coated to protect it while they addressed the standard rust issues. While Nick said that the cab was actually in decent shape with good floor pans and cab corners, the cowl needed quite a bit of attention. Luckily, he was able to use a lot of the original parts, including both front fenders and the entire bed. The only other big issue with the sheetmetal came with the bed floor. After an exhausting effort, Nick finally found a replacement floor through National Parts Depot (NPD), along with a replacement hood and a few other small pieces. Nick wanted to use as many factory original parts as possible to guarantee he had a good final fit.
Moving swiftly along to the bodywork and paint, Nick decided to go with a traditional look and keep the factory Ford body lines, bumpers, grille and trim. The entire truck body was coated with a Medium Blue Poly from PPG, while pieces like the body trim, tailgate panel and grille were all coated in a custom blend to contrast the blue while not overpowering the chrome. Other pieces on the body, such as the Ford lettering and a custom “dentside” badge on the grille,
The memory of his childhood and him driving that old plow truck to high school stirred up a project more than 20 years in the making.
were color matched to the truck’s wheels and brakes. To update and brighten up the exterior one more step, Nick opted to upgrade all exterior lighting to
LEDs from J.W. Speaker in Germantown, Wisconsin.
With the chassis and body both coated and amassed, it was time to move into final assembly and install the drivetrain between the framerails. The power on this F-100 naturally comes from within the Ford family—a Foxbody this time. Using a 5L V-8 from a Mustang guarantees performance and reliability on this kind of build. Nick sourced out John Vermeersch’s Total Performance in
Mt. Clemens, Michigan, with the task of building the reliable heart for this project. With Ford Performance internals and a full roller assembly, they decided to make the engine a little more efficient by adding fuel injection atop the Edelbrock Air
Gap intake. A FAST XFI throttle body is trusted with this task and blends a prodigious combination of air and fuel to feed this beast efficiently. This combination expels the exhaust notes by none other than Pypes Performance Exhaust using its electric cutouts and Street Pro Mufflers to soothe the sounds on the fly. To mount the engine, Nick used some custom swap mounts from Outcast Autoworks and attached a built C4 transmission behind it to take the power from the V-8 to the John’s Industries 9-inch housing and axles. Coupled with a Grip Pro limited-slip differential from Powertrax, this truck should be an aggressive yet steadfast cruiser on the backroads of Michigan.
With the infamous SEMA deadline approaching, Nick found himself with only eight days to assemble the truck. Luckily he had the guys over at TMI Products in Corona, California, to produce the interior.
TMI’s F-100 product line was fairly new, however they did have quite a few pieces ready to go into production. Things like the headliner, dash pad, door panels and split bench seat were readily available and made Nick’s job much easier when it came to updating his F-100 guts with a tasteful and modern combination. The TMI products are wrapped in beautiful brown leather and tan microsuede materials to compliment the Medium Blue Poly of the metal cabin. To update the truck’s dash, Nick decided to build a custom panel for the
New Vintage USA gauges and further enhance its appearance by adding a retro radio by Retro Sounds—both helping to keep an updated stock appearance. To make the trips to work a little more pleasant, Nick decided to outfit the truck with a full Kicker Audio sound system, including, amplifier, subs and component speakers. Finishing out the interior are amenities such as the Ididit tilt column,
Billet Specialties Formula steering wheel and, of course, a Vintage Air HVAC system to control those varying temperatures throughout the year.
With all the hard work done, the last thing to check off the to-do list was bolt on the exotic looking Billet Specialties Toploader wheels. They were coated in Arizona Copper, a color given to them by Baer Brakes and the exact same hue used on the six-piston calipers, and it really sets off the appearance of this F-100. Casing the 20x9 and 20x10 rollers are a set of Pilot Sport by Michelin; staggering in a 255/40-20
and 285/35-20 respectively makes for an aggressive stance.
With only days left to finish out his project, Nick enlisted any and all friends who could turn a wrench to meet the deadline and show up in the Pypes Performace Exhaust booth for the SEMA Show. However, we all know that no SEMA project is complete without an “overcoming the odds” story, and Nick’s is no exception. With the clock ticking away, Nick found himself in a situation where he would need help to repaint portions of the truck due to the bed and cab not being properly fastened down and resulting in paint damage during transport. Fortunately, he had made a friend in Lonny from Gateway Classic Mustang and Gateway Performance Suspension, the same guys who built the rear suspension of the F-100. Gateway’s paint team was able to get the truck back in perfect condition and keep Nick’s SEMA debut on track.
