Big guys like big trucks, and for one
Cincinnati Bengal veteran, he wanted his truck to be even bigger and badder.
“We’ve done three other vehicles for this player, and we can’t share his name, but he did agree to let us share the story of his truck,” explained Ken Steele, owner of Truck Paradise in Waynesville. “He bought a brand-new Ford F250 Crew Cab short bed 4-wheel drive pickup, and wanted it transformed from stock ugly to totally bad.”
“I got him connected with Eric Leotold here, and they sat down and devised a plan on what they wanted it to look like, and we then used all readily available parts to make the transformation,” Steele added.
Leotold was the lead guy on the project, and surprisingly, it didn’t take nearly as along as the results would indicate. “We did the whole project in less than four days. It was literally swapping out parts and pieces, but we had a complete game plan and all the parts in hand before we started,” he said.
The Ford F250 truck comes stock with a 6.7-liter turbocharged Powerstroke diesel that develops more than 400 horsepower and 800 pound-feet of torque. This truck is finished in Tuxedo Black metallic paint and has a sticker price north of $50,000. It had about 500 miles on it when Leotold got his hands on it.
“He wanted it to stand tall, and run strong, so we raised it 8 inches, and got under the hood to make some more power,” Leotold said.
An eight-inch lift kit from Full Throttle suspensions, complete with chrome reservoirs, was installed. A matching steering stabilizer was added to keep the front end smooth and eliminate any movement in the steering wheel.
The stock wheels and tires were scrapped for 38-inch Toyo MT’s mounted on Moto Metal 962’s in 20” by 12” with a 44 mm offset.
“That means that the tires are going to stick out of the fenders, so we added a set of Bushwhacker Pocket Fender Flares that we painted in Tuxedo Black to match,” Steele said.
Leotold got under the hood to improve the already strong performance of the Powerstroke. 
“We added a Black Max DPF (diesel particulate filter) tuner to the engine, which can be controlled on the fly by the driver,” he said. “We also installed an
S & B cold-air intake to allow more air into the engine.”
To make all that work well, the stock exhaust had to go, and it was replaced with a 5-inch stainless steel system that ends with a 6-inch tip. “It really sounds incredible,” Leotold said.
“By doing these three performance enhancements, we improved fuel mileage, gained about 164 horsepower and over 500 more pound feet of torque,” he said.
“To wrap it all up, we tinted the windows with Formula 1 window film, which contain no dyes and is a nano-cermaic film. It won’t fade and has a life-time color-stable warranty,” Steele said.
The before and after pictures tell the story, from stock to high-riding bad in less than four days. To learn more about this truck or other truck modifications, go online to www. truckparadise.com.