Ok, I want to show my Wood a little next year. I want to do some small things to help it stand out a little more. I know just being a Wood will make it stand out, but I want to add a little personalization to it. I know rims & tires are obvious but since we have another vehicle that likes to suck up all the money I want to keep my changes on the smaller side. I also want to do something to brighten the engine compartment.

Heres my ideas so far, tell me what you think:
1. radio, the stock one just looks too plain to be in our trucks
2. interior lights, saw article in Sport Truck & thought it would look cool to match the bed color & keep it tasteful
3. clear corners
4. cool blue headlights, how could I change the foggers to match? total new lights or just bulbs?
5. personalized plate...my fav is "ICANDY" but Robert doesn't like it, so what about "WOODGIRL" or "GIRLSWUD" (or some variation to fit the plate, not sure how many letters are allowed)

Ok now give me your thoughts on these & other options you might suggest.

 

only seven letters are allowed and all you need to do is change out the bulbs for the fogs. i dont think anyone makes clear light assemblys for the nav/wood (since its all one piece) but i will check. as far as the radio goes i haven't found a radio that works w/ the stock cd changer so you will either lose that or have to get a changer also. as far as your plate ideas goes i said icandy is probably taking and the woodgirl wont only fit but sounds kinda

 

You could mount something in the trailer hitch. I have a Houston Texans bull logo in chrome in mine. Looks nice, in my opinion.

I have seen some interior light kits that might look good for show, but would be distracting in use at night.

I don't know if anybody else gets asked the question about where the speakers are in the trunk. This stems from the commercial where Ford (in all their brilliance) was apparently attempting to market this truck to 20yr olds. I am thinking that a rotating mirror ball in the trunk would look good. ;-)

Another consideration might be some of the 'billet' accessories, such as valve stems, cigarette lighter, etc.

I used a black license plate frame, but I think that a chrome LINCOLN frame might look good also.

More thoughts later.

 

Good ideas thanks.

In the article I read they had their lights hooked up to a switch mounted under the dash so that you could turn the lights on & off at will. I also thought of the night driving issue before I read it.

The mirrored ball would look cool when I pop the lid to put groceries in there since I always seem to shop at night.


Keep them coming.

 

Always amazes me how you two have to communicate through f150online instead of across the breakfast table or the bed

Seriously, half seriously, to paraphrase a famous critic of George the Senior, " It's the wheels, stupid".

As winter approaches and we do have a bit of that in GA, my thoughts too have been turning to what I could do to my own Wood from an appearance point of view. The performance route is going to be so expensive I don't even want to go there yet.

To the wheels rdy, I think that is one of the two weakest points on the exterior side of the equation. They are not ugly or anything like that, they are just "there" and not adding to the luxo look or the performance look or the show truck look.
I have not really gone to the dealer to check it out, but I do remember a thread talking about the chrome 03 Gator wheels and how nice they looked. Might could pick up a set of those if you like them from the local wrecking yard or ask Guido to "obtain" a set for you. Other than that, I guess the alternative is some 22's and the requisite tires and you have already said that may be out of the budget, so might have a look at the Gators.

In my opinion, the other major exterior glitch is the exhaust outlet. If you check out a Donali, an Escalade and so on, at least they have a nice tip setup and of course so do the HD and Lightning in our own family. I am absolutely clueless how to bring back old threads on this board, but I had, I believe, Chiknears do a photoshop on Jim's photos to portray different exhaust treatments as well as lowering the Wood. My favorite was a quadruple setup using Porsche Boxter tips two on each side of the license plate area. If I can afford it, I am going to go that route.

As to "other exterior", I would really like to lose the chrome gas filler door as to my eyes it just sticks out like a sore thumb for no reason. I am not really into anything to do with lighting except for a penchant for yellow lenses in the rear for turn signals. I suspect that is not possible but would be nice.

I have mentioned this before, but I would also like to figure out a way to complete the use of wood accents in the interior. Seems to me like they had a budget and did the best they could but left out a whole lot of areas that are just plain butt ugly black plastic that should have been "wooded". Probably due in part to my age, but I remember driving Packards and Cadillacs built in the 1930's when I was in high school that had wood throughout the interior.

