For those who may not know me or been following my blog, there’s something you should know about me, Humble Rise best cbd oil.  I LOVE FORD.  That’s right, I’ll lay that down right now, I bleed blue.  I was brought home as a baby in a 1967 Ford Mustang, my oldest daughter came home from the hospital in a 2001 Ford F-150 and my youngest daughter in a 2007 Ford Explorer Sport-Trac.  This is a Ford family.  Knowing that, you can imagine that there are a few things in life that as a Ford fan, one would like a chance to see but sometimes it’s just hard to make happen.  One of those bucket list items has been to go to the famous Detroit Auto Show (also known as NAIAS, the North American International Auto Show) and visit some Ford stomping grounds.  We’ll get back to that in a bit…

I try to stay active and keep up on what’s happening in the world of Ford and one of those ways is through social media.  Ford’s been running a campaign called “We Own Work” recently and it’s aimed straight at the truck enthusiast crowd like me.  One component of the campaign is Ford owners showing off their pride and joy by creating a card with their truck’s pic and details.  Given it’s driven by the community, people vote monthly on their favorite truck and the top winners get a nice gift from the folks at Ford.  I was fortunate enough to be one of those lucky winners a few months ago and get a killer t-shirt and custom embroidered jacket to boot. Pretty righteous I thought. Have you Ford truck owners entered your truck?  As you are about to find out…there are plenty of reasons to do so, and it’s not just free schwag.

Fast forward to early December. I receive an email that I thought FOR SURE had to be bogus.  Someone trying to tell me that based on my participation on the Ford Social site, Ford wanted to fly me and a guest out to the Detroit Auto Show, all expenses paid.  Yeah right.  I’m a skeptic by nature, so I wasn’t sure what to believe. I was soooooo hoping deep inside that this was real, that I started doing my geek thing and checking email headers, tracing IP addresses, looking at trace routes, DNS and such…and wouldn’t you know it, they all checked out and went where the guy in the email said he was from, Team Detroit.  For those that don’t know, this is the ad agency that handles a lot of campaigns for Ford such as the We Own Work and many more.  At that point, I was dying a little inside and praying this would be real.  I made the call, and a human answered.  Good sign right?  I meet this nice chap by the name of Cole.  Immediately my brain associates him with Cole Trickle, which one of you racing fans knows where that name comes from?    So we proceeded to have a nice conversation and confirm that this was no joke.  I simply couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Before long, I was in touch with the coordinators of the event from Ford and had to give them my details, including who was going with me.

So most folks think the natural choice would be my wife.  You’d be wrong…she’s not hard core about cars like I am and she wasn’t at all interested in going.  I had to choose from all of my good friends which would really not only appreciate this kind of event, but one for whom this was also a bucket list item.  The list was short, but I knew it had to be one buddy in particular, Kevin.  He is also my service manager at Bickford Ford and you could say lives, breathes and eats Ford. He’s also a fellow blogger at Final Point Logic so he was a natural for the event. This was poised to be an epic trip and one we would both remember for ever.

Upon arrival in Detroit, I immediately thought we had been diverted and landed on an alien planet.  As we were coming in, all I saw from above were frozen lakes and snow.  What the heck was that? We don’t have that in Seattle! An entire lake frozen over? Nonsense.  And upon looking at my phone, I see we are in some place called Romulus.  ROMULUS?  WTF!!! I was waiting for Klingons to appear at any moment. As I exited the plane with a raised eyebrow, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  Now, I’ve never been to Detroit, and of course, we all hear the stories about it (not necessarily the good kind).  What I saw was one of the most modern looking and fantastic airport terminals I’ve ever been in.  Complete with a Delta monorail from one end to the other!  The hotel for the venue, the Westin, was also actually IN the terminal, complete with it’s own TSA security checkpoint for maximum convenience in departing the airport.  Pretty darn snazzy if I do say so myself.  The folks at Ford know how to host an event. I’ve been to more conferences than I care to and Ford had the check-in process down pat.  Very smooth and expeditious. We were greeted by cheerful faces and given our credentials and some pretty nifty swag.  Things were already looking up.

Kevin and I then dropped our gear off in our rooms and grabbed a quick lunch with the rest of the Ford bloggers and had a little down time to relax.  Dinner that evening was a hoot.  The gang of over 120 bloggers from over 41 countries was all in the room and socializing.  I think the open bar and endless flow of booze provided a nice way to break the ice and meet new friends. Before dinner, Ford’s social media grand poobah, Scott Monty kicked things off and we were treated to “the Moth Storytelling Presentation” which was pretty neat. Dinner followed with desert and more socializing before calling it a night.  Monday morning would come early and would make for one heck of a long day.

Captains Log – Monday, January 13, 2014: The day started off promptly with breakfast at 0530hrs. Damnit, I haven’t been up at this early hour of the morning since boot camp.  Ok, well…I got up earlier to catch the flight to Detroit, but this better not become a habit.  We gathered for chow in the lobby with the rest of the Ford Bloggeratti and loaded up on buses for Joe Louis Arena and were rolling by 0645hrs.  Now I’ve lived and driven in some traffic nightmare cities but Detroit was putting a whole new meaning to wacky drivers that morning.

We must have had no less than half a dozen cars dive-bomb our bus and literally just not give a hoot that there was a BUS in their way, all of this on icy roads no less.  This is when I thank God I work from home, not sure how folks handle those kinds of commutes.