With the SEMA Show now over, Nick has been able to get back to his shop and finish up all the small details. The memory of his childhood and him driving that old plow truck to high school stirred up a project more than 20 years in the making. We all go through a period in life when we look back to more simple times and reflect on the “good ole days,” when life seemed pressure-free and tangible objects like the vehicles on the road always seemed to have better style. It’s at this moment we find ourselves trying to relive or perhaps recreate what once was. Some people go through a mid-life crisis, but truck guys go through a restoration phase, a phase where we want to see the trucks we grew up with back on the roads and in our driveways. We want to remember our fathers or grandfathers the way they were and relive the innocence of just sitting on a bench seat staring over a simplistic dash and out the window at the landscape. Nick Alfano has managed to take that vision and build a combination of both modernized and classic to give you what you see here in these pages; and we are sure glad he did.
To say Lonny Childress has a little history in racing is to say Buddy Holly might have played a guitar or that Henry Ford might have influenced automakers— a complete understatement!
IT’S NO COINCIDENCE TO see a Ford bumpside attached to the name Lonny Childress. As a matter of fact, he’s no stranger to the brand at all. To say Lonny Childress has a little history in racing is to say Buddy Holly might have played a guitar or that Henry Ford might have influenced automakers—a complete understatement!
You may wonder why you’ve heard the name before or why it sounds so familiar. Well, if you’re between the ages of 35 and 50, then chances are you have seen Lonny in action, either in person or on television. You see, Lonny has always been into motorsports and started tooling around Mustangs at a young age. He had told his father there was money to be made restoring early Mustangs, dealing parts and flipping vehicles. But that’s not where he made a name for himself, at least not yet. Lonny Childress is a former driver of arguably the most famous Ford truck of our generation, a truck named “Bigfoot.” Heard of it? Yeah, us too.
After Lonny spent over a decade racing monster trucks, he turned to the familiar feeling of building Mustangs and started a business with his brother, Jason. In 1999, the brothers opened Gateway Classic Mustang in St. Louis, Missouri, and then moved the business to the small town of Bourbon, Missouri, where business really began
to flourish as they made a good name building chassis components for both early and late Mustangs.
Lonny admits he’s always had an eye for the Ford bumpside (1967-1972) and dentside (1973-1979) trucks but was so busy concentrating on the Mustang platform that he never made the time to build a hot rod truck. All that changed in the Spring of 2014 as he was running an errand for his parents and spotted a truck for sale just one town over. He stopped to look it over, made a deal and soon took it to his shop to begin the work. He admits it was a rough start, but he adds, “The truck was cheap, and it was there.”
Lonny noticed that these trucks were on the rise. He saw an opportunity to develop products for them and become one of the leaders in the performance classic truck market.
The truck sat as a backburner project for almost two years and, unfortunately, few hours were dedicated to it. He mostly just tinkered around on the weekends here and there. Lonny, his brother Jason and his cousin Dave soon started the restoration process by attacking the sheetmetal and rust repair. At this point they enlisted the help of Dennis Carpenter Restoration
Parts to repair things like the cab corners, cab floor,
fenders, bed sides, tailgate and grille. The biggest part of the metal restoration process came when Lonny had to find a way to restore the bed floor. He says no one made a replacement, so he had to get creative and make one himself by using a floor from a later truck and transferring all the bed floor rails over to it. If that wasn’t enough labor, he had to reshape the floor where each mounting bolt went through since they were on opposing elevations from the older bed floor to the newer. This process proved to be quite a lengthy one.
The truck saw little progress over the next couple of years, and that’s when Lonny decided to set a deadline and finish the truck. Being no stranger to pressure, he contacted some of his long-supporting sponsors and decided the truck would make its debut at the SEMA show as well.
Now that the deadline was set, it was time to really dial in the project’s foundation. Of course, this being Lonny’s specialty, he found comfort in knowing this process would be much easier and rewarding. The front end of the chassis starts with a familiar Crown Vic swap from a donor car. Gateway Performance Suspension now has a frontend install kit to make this swap much easier and fool proof. Swapping out the primitive twin I-beam suspension and gear box in favor of the lightweight IFS and rack-and-pinion is simply a no brainer these days. While this method may not be the ultimate chassis mod, it is definitely fabricator friendly and gives you the most bang for your buck. And with companies like Gateway Performance Suspension making it that much easier, it surely is the way to go without breaking the bank on a whole new chassis. Lonny went on to upgrade the suspension with the company’s Crown Vic coilover conversion kit and a double adjustable coilover shock by JRI Shocks, as well as a large set of Baer Pro Plus 14-inch brakes.
