This F-150 prerunner was built to fly.
A while back I start hearing about a fab shop in California, Brenthel Industries. I was told they make some great long travel kits, so I go online to see if I can get some more details. I find their site, I click to view their long travel kits and all I see are CAD drawings. Now if you have worked with this type of software it might be easy for you to paint the picture in your head of what this kit will do, but for a magazine editor it was like I was looking at Chinese.
I sent them an email asking if they had pictures I could look at, and like any busy fab shop they said we will be getting them on our site real soon. So I waited wondering what to expect, when will I get to see these CAD drawing transformed into a metal work of art.
Looking online for prerunners to feature I meet a photographer online that tells me he has an F-150 he is working on and it has the Brenthel Industries long travel kit on it. He sends me a few pics and my jaw hit the keyboard. I knew I had to get a hold of these guys. So I pushed and finally after some testing they did, I got some pics and a video to share with you.
You’ll notice by the title of this feature that this prerunner was built well. Some people measure the performance of their prerunners by how fast they can tackle 2 foot whoops at 50 mph, others test their mettle by how high they can fly. This prerunner was built to fly.
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Looking at the front of this prerunner you will notice it uses the Brenthel Industries Long Travel Race Kit for ’04 to ’08 2WD Ford F-150s. This kit started life in 3D CAD modeling software, then after the parts were cut it was TIG welded. It uses 1″ monoballs for the inner lower control arm pivots, is 5″ wider per side giving you 17″ of whoop eating travel. |
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The kit includes:
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This race long travel kit accepts a 2.5 coilover and a 2.5 bypass shock to help you dial in your suspension for what ever the desert throws at you. Brenthel’s shock of choice just happens to be King Shocks.
The rear suspension on this truck is simple and effective. They started with a set of Deaver Springs, and using the Brenthel Industries Spring Under kit, they mounted the springs under the axle to give this truck more bump travel. Keeping the bumps in check again Brenthel Industries chose King Shocks this time in the form of a 3.0 bypass shock. The shocks are mounted to a custom bedcage, and this set up gives the prerunner 19″ of travel.
Making room for the 37″ General Grabber tires mounted on Robby Gordon wheels is a set of FiberWerx front fenders and rear bedsides.
Jumping, and abusing a truck like this requires a bit of work to be done on the rear end if you want it to survive. Brenthel Industries used one of their modified rears to ensure this prerunner will keep moving after it lands a huge jump.
Speaking of huge jumps, if you plan on building a prerunner of this caliber you need to think about safety, and Brenthel Industries did not forget this part. This F-150 prerunner is caged front to back and includes Brenthel Industries Race Seats. Also inside the cab is a 5″ HD GPS so they never get lost.
After adding all the cage work, extra shocks, dual spare tires, and trying to turn 37″ tires you will notice your truck runs like a pig, so to fix this Brenthel Industries added a supercharger, Pace Headers and a Magnaflow exhaust. You can see by the pictures and the video this added a significant amount of power to the 5.4.
For most of us owning a prerunner like this is something we all dream of….but it doesn’t have to be a dream. Save your pennies and do it in steps. The first step is to call Brenthel Industries, form a plan, and you too can be storming the desert like this high flyer.
