SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1524296
Eric Connor’s ‘74 F100 The only thing cooler than a prerunner truck is one with a vintage body on it. Eric Connor has always liked vintage vehicles, and after going to Glamis as a kid and living in El Cajon, CA most of his life, he turned his attention from import tuner and custom cars to off-road prerunners. After learning fabrication and starting his business, SoCal Suspension, he built several show vehicles and hot rod custom cars for customers. But being in the off-road mecca of California, he decided to build a prerunner of his own. Connor began with a Toyota Tundra, built a full cage for it, and added off-road suspension components. “That was my first attempt at a prerunner,” says Connor. “I ended up rolling the Tundra so badly, that I cut the cab off of the 74 Ford F100 that I already had, and with the help of my friend Morgan Clark, we did a cab swap on the Tundra frame.” Of course, it snowballed from there and Connor built a completely new tube chassis and only a short two-foot section of the frame is from the original Tundra. The truck is outfitted with an LSX 454 V8 crate engine that was tuned by Maruzzi Engines, adding Frankenstein Cylinder Heads, and now puts out 875 horsepower. Behind it is a TH400 automatic and a Camburg axle housing. This gets the 39-inch BFGoodrich Baja T/A tires spinning, while everything is controlled with Fox 4.0 front, and 4.5 rear bypass shocks and Fox 3.0 coilovers attached to a Center Mount front and four-link rear. This provides 24” of wheel travel in front and 30” at the rear. “I wanted a street-legal prerunner, and this one does the job,” says Connor. “Not only that, but I took it to a SCORE race in Mexico and it passed inspection, getting a SCORE tag on the cage.” Connor went to the SCORE San Felipe 250 and SCORE Baja 500 where he was surprised at the reception of his truck. “It was in the Baja Designs booth and people came up to me and knew who I was and had seen the truck on Terra Crew’s social media pages. It was amazing!” SJ