This is getting too long but I don't want to forget the underhood area since you mentioned the possibility of showing your Wood.

As I am sure you know, it is not horribly expensive to convert a lot of the various hoses in there to aircraft quality hoses and fittings. If you go pop your hood tomorrow morning and look at your engine bay, it is un-inspiring to say the least. I have detailed mine to the max and then said "for what"? It still looks like a rats nest. There are a lot of aftermarket tidying up fittings that you could use to clean up the engine bay at rather little cost and it makes a good winter project.
Let me finish by saying that I do not want to get into a snit with your husband but I have used the full words "eye candy" maybe 20 times since I got my Wood and I vote for that for your tag ID.
Bill

 

Honestly Bill I try to keep out of it with him, but he keeps butting in. Just to help you understand, we would talk in the bed but we're never in it at the same time & breakfast consists of a pop tart at work (when I leave he's usually sleeping in the recliner with the baby).

Wheels: That was actually the first thing that I thought about changing. But since we have another money pig (the L) I can't do anything to expensive. Especially if some needs ANOTHER set of slicks.

Exaust: I like the pic that someone posted of the Haley exaust. I tried to talk Johnny into changing out Sue's & selling me hers, but he wasn't buying it. Go figure.

I hadn't thought of the hoses & fittings so that one will probably go on my to do list.

Plate: thanks for the support. I call her that all the time.

Lastly, are you crazy! Go outside in this weather to look at something! j/k I had planned on checking out under the hood in the spring.

 

the new navi rims are 6 lugs (already checked into it)
i liked "blkwood" for a plate but obviously my opinions dont seem to matter some times we have a program for the wood, now that i have a few extra chips i was wanting to put one back in her truck. since we found out her positive battery cable was loose around the time she track tested her truck (i think that was a big reason why her times weren't as good as they should have been) with or without the chip. she bought a jlp ramair kit w/ the cover that we are going to see if it will fit (if not it might end up on the L) as far as hoses and such we'll look into it but dont think it would give the look that i would like to see.

 

Not to sound pissy but, what is the look you want to see? You've never mentioned it to me.

Plate: BLKWOOD is an obvious choice for anyone who bought one. I want mine a little more personalized than that. I won't drive a vehicle I don't like (i.e. the co's Focus) & I won't get a personalized plate that I don't feel fits the poersonality of MY truck.

 

Evening guys:

I am really enjoying this thrust and parry on the good old WWW, God what an invention

Too bad about the Gator wheels. Has anyone chromed the stock Wood wheels I wonder? I know I will get terribly bashed for this, but I was not totally joking about getting some 20/22 inch wires for mine but with larger/thicker rubber. I need to get someone to photoshop it to see how it would look. Or, I will kit bash a couple of models from my store and see how it looks in 1/24 scale. Have to use a Ford truck as the basic vehicle but it would give me an idea.

I undertand your feelings about aircraft fittings & hoses but if you don't overdo it, it can help. I have that sort of stuff on my 56 F100 with a built inline six and it looks very clean and purposeful compared to all the black rubber stuff.

Like to see a pic of the air filter if you do it. I am looking into that as well and almost as much from an appearance point of view as for a little extra performance. I had one of Sal's PSP filters on my 99 bolt and it looked a whole lot better than the stock box.
Wondered about your chip experience as your times were essentially what a stock Wood is supposed to turn. The only source I have found so far is that Superchips has a chip for the Gator with the same PCM code that I have and they say it should work on the Wood. As a PCM is a PCM, I guess that makes sense, but virtually every parameter you can think of is different between a Gator and a Wood (weight, axle ratio, trannie gearing I guess and so on) so I am a bit leery of doing this. I hope you can be the beta for a decent stock/improved street chip, assuming you are doing a flip chip which I really need in the metro Atlanta "dirty air zone" when we switch to winter gas.

