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PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT: Delphi 600 Series Power Steering Upgrade by Borgeson

May 28, 2024

Ford fans will always have a soft spot in their blue-oval hearts for the Windsor, the Cleveland and the big 460 FE engines—and deservedly so. If you’ve ever crawled a junkyard for one of these engines, you’ve likely passed over more than a few 351M and 400 engines to find what you are looking for. Poor factory numbers and bad word-of-mouth have made these cousins to the mighty Cleveland about as wanted as poison ivy at a nudist colony, but there is power to be found in those engines—and cheap, too.

THE CAGED BIRD SINGS

The poor Falcon.
Were it not for Ford’s inglorious first compact car, who knows what the early Mustangs would have been like, built as they were on Falcon architecture? Today, everyone wants a Mustang, yet Falcon fans are few. Fewer still are those who crave Falcon wagons, and initially, Norman Schmitt was not one of them, either. He wasn’t after a Falcon, or a wagon, but when a friend told him about an old wagon for sale, he went to check it out. What he found was a rare ’63 Falcon two-door wagon, and it was in great shape. The price was right, so he bought it, with visions of a wicked Pro Street Falcon in his head, and he set out to transform those dreams into steel.

Into the Blue

There are a lot of reasons why people choose to build and drive the cars they do. Most of the time, it is because a particular car was one that they wanted or liked when they were young, and such is the case with Allen Bernd and this ’62 Chevy Impala SS.

Spotlighter

Extreme F-250

Taking things to a higher level

Stan Belcher didn’t start out like a man possessed when he bought his ’03 Ford F-250 Super Duty Crew Cab truck. But it didn’t take long for him to turn into one. Initially, the plan was to lift the truck enough to run a set of 44-inch tires. Stan liked the Super Duty trucks because of the straight axle, which made lifting it 12 inches a snap. Three weeks later he had the body lifted three inches. He actually drove the truck with the 15-inch (total) lift and the stock wheel and 30-inch tires for about a month and a half. After installing the 44-inch tires the truck looked perfect. Everything was great, and Stan loved the truck… and then Swamper comes out with a set of 49-inch Irok tires!

Author

Bob Carpenter

Words & Photography

And then Swamper comes out with a set of 49-inch Irok tires. Damn. The hook was firmly set in Stan’s mouth and he had to have a set of the monster meats. But you couldn’t fit them on the truck with only a 15-inch lift so it was time to go back to the shop. This time the truck was lifted 19 inches (combined with the 3-inch body lift for 22inches total). Bulletproof suspension custom built a set of white traction bars for the truck and they really became a focal point of the suspension system. After mounting the big tires, Stan had the rearend gears changed to 4.88.

While all this was going on, Stan was going through the process of upgrading the stereo too. Stan stepped up to some pretty serious Eclipse and Rockford Fosgate equipment and then he had the windows tinted limo black.

That’s when Stan hooked up with Jeff Zylstra of Custom Creations in the Galleria at Tyler in Riverside, California. “Jeff treated me like a personal friend,” Stan said. “He immediately started visualizing what we could do with my truck for improvement. He installed Euro headlights, corners and tail lights, and more.” But, of course, Stan wasn’t standing still. He took his truck to JT Autostyle in Rosemead, California for the installation of Lamborghini-style doors. JT Autostyle is extremely deep into the import market and now they’ve started to make an impact with the truck guys. The Lambo-style doors (JT calls them EVO Doors) are an impressive custom statement and JT installs something like a dozen sets a day. The waiting list is long but owner Tony Yip managed to squeeze Stan in and the results speak for themselves. There are no modifications necessary for the door or cab and they could easily be returned to stock if needed.

As the deadline for our photo shoot loomed, Stan was faced with a big problem. He had acquired a set of headers and the muffler system from Gibson Performance but he had no one to install them. The night before our shoot he found Ace Mufflers. George Salinas was just about to close up for the day when Stan rolled in with a difficult request. The headers and exhaust system had an estimated install time of 10-12 hours and the photo shoot was scheduled for 2:00 p.m. No problem, as George likes challenges. He came back to the shop at 2:30 a.m. and installed everything, even leaving enough time for Stan to get the truck spiffed up for the photo shoot.

As crazy as Stan is about this truck, there are others who share his enthusiasm. Without people like George Salinas, Tony Yip, Jeff Zylstra, Shawn Gibson, and Mike Perez a project like this either wouldn’t happen or it would take a year longer than it did. Stan realizes that his success has been tied to these people and that’s why he put stickers on the windows to acknowledge them.

But don’t think Stan is done. He has lots of other plans including a sunroof, billet grille, K&N intake, Jet chip, a Paxton supercharger, and more. You weren’t surprised now, were you?