Moving to the rear suspension, a familiar upgrade was made to this F-100. The stock leaves and rear housing were dumped in favor of the new Gateway Performance Suspension F-100 threelink kit, which consists of a 9-inch Ford housing, axle shafts, JRI coilover shocks and, of course, the adjustable torque arm. This Gateway Suspension setup eliminates the inherent axle hop under hard acceleration and replaces it with a sturdy super long torque arm and coilover shock. Again, Lonny upgraded the coilovers to double adjustable
JRI Shocks and left the stopping power out back with another pair of Bear Pro Plus 14-inch brakes. This type of suspension provides Lonny with the confidence to attack any corner on a road course or conversely being able to
launch off the line at a drag strip. This is a tried-and-true combination for Lonny, as it is a similar suspension upgrade offered on their Mustang kits. With several suspension options and upgrades available through Gateway Performance Suspension, the truck was dialed in with what Lonny considers a very streetable truck that can also get around a track with ease.
With the chassis and suspension dialed, Lonny and the Gateway Suspension Performace team took this opportunity to develop a Coyote to Crown Vic motor mount kit. Being no stranger to FoMoCo power, Lonny opted to go for an engine offered by Ford Performance only by crate. The Aluminator 52XS is a naturally aspirated 5.2L cross-plane crankshaft engine. With a rating of 580 horsepower and 445 ft-lbs of torque, this Aluminator is the most powerful naturally aspirated modular engine ever offered by Ford Performance. Furthermore, every
Aluminator is hand assembled by the same technicians that build the Mustang Cobra Jet drag racing engines. With Manley H-beam connecting rods, Mahle forged pistons, forged steel crank, CNC ported heads and, of course, ARP bolts holding it all together, it’s no wonder why the exmonster truck racer chose this power plant. Regulating all this power is no easy task, so Lonny decided to install a man pedal and let a TremecT56 six-speed do the work. Known for their low first gear and
.50 final overdrive gear ratio, this transmission serves as a great tool to harness that Aluminator power and transfer it to a set of 3.89 gears paired with the 31-spline axles in the 9-inch rear housing all provided by John’s Industries in Caspian, Michigan.
When it came time for Lonny to choose a set of wheels for his bumpside, no off the shelf design would do. So, he enlisted the help of Curtis Speed Equipment to help him come up with a one-off design that would set his truck apart from the rest, measuring 20x9 inches up front and 20x11 out
back. He then covered them in the Pilot Sport by Michelin, staggering them in a 255/40-20 and 305/30-20 respectively. Since he went with the Crown Vic hub up front, he decided to stay with that stock Ford car bolt pattern and matched the rear to the same 5x4.5-inch pattern.
With all the important work done under the truck, it was now time to give the body and interior the same respect. Even though Lonny is a chassis guy, he still wants to look good going down the highway. With help from Gateway Mustang’s Jimmy Collins, they were able to handle the paint work, coating the entire truck in a Hot Hues Firecracker Red by Axalta. With the body dripping in red, Lonny turned to United Pacific to outfit the complete exterior of the truck with some of its LED lighting. Additionally, the factory trim was put back on the truck to detail the body just like the factory intended. Perhaps one of the more subtle mods to this truck is the smooth rear roll pan outfitted with a hidden hitch, just in case a truck has to do truck things.
Not to overthink the interior and risk dating it, Lonny decided to stick with the classic lines and add just a little bit of race inspiration by way of aftermarket steering wheel, long stem shifter handle and a pair of Recaro race seats wrapped in leather. The rest of the interior, also covered in black leather, was crafted by Tim Barrett from Autotailors in St. Peters, Missouri. Tim also built a custom headliner, door panels and kick panels, all paying homage to the original look of the F-100. Inside some of those panels rests the audio system controlled by the Custom Autosound head unit and the Kicker CXA 6001 amplifier. The beat comes by way of Kicker component speakers and a Kicker Comp R 10-inch sub. To continue the classic style Lonny sent off the original gauge cluster to Classic Instruments where they completely restored and updated the unit to deliver the modern drivetrain’s vitals. Inside temperatures are being handled by a Vintage Air system, and to make things even more comfortable, a tilt Ididit column with cruise control was installed. Some interiors are just made to keep you inside them.
In the end, Lonny Childress was wise to build a truck whose presence in the custom automotive world is just now emerging. He states that building this truck is a great way to tap into the Ford truck market and hopes to grow the footprint that Gateway Performance Suspension has on the world of aftermarket performance and suspension upgrades. Lonny Childress mentioned a special thanks to David Childress, Mike White and Mark Thomure for the help during this project. It’s great seeing such knowledgeable guys with bitchin’ pasts building real parts for real hot rods, we know we haven’t heard the last from these guys, stay tuned for more!