By Chuck Vranas – Images by the Author
In a Chevy-heavy world of classic trucks packed with LS power and platform conversions, it’s a breath of fresh air when something different comes down the pike to shake the pavement in the form of a vicious Blue Oval. We’re talking about a pavement-searing, supercharged, modern Coyote moving the goods through a modified factory spine to get the message across loud and clear as it carves a course with the best of them. The wicked fifth-generation ’71 Ford F-100 Sport Custom laid out across our pages, belonging to Shane Dutka of Moodus, Connecticut, brings a great journey along with it to chart the evolution into its current form. With a truck that’s over 50 years old, you can bet that it’s been around the block a few times, adding to its checkered past since leaving the assembly line.
Shane’s high school years were focused primarily on hopped-up 4x4s lifted to the max for serious off-road hustling. Having always enjoyed the experience of turning his own wrenches through the builds, it was a total turnaround that brought him into the lowered performance truck world. Hauling on a daily basis for his landscape business gave him plenty of seat time to think about what direction to pursue while laying out the plans for a truck that would have a slammed stance with a secret lying beneath the factory sheetmetal. Having always been a fan of Bumpside Fords with their classic good looks, it was time to start the search for a suitable base to get started with.
If you’re living in New England and chasing a vintage truck, odds are that you’ll have to deal with plenty of demons caused by torturous road salt and hell-bent winters wreaking havoc on the sheetmetal. After an extensive search, Shane located a local ’71 F-100 with plenty of potential and an interesting story to tell. Having spent decades with its second owners, it had functioned as both a hauler and race truck. Over the years it was packed with a big-block Ford linked to three pedals as it screamed through the quarter-mile at New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire, until returning to street duty with a basic 289ci V-8 underhood. With the family’s latest generation having no interest in it, it was finally offered up for sale. Shane’s inspection proved that it was indeed straight and virtually rust-free, making the deal easy, swapping cash for keys to get started on the build.
Don’t Miss This One: Paul Close’s Y-Block Powered 1956 F100 is Layered with Custom Cool
Once in his home shop, the truck was evaluated and prepped to return to the street with a fresh BluePrint 306ci V-8 engine for the first season of ownership while plans were set for a fusion of performance parts to bring it to the next level. Wanting to focus on handling next, the truck was torn down during the winter to take a deeper look at the stock chassis. Once blasted clean it was determined to be in perfect shape for a number of upgrades, including a rear C-notch and transmission crossmember from Stifflers. Out back, a ’76 Ford 9-inch packs a Performance Engineering & Manufacturing center with 3.00 gears and Eaton Detroit Truetrac spinning Strange Engineering 31-spline axles. It’s suspended in place by a one-off triangulated four-link with mounts by Polish Welding LLC of Colchester, combined with single-adjustable QA1 coilover shocks and custom 1-inch sway bar.
For razor-sharp handling, the stock twin I-beam suspension was ditched in favor of a QA1 complete IFS conversion, featuring a 7-inch drop incorporating their exclusive upper and lower tubular control arms, drop spindles, single-adjustable coilover shocks, and sway bar, along with rack-and-pinion steering. Time to shave speed, a Wilwood Engineering dual master moves fluid through stainless lines to matching Forged Narrow Superlite 6R Big Brake 14-inch front and 12-inch rear drilled-and-slotted rotors with six- and four-piston calipers, respectively. Linking it all to the street with an edge, you’ll find a set of ESR CS11-Series wheels, sized 19×10.5, wearing P285/35SR19 Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 rubber.
When it came time to adding the next level of performance underhood, Shane was determined to keep a Ford in a Ford. While the current engine fared quite well, it was time to repurpose it and up the ante, starting with a first-generation 5.0L Coyote V-8. A lightweight aluminum block was filled with a forged steel crank linked to forged steel I-beam connecting rods capped by hypereutectic aluminum pistons, delivering 11.0:1 compression. Up top, a set of high-flow aluminum cylinder heads with DOHC pack 32 valves along with twin independent variable camshaft timing (Ti-VCT) to generate plenty of seamless power. The punch putting it over the top gets delivered through the Edelbrock Supercharger featuring an Eaton Gen VI 2650 TVS rotating assembly coupled to Edelbrock’s Dual-Pass three-core intercooler. Rounding it out you’ll find an 80mm throttle body, fuel injector connection (FIC) 1050 EXT injectors, 3-1/4-inch pulley, and custom valve covers from PBH Performance. It all sparks to life through a modified factory management system specially tuned by Palm Beach Dyno in Boynton Beach, Florida. Hot exhaust flows through factory Mustang GT headers to a custom 2-1/2-inch stainless exhaust with Y-pipe, Flowmaster mufflers, and Vibrant Performance resonators. It’s all good for a solid 700 hp on the dyno. Power moves through a Getrag MT82 six-speed manual trans with McLeod clutch to a custom driveshaft to lay down the power.
LS Swapped F100: Ross Meyers’ Cloaked LS Equipped F100 Flareside
Amazingly, the factory sheetmetal had weathered the years quite well, seeing as the truck spent its entire life in New England. Originally delivered in a combination of Calypso Red and Wimbledon White, it was blasted clean to reveal any past issues needing attention. Shane replaced the cab corners and lower doors with fresh sheetmetal from Dennis Carpenter and had Polish Welding fabricate a custom airbox intake, radiator shroud, and wiring harness mounts underhood. He then moved onto prepping the cab and bed for paint, handling all metal finishing, gapping, and bodywork. To give it a fresh personality, he went straight to the factory color guide and selected a combination of Bahama Blue and Wimbledon White, laying down the PPG formula to perfection. Seeing the truck had been so well preserved, upon reassembly he was able to detail and reuse all of the original factory trim, lighting, bumpers, and grille. The final icing came from Killerstrate-It Pinstriping who added the vintage-style signage to the doors to complete the look.
Inside, the original Sport Custom dash was restored and treated to a fresh dashpad from Dennis Carpenter while Dakota Digital VHX dials monitor the vitals. A Forever Sharp Empire Series steering wheel carves a course through a factory column while gears snap through an MGW Short-Throw shifter with custom arm and tunes flow from a unit by Retro Manufacturing. A Power by the Hour (PBH) Coyote-conversion wiring harness installed by Shane brings it all to life while Polish Welding added the custom rollbar that also anchors the Crow Safety Gear four-point harnesses. For plenty of comfort on the long haul, a set of TMI Pro-Classic Series buckets in black vinyl with blue plaid inserts are complemented by a black suede headliner and black loop carpeting, all by owner. Shane tells us the truck regularly sees duty at the local farm stand while later unleashing the beast to take on a road course or surprise modern-day muscle car owners in a flash, which sounds like a blast to us!
Click on this issue’s cover to see the enhanced digital version of Shane Dutka’s Tire-Searing ’71 Ford F100 Sport Custom.
