1997 Ford Ranger PreRunner - Race Ranger

Four lights up top compliment the matching two on the front bumper. Illumination comes from Vision X HID lamps. The top four reside on a fabricated light bar that's adjustable. A small onboard camera rides under the bar to record some of the race action from a driver point of view. The top of the aluminum dash uses Dzus fasteners to allow for easy access to any of the wiring components.

The rear axle offers about 26 inches of wheel travel. Outboard limit straps keep the axle from dropping out too far and causing extension top-out on the shocks.

Here's a look inside one of the Hannemann Fiberglass rear fenders. You can see the King bypass shock mounted to the trailing arm, just to the rear of the coilover shock. The truck also uses a FST sway bar in back to help keep the axle from articulating too wildly when the truck is bouncing off the terrain.

The stock ladder frame was cut off the truck under the cab and the back half of the truck completely rebuilt in chromoly tubing. Tucked inside the rear tubular chassis is a Jaz 32-gallon steel fuel cell. A Bosch electric fuel pump keeps the go juice plumbed and pressurized to feed the V8 motor under the hood.

Dampening at each corner is handled with a trio of King Suspension components. It starts with a 14-inch dual-rate coilover, backed up with a 16-inch 2.5-inch three-tube bypass shock, and then the final component is a 4-inch travel air bump on each corner. Total front travel is about 22 inches.

The rear axle is a trussed Ford 9-inch holding a full spool with 4.56 gears. The plan is to move to 5.43 gears when the axle is soon upgraded to a full-floater for greater strength and reliability. OEM Ford discs slow the rear tires when the brake pedal is mashed. Here you can see the upper triangulated links that meet on top of the differential. Phoenix Rack and Axle built the driveshaft in use on the axle and the spare secured on the rear of the chassis.

Peer inside and you'll find a pair of Renegade suspension seats supplemented with Crow five-point harnesses. A Parker Pumper sits behind the seats to provide a continuous supply of filtered air to the driver and co-driver helmets. When Kevin purchased the truck, it had a basic interior roll cage. FST made sure all the existing cage welds were welded full circle and then added more support tubes to bring the cage up to race standards.

The dash is another FST fabbed component and holds a Lowrance GPS, Icom race radio, and RacepaK LCD gauge panel. A Winters Racing Sidewinder shifter allows Kevin to work his usual forward gear shifts without the fear of knocking the tranny in reverse. Next to the shifter is a PCI cab intercom so driver and navigator can talk to one another while helmeted.

The rear got the Giant Motorsports treatment as well with the installation of their four-link suspension kit. This setup uses hefty steel plate lower trailing arms to position the rear axle and provide lower shock mount locations.

Kevin suffered contact with another vehicle in a recent race and found a potential weak spot at the mount for the rear axle lower link at the frame. FST added this bolt-on assembly on the framerail to provide greater double shear mount strength to the link bolt.