GARRETT FOAT’S 700-HP 6.4L FORD F-350

Garrett Foat is a young construction worker from Waterford, Wisconsin, and when he purchased his 2009 Ford F-350, it was supposed to be used as a daily driver and just perform regular trips to job sites. But Foat began building here and there and eventually had his truck looking and performing better than your average daily driver. It’s something we diesel die-hards are known to do.

The Ford was six-months old and had 15,000 miles on it when Foat purchased it in 2009. Within a few months, he started to address the exterior, focusing on making the truck look better. The first step he took was to bolt on some new rubber and wheels to dress up the big work truck. He installed a set of 20X10-inch Chrome RBP 94R 8-spoke wheels that are wrapped in LT305/55R20 Nitto Dune Grappler tires. To match the wheels to the truck, he painted the inserts bright white, and the monochromatic theme began to develop.

Foat turned to the crew at Diversified Truck Body & Paint in Big Bend, WI, to administer the white monochrome theme on the outside of the truck. Just about anything that could be unbolted from the truck was removed then prepped and sprayed bright white to match the body. The paint team color matched the front and rear bumpers, as well as the grille and accessories like the tow hooks and receiver mount. They also painted the mirrors, door handles and fender vents to complete the white-out look. To offset the sea of white, he also replaced the original head-light assemblies with Recon clear headlights and replaced the mirror, cab and taillights with Recon dark smoked lights. He finished off the lighting upgrades with a Rigid Industries LED light bar installed in the center of the bumper, as well as a pair of Rigid Dually LEDs outside of the tow hooks, the LED lights are finished in white, of course.

After Foat completed the work on the exterior of the truck, he added a tuner and enjoyed driving the truck for a few years. Then the sled-pulling bug bit him, and he decided to give it a try. Realizing he would need some more power to compete with the top performers in the Work Stock pulling class, he turned the truck over to Brenton Lindenberg at Side Action Diesel Performance (SADP) in Rich-mond, Illinois, to work his magic on the 6.4L Power Stroke engine. Lindenberg and his team at Side Action lifted the cab of Foat’s Ford and went to work pulling the cylinder heads to give them their Street Series/Competition port work including CNC machining and hand blending for maxi-mum airflow. They also installed a set of 120-pound valve springs to control the valves under high boost. To provide additional lift and more aggressive valve timing, they replaced the factory cam with a new Stage 2 bump-stick from Colt Cams before bolting the engine back together with a set of ARP head studs. Internally, the stock crank swings stock pistons through the bores with a set of factory rods. The high flowing heads are capped with the factory intake manifold that the SADP team ported for improved airflow to match the heads.

On the exhaust side of the heads, the team installed a set of Side Action Diesel Performance high-flow up-pipes that fed a modified factory turbo charger assembly at the time we shot the truck. But that has since been replaced with an SADP stainless steel T4 mount kit and a Borg Warner S400 single turbo charger to be more competitive in the 2.5 Work Stock pulling class. The compressed air charge is cooled by an aFe Power intercooler mounted in the factory location. Spent exhaust gases are sent out through an MBRP exhaust system.

A set of SADP 60-percent over nozzles are installed on a set of matched fuel injectors to supply plenty of #2 to keep up with the improved airflow the 6.4L Power Stroke now enjoys. The fuel system is also enhanced with an AirDog II 165 fuel pump and filter system, as well as a SADP fuel bowl delete kit. Spartan Technology tuning is used to get the most out of the engine while a DashDAQ display rides along in a windshield mount near the driver side A-pillar to keep Foat aware of the truck’s performance at a glance. The truck has been dynoed at right at 700-horsepower along with close to 1,400 lbs-ft of torque.

To get the power from the engine to the ground, the drive train had to be upgraded as well. Lindenberg and his Side Action Diesel team rebuilt the 5R110 transmission using billet shafts and SunCoast Iron PAC 3 clutches to get the power transferred to the axles and down to the track. An SADP billet triple disc torque converter is used to link the engine to the transmission.

The front and rear suspension was upgraded with adjustable Rancho RS9000XL shocks on all four corners to tame the bumps and allow some simple chassis tuning. To prevent axle wrap in the rear, they installed a set of Top Gun Customz fabricated plate steel traction bars while a set of River City Diesel control arms are used to tame the front axle. A set of Fox dual steering stabilizers are also installed up front to help keep the big Nitto tires pointed in the right direction. An Eaton air locker is used in the rear axle to make sure the power gets to both wheels evenly out on the track but still allows the truck to be streetable.

Foat left the plush Lariat interior “as is” for now, but since his truck has reached a competitive level, it doesn’t make it to job sites as often as it once did. The former work truck is now a white-hot sled pulling machine any gearhead would be proud to own! UDBG

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