I'm dredging up this ancient thread because I was looking for some inspirational pictures of offroad/pre-runner Ford Explorers for a young man who is currently living in my house and just bought an inexpensive 91 Explorer. In looking for such pictures, I found this one of a Ranger
and clicked on it and was re-directed to this thread. The title looked interesting, so I read it all. And decided... To Heck with it, I'm gonna bring it back!
Tsk Tsk Tsk...
I think the young man (not so terribly young anymore) who was the OP and started all the fuss actually had a good idea that is not nearly as far-fetched or even needs to be as radical in engineering as the group seemed to think. Apparently none of the folks who posted on this thread (and some of them are still around on here) were ever aware that there was a professional road race series for production small pickup trucks. Not tube-framed fiberglass bodied NASTrucks, but basically stock mini trucks with mostly stock production 4 cylinder engines, basically stock suspensions and bodywork. And they went pretty quick.
Here's a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnSYj1hAPs0
All the brands were represented. It ran from the mid-80s to the early 90s. In the end, the faster trucks were...
I bet you guess wrong...
Ford Ranger (with twin i-beam front suspension), Nissan (with basically the same front suspension that early Mustangs used) and Jeep Comanche (with straight tube front axle). For those who think they know about road racing, those will shock the snot out of you.
A little about me so you reading this won't think I'm just another
blowing smoke out of his Burro.:
I grew up around SCCA road racing and hot rods and other motorsports. Then in the early 70s switched to the more 3-dimensional offroad racing. Since then I've won a championship with my own buggy in offroad desert racing, won in motorcycle desert racing, made a career of building and prepping offroad race cars and trucks that have won championships and their class in the Baja 1000 and stadium short course races; and worked on road racers from Mustangs to Alfas to a tube frame Corvette to Mustangs, Porsches and Javelins as well, including on a team that won the Trans Am championship that year, and street rods, and dry lakes racers, and restored vintage road racers and sprint cars and midgets, fabricated Super Modifieds and Jeep Speeds and Baja Bugs. I've owned Rangers and Explorers and currently have a Toyota pre-runner with FabTech IvanDan front with Fox coilovers and Hanneman glass all around. I have my 1st car still which is a 58 Bug with over 800,000 miles on it, over half of those as a Baja Bug. So I've been around and know a few things.
A few notes about the OP's idea come to mind real quickly, such as the fact that many of those road race cars I've worked on have had parallel leaf spring live axles and have been very effective. So does a Ranger pickup. Also, long travel suspension does not need to mean a high ride height. Short course offroad race trucks ride rather low to the ground, yet have lots of travel to handle big jumps. Meanwhile, they also handle quite well around corners.
I suggest starting out basic with simple mods to a production pickup, then working one's way through to more exotic 4-link rear suspension kits and such like that. With that in mind, I suggest starting out with 2 wheel drive, to keep things relatively simple, then go for 4wd as well.
The concept could even be extended to turbo diesel trucks as well, if you think about it with an open mind. I was on the crew of the only diesel to ever win the mini truck class in the Baja 1000. It was the Factory-backed Isuzu P'Up diesel of Mike Leon and Javier Tiznado (owners of Mike's Sky Rancho in the mountains of Baja) in 1986.
Attention would need to be paid to vehicle cornering...Low CG, Light weight, roll center, sway bars, instant centers, spring rates, camber change, body roll, etc.
Look what's being done in the world of pro-touring.
I feel the concept still has merit. And I hope the OP reads this post.