We arrive at the arena just in time to make our way to the Ford F-150 Press Conference.  And boy was that impressive!  I usually go to tech geek conferences where the reveal is a gadget, this was something special though.  To see when they revealed the new 2015 Ford F-150 and those trucks came busting through the walls, that was simply put…AWESOME!  Immediately following the press conference we were able to make our way down to the floor and get some hands-on time with the trucks.  It was a mad house. People were all over it, the arena was electrified with buzz and activity, all wanting to get a piece of that new F-150 action.  Upon closer examination of the truck, it’s no wonder what all the buzz was about.  The truck was simply amazing.  I own a 2011 F-150 EcoBoost as many of you may know, and I honestly thought that would be the last truck I bought for a very long time.  I have to tell you, I’m looking at that upgrade already.  What a phenomenal piece of automotive goodness this truck will be.  Many of the things I have wished would have been done have been addressed.  I won’t cover all the details here, you can find that all over the web and some of the details have yet to be revealed by the fast roadside assistance in Louisville, KY, such as the improved towing numbers.  For me, that’s a big one.  I tow a travel trailer that’s over 10,000 pounds and have zero problems, but sometimes wish I had a little more of a safety net and not so close to the limits.  This could very well be the answer.  Only one item that I can think of wasn’t addressed, which I personally would love to see improved in a dramatic way, and that’s the SYNC system.  During the course of the day I actually had a chance to speak with Ford’s CEO, Alan Mulally, and ask him about the future of SYNC and mobile devices in our vehicles. he had some good things to say. You can see some of that in the video I’ve linked to below (click here for the full official story on Ford Social):

The rest of the day was spent in a variety of Ford breakout sessions on everything from the Ford Design Process, to future trends, sustainability, automation and new product deep dives.  In what has to be one of the more memorable evenings in my life (as if the day wasn’t already epic enough), we were able to attend a very special session that evening with some of my favorite Ford racing drivers and legends both present day, and those that I have watched growing up as a kid.  I was able to personaly meet and spend time with the likes of Ned Jarrett, Dale Jarrett, John Force, Jamie Allison, Vaughn Gitten Jr., Brian Deegan, Greg Foutz and NASCAR Champion Brad Keselowski!!! To top that off we spent time with Hollywood celebs from the upcoming movie “Need For Speed” and watched a 20 minute preview of the film.  Dinner was fantastic, with another open bar and good times with new friends.

https://goo.gl/photos/9bUD53CjerVEriA86

Captains Log – Tuesday, January 14, 2014: Well, Monday had gone down as one of the most epic days of my life so I wasn’t sure how Ford could top that off in the half day we had remaining.  We got a bit of a break and breakfast started at 0630hrs that day before we were shuttled off to the Dearborn Inn. Interesting hotel with a ton of history. We were split up into two groups and went off to do our thing.  This morning we were put into groups and given certain vehicles to drive based on our personalities and interests.  I’ll give you one guess at what I drove?  You got it, a new 2014 F-150 EcoBoost.  Overall, a nice upgrade from mine as I have an FX4 and the one I drove was a Platinum.  But this was no ordinary test drive.  I was hoping we were going to do something on the test track, but to my pleasant surprise, got something even better.  We were given a route to navigate upon getting in our respective trucks.  It wasn’t until we were approaching the final destination when it hit us…we were at the Ford Rouge Factory where the F-150 and Raptor is made!!!  Being the geek that I am, I just happened to have my iPad with me where I had a copy of my window sticker.  A quick look revealed what I suspected, ROUGE was the plant where my F-150 was born!!! This was going to be a truly special day.  We proceeded to get a VIP tour of the plant with several Ford representatives that were there to answer our every question along the way.  We learned some amazing facts about not just Ford, but the factory and how eco-friendly it actually is.  People have this misconception about auto factories being these insane pollution plants and nothing could be further from the truth.

A glimpse into the Ford Rouge Factory in Dearborn, MI:

https://goo.gl/photos/Fc9GxP3fDrL25pxs6

After getting the grand tour, we drove back to the Dearborn Inn for some additional breakout sessions. The first session was spectacular, I had chosen to attend The Design Process: Mustang from Concept to Final Product.  In this session I was able to meet the lead designer on the mustang, Kemal Curic, and learn about his vision and how the new Mustang came to life.  We were also fortunate enough to meet many of the other members of the design team and learn about every aspect of the design process.  As a User Experience Designer, this was fascinating to me.  It was a completely different world view of what I do applied to a different field.  Loved every minute of this session.  The guys from Stangtv.com were there with me and captured a great clip on the interior design process:

From there, my next session was on Big Data. This session dove into how data collected from products and customers becomes the catalyst for future design and planning.  Another one that as a computer geek working for the worlds largest database company, simply had me mesmerized.  It’s jaw dropping to see the amount of data flowing through Ford on a daily basis and how they are able to siphon out the important bits and be able to apply that data in the proper context.  Data for a guy like me is everything, it’s how we quantify what we do and know if our designs are making an impact and our users are getting what they want.  Overall an incredibly awesome day to top off an amazing 3 days. From there it was time to grab a quick lunch and head back to the airport and hotel.

Here are some additional Ford highlight pics from the show:

https://goo.gl/photos/v2mcXzr5AKsNYvXu7

I can’t thank the folks at Team Detroit and Ford enough for this amazing opportunity. They made it possible to take at least one of my bucket list items off the list and for that I’m grateful. I hope I can be part of that group of bloggers again and be able to report back to you folks on all the cool future products coming out of Ford.  Hope you enjoyed the report.