Just for grins, you might want to check into the HDMLNIUM (sp) thread on page one or two of today's Lightning posts regarding a rerun of his getting a gator motor for his L with a Whipple supercharger. Disregard all the bull**** about the builder and concentrate on the look of the motor even though it appears to be a "fake" mockup. Sure looks neat to me if someone ever makes it happen.

Web at ya later.
Bill

 

A local L owner (who I chat w/frequently) offered me his 22s, said he'd nock $100 off what he wants ($3900, my price). I also agree, 22s might work but not with rubber bands on them, especially since it's my daily driver & Michigan roads suck. I had found a set of chromed Wood wheels on ebay, the bidding ended at $1000, for a set of 4. This is exactly what I told Robert I wanted, Wood rims only shinnier.



I got the ram air used so that I wouldn't feel as bad if I had to chop it up. If I get it to work but it looks like crap, I'll see if Johnny can pretty me up a new one. Don't worry I'll have plenty of pics once Robert gets his new camera for xmas (don't worry he knows about it).

I would love to see some pics of your F100. It might help me with more ideas.

As for the chip, there will be more testing as the times I was happy with from the day were bone stock times. The only thing I did was pull out the babyseat. Yes we will have a flip chip in there. I'm sure the Wood & the Gator are diff partially because the computer codes were totally different. What we did was download the PCM & send it to Diablo to read & make up a base program.

 

I just sent Chiknears an e-mail asking him to photoshop some different wheel ideas (sorry, wires). He usually is very helpful but as I said I will also try to play around with some of my model stuff. I stock a wide range of Low Rider/Old School models and the customers kids usually destroy several a month and I use them for parts. There is no model available of a Blackwood, but plenty of various permutations of 150's so I can get close.

Now, as to the chromed stock wheels, wow

I have my 92 Town Car as a Sunday driver and could lay up the Wood for the time necessary to pull that off. Our companion Tire and Brake shop in our shopping center does that sort of stuff or has it done somewhere and I will talk to them on Monday. That looks really impressive, much better than I would have thought.

As to the PCM codes, as stated, my Wood has a code that is recognized as a Gator code and according to Superchips, if the code is the same, the PCM is the same. Where that leads us I don't know but we agree that the vehicles are pretty radically different in all other respects.

Let's stay in touch on this subject and I am sure we can come up with a really nice set of upgrades and hopefully not have to spend a fortune. Well, on the other hand, why do we buy these bloody trucks in the first place other than to sink a ton more of money in them

Damn smilies are addictive aren't they.
Bill

 

meaning i know how much i spent on my braided fuel lines and dont think its cost effective to try and replace everyhose. plus their is just way to much stuff under the hood to make it look like a clean install. i guess we can discuss it tomorrow

Quote:

Plate: BLKWOOD is an obvious choice for anyone who bought one. I want mine a little more personalized than that. I won't drive a vehicle I don't like (i.e. the co's Focus) & I won't get a personalized plate that I don't feel fits the poersonality of MY truck.

and i obviously know that you dont like driving cars. and dont even go their with "MY TRUCK" i'll do what i want. cause i have to trucks that i can do that with also.

 

I'd look at getting some kind of HID system for your headlights. They do make some that would be compatable. Cool blue are nice (Sylvania Silverstars are MUCH nicer than Cool Blue) but, HID is definately the way to go...

I just dropped a set of Xenarcs in my truck and, this is, by far and away, the best mod (hands down) that I've done.... I love them!

RP

 

Let me start off by saying that I knew Robert would take the "MY truck" comment wrong. As I explained to him (yes we actually spoke in person ) I meant that as my Wood as apposed to someone else's Wood.

Bill, let me know what kind of figures you get on the chroming. I'll check with a couple places around here too. I could always throw the stock Lightning wheels on if I need to send mine out. Robert has been dieing to see how they'd look on there anyway.

RockPick, got any pics of your lights? Maybe even the throw pattern?

As for the plate, we do have the Lincoln Blackwood decorative plate that came with her & we discussed putting that on with a decorative frame, until I figure out what I want to get. Came up with another idea also: KTSWOOD =reads Katy's Wood.

Once again, ALL suggestions, comments & recomendations welcome.

 

I like the KTSWOOD plate idea