Frank

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Hey folks!  It’s been a long time…too long.  Life and work have just been going gangbusters leaving very little time for much blogging.  Truth be told, I’m more active on social media since RSS seems to be on it’s death bed.  You can find me on Google+ and Twitter these days if you would like to keep up on the day to day stuff. Yes, I said Google+…I find it to be significantly better as a social network than Facebook, including the way you connect with customers as a business.  More on that later…

So I’ll kick off my 2014 posts with a little heads up on a post that will be coming soon.  I just returned from the 2014 NAIAS (Detroit Auto Show) and boy, what an experience that was.  In full disclosure, I was invited to participate with a very special group of bloggers by Ford Motor Company and Team Detroit, the agency who handles their Ford Social site.  I was there to see first hand the unveiling of the new 2015 Ford F-150 and boy, let me tell you, Ford did NOT disappoint.  Many of you have been following my IRONHIDE truck build and I have to tell you, the 2015 F-150 is something special.  I was also able to see some really neat stuff and get up to speed on a lot of the technology behind the scenes at Ford.  It was a trip I’ll never forget and one I hope to be able to attend and write about again.

I’ll cover some of the neat things I was able to do and see while at the 2014 NAIAS with an obvious slant towards Ford products as that’s what I had the inside scoop on more than anything.  Besides, is there really any other truck you’d want to own out there?  Stay tuned gang, I’ll post up pics from the Ford events and some of the other highlights from the auto show.  Now back to compiling all that info and doing some editing…until next time.

Frank

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Heading out on our CA Adventure

Ahhh, the long awaited follow-up to part 1 is finally here. Lets just dive right in. The rear suspension…man, was this a disappointment. I simply didn’t account for the weight I typically carry back there which is usually at least a good 500+ pounds. As I mentioned in the previous post, this left me with no option but to add 3″ blocks to bring the rear up until I figured out what to do. I looked at several options, one of them being replacing the rear shocks with some long-travel ones. Although this approach would work just fine, I still had the concern with the weight and if the shocks would blow-out over time. In order to do it right, I really needed to beef up the rear springs. A good friend of mine had just recently purchased a Ford Raptor and while going over my dilemma, he suggested I have a chat with some folks he knew. I left my last post talking about some new friends in CA, the folks I’m referring to is Raptor Performance Group (RPG).

I first spoke with the lead engineer at RPG. He’s one heck of a cool dude.  I discussed my problem with him and he had some suggestions on how to not only solve my problem, but improve the performance and ride qualities at the same time.  The first recommendation was to replace the factory leaf springs.  RPG has worked with National Springs (down in the San Diego area) to co-develop a leaf spring for the F-150 that can not only handle the kind of load I carry, but to give owners a truly progressive spring that makes the truck ride like an entirely new vehicle. These leafs come in a Standard Duty (SD) version for folks that don’t require the load capability I need, as well as the Heavy Duty (HD) version for guys like me.  My springs were tuned to carry a constant load of about 700 pounds while still providing a kick-ass ride and bringing the rear end of the truck up to level without the use of the blocks.  Sounded like a plan to me.  Then he had to go open his mouth about this “Stage 3 Kit” that he has for the Raptor.  The Stage 3 Kit is basically made up of a frame support, Fox 2.5″ Air Bumps and the National Springs leafs.  Now up to this point I had heard of frames on Raptor being bent by guys in the desert going all Rambo over some big ass whoops, but I figured that was a Raptor.  Why would I possibly need such a thing on an F-150?  Well friends, lets hold that thought for a few and I’ll come back to that.  The next thing were these air bumps.  WTF is that you ask?  Good question, I didn’t have a clue either since I haven’t been a huge off road fan until now.  Basically, in a nutshell, these air bumps replace the stock piece of rubber that keeps the axle from plowing through your frame when your suspension compresses.  By utilizing these air bumps, you replace those OEM rubber bump stops and can eliminate running a stiffer shock and provide much better bottom-out control, which helps maximize your suspensions travel.  Sounded pretty good to me.  So now what?

Lucky for me I had just recently planned a holiday vacation to southern CA to take the wife and kids down to Disney Land.  Flying is just stupid these days and not wanting to get groped by the TSA, I figured I may as well make a killer road trip out of it and take the girls on an adventure.  It also gave me a good opportunity to test the “Eco” in the EcoBoost and see what kind of real fuel economy I would get with the big meats I had just put on the truck.  More on that later.  I told the guys from RPG that I would be in town during the break and they offered to meet me at my hotel, pick up the truck to do the install and drop it back off.  I thought, DAMN…now THAT is customer service!  Sure enough, the day came that I expected them and there they were, ready to transform the beast.  I looked at them with a raised eyebrow knowing this is my BABY and I am handing over to the keys to complete strangers.  Hell, my WIFE hasn’t even driven Ironhide!  But something told me these guys were legit and I was in good hands.  Secretly I was jonsing and having a complete internal meltdown because I really just wanted to be there with the guys doing the install and taking pics or helping wrench on the rig.  But daddy duties came first and I had to take the girls to see Mickey.  This was going to be one hell of a long day I tell you.

So as I watched Ironhide drive off into the distance, I sat there thinking…”Damn thats a good looking rig.  I hope it comes back…”    No – but seriously, I was going out of my mind wondering what the kit would do to the truck when they were done.  As I’m sitting there at Disney in line for Space Mountain, the first of a bunch of pics from RPG start coming in on my iPhone.  There go the tires, then little by little I see parts of my rig on jacks, on the floor, I’m just thinking…”holy crap”.  Then they start sending the good stuff and I practically start hyperventilating.  It took all I had not to look like an idiot, but I’m sure people were wondering why I was sitting on a ride at Disney staring at my iPhone with a shit-eating-grin on my face.

Stock springs (with AAL) vs. National HD's

So what seemed like the longest day EVAAAARRRRRRR finally comes to a close around dinner time, the girls were wiped out so we decided to go back to the hotel.  The guys from RPG were already on their way to bring back Ironhide.  I met the guys back at the hotel and decided we’d all go to dinner.  Before we could even get out of the hotel parking lot, they start telling me ok…turn here.  I knew damn well the BBQ joint wasn’t in that direction but they had something else in mind.  We get on I-5 heading south to where they know are some NASTY bumps in the highway that I had previously driven through and just about knocked the fillings out of my teeth.  Right when I braced for impact and white-knuckled the steering wheel, I felt like we were floating on marshmallows and the ass end of my truck is just cruising over these bumps like nobody’s business.  I just looked over at these guys with a gaping wide jaw slammed to the cab floor of the truck and they just sat there smiling.  They knew they had me.  I just simply couldn’t believe what a transformation a set of springs could do to this truck.  Not only did I have the normal gear I carry in the back, I also had the old springs in the back adding a couple hundred MORE pounds, PLUS two more full grown dudes in the cab. MONEY baby…it was MONEY.  Or as Jarrett likes to say…”it was LEGIT.”  So that was the first part of the demo.  Then we hit a couple of other areas where I could really squash the suspension.  As we hit that, I hear the bumps getting slammed.  I had no idea what it was and Corey says…there they go, now I knew what the air bumps sounded like as the axle was plowing through the rear on it’s way to hit the frame.  Although I couldn’t SEE the bumps in action, I somehow had a MUCH higher level of comfort now knowing those were there.  The truck is now just simply…A BEAST.

So as we get to the BBQ joint and we are outside looking at my rig, that’s when Corey says, so I have a little bit of bad news for ya.  I thought, uh oh.  That’s not exactly what anyone wants to hear in this kind of situation.  Corey proceeds to tell me that my frame was bent about 1/4″.  I looked at him like “Huh?”  Turns out that it’s not too hard to bend these frames under the right conditions. Jumping it is of course one of those (which I had not done), but in my particular case it was something as simple as hitting a speed bump too hard while carrying a lot of weight in the back. It’s that simple folks.  That’s where the Frame Brace comes into play.  While mounting the brace there is a section of the brace that comes in contact with the frame and if your frame is bent even the slightest, you’ll be able to see daylight through that section.   Measure the daylight, that’s how much your frame is bent.  Thankfully, by adding the RPG brace to the frame, not only do I not have to worry about the bent issue, it will now protect my frame from ever bending again.  This is yet more peace of mind that I’m protecting my investment and won’t do anything to the rig that will tweak the frame while I’m out in the middle of nowhere.  There are a couple of great write-ups on the Ford Raptor Forums that go into even more detail about the RPG Stage 3 that are worth taking a look at: http://www.fordraptorforum.com/f5/rpgs-stage-2-kit-rear-frame-support-fox-air-bumps-10553/

Goodbye CA...

I can tell you without reservation that this has made the most AMAZING difference in the ride of my truck.  If you’ve ever had your teeth just about rattled out of your jaw when cruising in the right lane of a highway that’s real bumpy, you know what I mean.  Going over some whoops is a reality with this suspension.  Being able to get rid of the blocks also made it much safer.  So I’m feeling pretty good with the truck and suspension overall.  Next month I’m planning to head down to Vegas for the Mint 400 and hoping to meet up with the RPG crew down there.  Jarrett has already told me to “lighten up the truck” and take out everything I don’t need.  I think he has plans for Ironhide to meet the desert and catch some air.    I’ve also been given a heads up that they are working on some additional “upgrades” for the F-150 and my wallet is already sweating the thought of what these guys are up to.  If I had to pick one item I want to upgrade next would be the rear shocks.  Although I’m doing quite ok with the Fox 2.5″ Piggy Back Shox, what I really want are some 3.0″ long-travel bypass shocks. I’m pretty confident that moving up to the long-travel shocks would complete the rear end of the truck.  I’m thinking for the front end, some nice new tie-rods might be in order as well.  RPG has an amazing set of products that just absolutely kill the competition if you ask me.  I’m looking forward to establishing a long-term relationship with these guys.  I’m a pretty happy customer and that’s not an easy thing considering how picky I am.  And so my California Adventure comes to an end and back to WA state we went.  I have to say, I really fell in love with the Orange County area of CA.  I miss it quite a bit and look forward to getting back there on another trip and having RPG add some more beefy parts to my rig.  Thanks a million to Corey and Jarrett for completing an awesome adventure for me.  Until next time…keep the antenna side up!

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The Camburg kit also includes Fox Racing 2.5″ Long-travel Coil-overs in the front and a set of 2.5″ Piggy Back’s in the rear.  These are OEM bolt-on replacement parts so there is no special machining, welding or modifying of anything to get these on your rig.  That being said, they are exactly what I just said, OEM replacements and that means that if your application goes above and beyond the factory application, you might be in for a surprise like I so rudely discovered.

My rig is carrying more weight than a typical user might carry.  I’ve got the ARE canopy on the bed, several hundred pounds of SAR and recovery gear in the bed, and a hitch-gate with full-sized spare hanging off the rear of the truck.  This added weight wasn’t designed for the stock OEM suspension and once everything was in place, the rear end was drooping pretty bad.  Now some folks like that CA Ridin’ Dirty look, but I prefer mine level.  If I take out too much of the pre-load on the front coil-overs. I’m not going to clear the 33.6″ Toyo Open Country M/T meats on the front, so how do we raise the ass-end of this rig?  I knew the answer, but wasn’t in any position at the time to do something about it as I needed a way to drive this rig home.  My mechanic, Buff, at Bickford Ford is a rock star.  He had a set of add-a-leaf’s in the back which we thought might do the trick.  After installing them, believe it or not…we were still ridin’ dirty.  So at this point there was really only one thing to do, which is what I was trying to avoid at all costs…blocks.  We threw in a set of 3″ blocks and sure enough, it did the trick.  But at what cost?  Now I have a real problem.  The Fox shocks for the rear are not long-travel shocks and I just tore 3″ of travel out of them with those blocks.  To say I wasn’t a happy camper was an understatement.  But this is the price you pay when building a customized rig…you live and learn.  So I’ve got 2 options…beef up the leaf springs in the rear and/or get some long-travel shocks like a set of take-off OEM Raptor shocks.  Anyone seen what those cost these days?  Sweet mother of…

So for the time-being, this is a temporary fix until we do things right.  As for the tires, You’ll see in some of the pics a set of chrome wheels with some 35’s wrapped around them.  As much as I wanted to fit those in there, there simply isn’t enough room without going full-on lift kit.  I could possibly trim an insane amount from the front valance, but that really isn’t the right way to do things so I downsized the tires to just a hair below 34’s (LT275/70R18 or 33/11.0) which is what you’ll see on the black wheels (Fuel Offroad “Gauge” Wheels in 18×9 with a 4.5″ Backspace & -.20 offset).

I’m going to leave you with some pics of the install and you can take a look at the results.  It looks great, but I’m not about to take this off road anytime soon until I get things done right (just to be safe).  And that’s where part 2 of this series comes in.  In part 2 I’m going to cover how I solved the block and shock problem in the rear, and I’m also going to show you something that nobody in the F-150 community has seen before.  Trust me when I tell you, this is going to blow you guys away.  I’ve got some new friends in California that know a thing or two about Ford Raptors and Baja 1000 trophy trucks that have some incredible new stuff coming out for the Raptor, that just happens to work for the F-150 too. You’re going to dig this, and you’re going to want this…stay tuned…

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Well, a nice flat black tip does you no good with an ugly stainless steel exhaust pipe.  That had to be fixed as well.  After some taping and masking of the surrounding areas, I followed the same process and gave the exhaust pipe a good base of flat black.  Once everything had dried, I ran the truck for a bit to cure the paint on the pipes.  Once it cooled off, I installed the tip and repeated the process letting the paint cure a bit more.  That’s it!  Pretty easy and it looks 100% better.  Check out the pics below…

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When I ordered the canopy, I chose a few options that made a lot of sense to me.  First, the rear sliding glass window that sits up against the cab of the truck.  There are a number of options here, but I definitely wanted a sliding window since I had one on the truck, and I really like the fact you could choose to have it swing down in order to make cleaning of both windows easier.  That has come in super handy.  Another option was the interior 12V LED light.  This one is definitely a must have, but I have to say…it’s not as bright as I had hoped.  This is a large canopy and the small LED light just simply doesn’t do it any justice. Luckily this is pretty easily remedied with some additional LED lighting options that are out on the market. I also chose to have Mike mount up a clothes hanger and fishing rod carrier.  These options are absolutely great for when I go out fishing.  Last, but certainly not least, the Yakima rack and Megawarrior cargo basket.  Getting the rack installed by the factory is an absolute MUST.  This is not a trivial installation once the canopy leaves the factory.  When the canopy arrived, I had no worries about drilling into a new canopy and possibly misaligning the rack holes.  This is done on a large jig at the factory for precise alignment and I couldn’t be happier with my decision.

On installation day, I was amazed at how these canopies are installed.  Before I had arrived, the cargo box had already been mounted to the rack to make things easier on the installation.  I had also opted for the shovel/axe brackets on each side of the basket which were also already mounted.  Mike’s tech, Jason, has clearly done this a million times.  The canopy was loaded up on a forklift and prepped for the install with the proper weather seals and wiring.  Before I knew it, Jason was sliding that canopy on the to bed of the truck while Mike guided him in.  Once the canopy was in place, the wiring for the 12V LED was put in place and tapped into the main battery via a dedicated wire (not the tail lights).  There’s a slick little device that sits on the hydraulic arms to the rear window and it triggers the LED light when you open the window.  Once the canopy clamps were installed and clamped down, Jason hit the interior with the air gun and got it all nice and cleaned up for me.  It looked AWESOME.

I’ve had the canopy now for a couple of months and have been out on some camping and fishing trips.  I seriously don’t know how I had lived without one of these on my previous trucks.  If you are debating on getting one of these, DON’T.  I couldn’t be happier with not only getting a canopy, but choosing the A.R.E. and buying it from Canopy West.  These guys are true pro’s at what they do and they know their stuff.  Do your homework, look at what’s out there and make sure you work with a reputable dealer in your area that will be there if anything goes wrong.  Here’s the pics from the install…

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It’s time for the next update on Project Ironhide. In this post we’ll cover the installation of the N-Fab Light Bar and 801/803 series KC Rally lights.  Lets start with the light bar.  Pretty standard piece of hardware and bolts onto the truck fairly easily without any real modifications. N-Fab does a really nice job with the design and incorporates some nice touches. That being said, if you want to really do a bang-up job that makes the install look really clean (no wires zip tied to the bar) then you have to take it just a tad bit farther.  This is where having some skills in the shop come in handy.

There are a couple of ways one can go about mounting everything for a build like this.  But there’s only one real way (in my opinion) to get this done, and that’s to pre-wire and mount everything to the light bar BEFORE it goes on the truck. I have opted to have some of my mods done by the dealer and I couldn’t be happier with that decision.  I always freak out when it comes to drilling into brand new metal, but sometimes, you just have to do it.  Thankfully I had two very talented guys working on my truck, Kevin Piper and his apprentice Aaron.  Kevin started working on the light bar well before I arrived in order to have everything mounted up and ready to go.  Part of the prep for Kevin included making sure the install looked as clean as possible and that meant drilling into the light bar and running the wires through it, rather than simply tie-wrapping them to it.  Boy, what a HUGE difference that makes. N-Fab should look to this as a best-practice and modify their design to incorporate this way of wiring the light bar to the vehicle.  I’d add some grommets for a clean look and to keep water out of the holes (we used some black silicone).

Once the lights and pre-wiring are complete, it’s time to move on to mounting the light bar onto the vehicle.  With the new EcoBoost F-150’s, the license plate bracket on the front of the vehicle has been moved off to the side to allow for proper and unobstructed cooling of the turbo intercooler. This presented a slight hiccup when mounting the light bar, but it was easily cured with a little bit of “modification” of the factory bracket. For the non-EcoBoost engines, the license plate bracket is centered on the vehicle and bolts to a small lip extending from the side of the opening.  Kevin sawed the lip off and we were back in business.  Given that we won’t ever need (or want) to block that front opening, no loss here.

Next, we bolted up the light bar to the truck and started wiring it up.  Ford has paid attention to the little details now and providing things like nice flaps to cover wide empty (eg. ugly) spaces provides us with an opportunity to hide the relay switches behind one of these flaps.

Before running all the wires to the interior, remember to check your connections!  There’s nothing worse than doing a bunch of labor intensive work and routing your wires nice and neat only to discover later you wired it wrong or there’s a problem somewhere. As I preach in software development & design, test early…test often!  With the initial wiring out of the way, we lit up everything to confirm we are good to proceed.

Now for the fun part, the interior.  Lets start with running the wiring through the firewall.  What an incredible PAIN IN THE ASS!  Ford did such a damn good job sealing the interior from the firewall forward, that it didn’t leave many options for getting wiring through to the main cabin. After much battle with finding a suitable ingress point and taping wires to a wire hangar, Kevin and Aaron were finally able to pull the wiring through.  This is no trivial task as the small little hole we used was not visible to the eye from below the glove box and required feeling our way through the heavily insulated carpet up behind the dash by the glove box while another person was fishing the wire down from the outside.  Again, Ford has stepped up quality and craftsmanship significantly which made it that much more difficult for us to do without drilling holes unnecessarily.  Did I mention I’m not a fan of drilling into new metal?

After getting the wires set up, it came time to figure out a solution to the switching.  This is probably the single most mind-numbing part of the install, which I lost countless sleep over, trying to figure out how to best accomplish while maintaining a high degree of fit and finish.  I searched the forums endlessly for examples of how others had installed the switches for their lights.  Not a single example passed my sniff test.  I poured over literally hundreds of parts websites and aftermarket lighting/panel specific manufactures.  You know what I found for the F-150? BUPKIS.  Nada.  ZILCH.  Sure, there were plenty of switches and tons of dash mounted options for Jeeps, but it seems like nobody thinks people put lights on anything but a Jeep, including Ford!  Using cheesy switches and drilling or screwing them to the dash or trim just looked cheap and I wasn’t having that.  What irked me more than anything was that Ford has a perfect solution for the Raptor with 4 neatly mounted aux switches that would have fit the bill perfectly.  I would have just used that part from the Raptor but there are a couple of buttons that would have gone to waste and the cost for the part was not cheap.  I was about to give up and assume that I and the rest of the non-Raptor F-150 universe was left out in the cold for a nice solution to this.  No so fast skippy, that’s where that decision to buy from Bickford Ford paid off…again.

After brainstorming with Kevin, he spotted a nice sheet of 1/4″ aluminum he had laying around.  The idea was to fab a plate that would go where the F-150’s coin/junk area was just forward of the shifter / cup holders and mount the switches to that.  Taking it one step farther, I have a VIAIR On Board Air compressor I’ll be installing soon and that comes with a gauge and switch as well.  We figured, why not make a complete switch panel that also allows for future add-ons?  We removed the center console and went to work.  First, the junk holder was going to have to go through a slight modification so we could fit everything and run wires. After getting that modded, we used it as a template to cut the aluminum plate.

After some fit and finish work and giving the plate a brushed look, time to measure things up, lay out the switches and see how this beast would come together. A little drilling, filing, sanding and a quick run to the auto parts store (for some extra switches to make them all uniform), and the panel was complete.  I have to say, this came out better than anything I could have possibly bought on the market!  Not only do I have the switches for the lighting in place, but now the OBA gauge is mounted cleanly and in a place that makes sense. For the switches I used Blue for the OBA, Green (4 total – 2 in use now, 2 for later) for lighting, and (2) Red for a couple of things I have in mind in the future. You’ll have to come back and follow the build to find out what those are!

Thanks a million to Kevin, Aaron and the entire crew at Bickford Ford.  They far exceeded my expectations on this.  Stay tuned for more updates coming soon, the best is yet to come!  Full pics after the jump…

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That being said, Airaid has recently launched their newest product, a cold air intake system for the F-150 EcoBoost engine.  Airaid has quite a solid reputation and is known for putting out very high-quality components.  This High Performance Air Intake system is no exception.  When you open the box and pull out the air filter, your first reaction is “holy *h!#, this thing is MASSIVE!”  I’m not kidding here, this is one seriously BEEFY air filter.  One thing to note is that for EcoBoost owners, you want to make sure and order the NON OILED (SythaMax) air filter.  Using an oiled (SynthaFlow) filter on this engine can quickly lead to a bad day due to the EcoBoost’s twin turbos.  Once you verify you have the non-oiled filter and all the parts for the kit, installation is fast and easy.  Removing the stock air box, filter and mass air flow sensor is pretty straight forward.  Assembling the new box, reinstalling the MAF sensor  and re-attaching the hose and clamps is straight forward as well.   Total install time was well under 30 minutes.

Specs from Airaid’s dyno have this simple mod adding an extra 20 horsepower and 39 lbs/ft. of torque!  That’s a whole lotta bang for your dollar from a simple mod.  I haven’t had a chance to make a road-trip with the new CAI system installed, but I’m expecting that it will add a bit of a fuel economy boost as well, which is hard to complain about.  Some of you might be wondering what it sounds like with the new filter installed so I’ve cut together a before and after video for you.  Pics after the jump…Hope you enjoy!

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It’s been a long few weeks folks, but the truck is on it’s way!  It left the Dearborn Ford factory on August 5th and is currently steaming across middle-America on it’s way home to the pacific NorthWest.  ETA should put the truck here early next week.  I’ve officially named the truck. This is hereby officially now: PROJECT IRONHIDE.  As a huge fan of the Transformers since I was a kid, this has been one of my favorite of all characters and the supreme Autobot Combat Veteran.  Little known fact, Ironhide was at one point an F-series pickup truck. So yes folks, Michael Bay sold out to GM by taking their cash and making Ironhide a GMC Dually (a bad ass looking one at that), but nonetheless, a GMC.  I’m hereby taking Ironhide back and giving him a proper chassis where it belongs…ON A FORD!  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironhide

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So like anything else in life, I’ve made lots of compromises and sacrifices when buying a car in the past (like getting the stang in a V-6 rather than the GT).  I’ve never had a new vehicle *just* the way I want it for some reason or another.  Since I plan to keep this truck for quite some time, this will be a no-compromises build and I’ve decided to do things the way I want them from the get go. I looked around at every truck out there and there are some great options available these days.  One hard core criteria that was not up for negotiation was that this truck would have to be AMERICAN MADE.  With so much that is wrong in this world and our economy being in pretty sad shape, I felt it was only right to spend my hard earned money right here and put it to work in our own economy.  After looking at all the major players and doing extensive homework, I confirmed what I already suspected…this was going to be another Ford for this family.  I’ve had a Ford in the family since I was born (my dad started my obsession with his 67 Mustang) and I’ve gone on to own a dozen or so Ford products. At this point in my life, I think it’s safe to say I bleed blue.

So the next big question, *which* truck would be the right one?  I have to be honest, there’s a secret part of me that ‘s total redneck.  Yes, you can be hispanic and be redneck.    That being said, I really wanted a Diesel powered beast and a dually was something I’ve wanted as long as I can remember.  Let me tell you folks, if you haven’t checked out an F-350 lately, you would be shocked at what an amazing truck that is.  All that being said, I quickly realized it was going to be entirely too much truck for what I needed.  Even with plans on buying an RV next year, short of a giant 5th wheel toy hauler, I just simply didn’t *need* an F-350.  Short-lived dream, but practicality and an ass-whoopin from the wife wasn’t part of this build.  Back to reality.

The truth is that these days, an F-150 is so much more capable than the same truck even a few years ago, that if you aren’t hauling some very heavy things on a daily basis, an F-150 should suit just about anyone out there looking for an all-around solid and very capable truck.  This truck build will have four major missions to accomplish. First mission, an eco-friendly daily driver truck. Yes, I used eco-friendly and truck in the same sentence. Fuel prices aren’t getting any cheaper and the need for an all-around multi-function truck made the new Ford EcoBoost engine an extremely attractive option.  We’re pretty eco-conscious here in the Pacific NW and when I first read about this new twin-turbo engine, I have to admit, I questioned what the heck Ford was thinking, but I kept an open mind in the name of being “green.”  I watched for months as this new engine’s saga began to unfold.  I read every article, every blog and took every opportunity to learn anything I could about this engine.  The bottom line folks?  This is the real deal.  As this engine gets put to the test over time, I really believe it will revolutionize the way America thinks about 6-cylinder engines moving forward, especially the truck enthusiast community.

Second mission: An off-road capable beast that can get me to just about any photography location or fishing hole I choose to go after.  I’ve become obsessed with fly fishing this past year (which coincides nicely with one my other passions, photography).  As I learned more about my new hobby and ventured out to new and unknown destinations in search of fish, it became painfully obvious (very quickly) that my Mustang was simply not going to get me to those places you find in magazines.  Aside from being able to get on the many fire-roads and off-road trails in the region, this truck has to be able to serve as a solid shelter should things go wrong in the middle of nowhere .  One thing I’ve learned being part of a Search and Rescue organization, things will go wrong when you least expect them to.  And when they do go wrong, you better be prepared if you plan to make it back home. Throughout this series I will cover the products I chose to accomplish this mission and why they’re critical to being prepared.

Third mission: SAR.  As I alluded to above, I’ve been involved in Search and Rescue on and off for over 25 years with the Civil Air Patrol.  Most recently that has been from an air operations aircrew role but this year I’m planning to get back to my roots and exercise those rusty ground team chops.  Here in WA, you simply never know what kind of terrain that mission will take you to.  As a senior leader, if I’m taking my cadets out into the unknown, I want to make sure we are loaded up and prepared to spend some time out there should something go wrong.  This rig has to be able to execute this mission with a high degree of reliability and success.

Fourth mission, but certainly not least: the family adventures.  I have been blessed with two very beautiful girls and a wife that lets me get away with crazy ideas like building a project truck.  So it’s only fair that when able, I take them out to experience the outdoors and what this great state has to offer.  Prior to moving to Washington, my wife’s idea of camping was room service at the Mandalay Bay in Vegas.  The mere thought of no running water or flushing toilets made her cringe.  Over the past couple of years I’ve managed to ease her and my little ones into camping by starting them easy at campgrounds with facilities like KOA’s.  This was a perfect way to introduce them to the outdoors without a lot of undue stress and drama.  This year I finally coaxed my wife (with the help of some friends) to try camping at a primitive campground which had “pit” toilets.  She wasn’t exactly keen on the idea so I went prepared with a Luggable Loo and pop-up Privacy Shelter as a backup.  Thankfully, we didn’t even need them and the girls camped like champs.  Next up – Overland excursions and off-trail primitive camping!  But you know I’ll have a backup shelter – the truck!

So now comes the fun part, ordering the truck.  One thing I’ve learned over the years and after buying several new vehicles is that not all dealers are the same.  Your experience and level of quality can vary pretty dramatically and I’ve been on the receiving end of working with a dealer that was a complete nightmare (none here in WA though).  I took this part of the build extremely serious as I want to make sure that not only will the dealer be around to honor any “dealer” warranties outside of Ford (think aftermarket parts), I wanted to establish a long-term relationship with my dealer knowing that I would be back for another vehicle in the not too distant future.  Over the past few years of living in the Seattle area, I’ve been to most of the local dealerships but one in particular has stood out time and time again, Bickford Ford.  So for anyone out there who wonders if social media can make a difference and bring you new customers, I’m one example of how simple frequent interactions with the dealer on Facebook has landed them a new customer. The folks at Bickford have not only been extremely helpful throughout the ordering process, but they made sure I wasn’t getting into more truck than I needed.  Remember that F-350 I was considering?  It was the guys at Bickford that discouraged me from that purchase based on my needs.  I’ve been to many dealers that would have put me into the most expensive truck I was willing to take on, but this is one dealer that you can count on having solid salesmanship and ethics. Bickford has a great service team and through their aftermarket specialists, I’m able to get exactly what I’m looking for on the truck in one place at the same price you’ll find at most online stores (and they’ll stand behind the products).

So by now I hear you screaming…”tell us what you got already!”  Fine!    A couple of months ago I finally placed the order for a 2011 F-150 FX4 EcoBoost.  The order wasn’t without a hitch however.  As life would have it, due to the unfortunate events that have happened in Japan, Nav systems are in short supply for all auto manufacturers at the moment and Ford was no exception.  After placing the order with Nav system, I was notified that they would not be able to get the Nav system.  I seriously thought this was going to be a deal breaker for me.  Being a tech-guy I really wanted that new Nav system with Ford Sync.  After trying to find an existing truck that met my needs and striking out, I decided that the Nav system delete wasn’t that bad after all.  Not only did it save me some serious cash that I can put towards other parts, in the end, you can do some amazing stuff with the aftermarket units out there today.  I’ll cover this more in-depth as one of the segments throughout the series. For now, we are t-minus 2-3 weeks from an ETA delivery date of August 8, 2011.

So stay tuned folks.  This project truck build will cover everything from performance to aesthetics to functional mods that will make this an ultimate outdoors rig.  I’ll be covering suspension mods (without a lift kit) that will include coil-overs, shocks, upper a-arm upgrades, 18″ wheels, 34″ tires and more.  Lighting mods from lightbar selection with long-range lights to replacement HALO headlamps. Functional mods will include canopy (topper) selection, bed liner, side steps, spare tire carrier for the oversized tire to roof rack and cargo box mods. Depending on how broke I am after all that, we’ll look at how to make a substitution for that factory Nav that will blow the factory option out of the water. So in closing , I’ll leave you with a sneak peek at what the baseline for this project build will look like.  Stay tuned folks, over the next several months I will periodically be posting updates to every step of the build!

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