2015 F150 Prototype series

[KLFAB]

Whats up guys this is Kyle with KLFAB.
Ive decided to start a build breakdown in lieu of brain rot scrolling through social media. so here we go, a little background about myself. i have been doing fabrication for quiet sometime now, we started with road racing and drifting and as i grew older, my passion grew towards offroading. i absolutely love getting outside, exploring and creating which is what brought me into this mess of a career. i always had a thing for the F series trucks but was never a fan of beams. theres a couple kits out there that are good but 20k was out of reality for me and i always wanted to tweak what was already available. i knew what i wanted but just couldnt afford to make it a reality so i put my helmet down and kept working. after a while of doing cages and cookie cutter fab work i became bored. i wanted to do something different and i simply put wasnt enjoying the budget builds i was tackling to make ends meet. i made a couple posts online looking for a partner to create parts and found someone in a simular situation as i am looking to progress there ccreativity outside of the 9-5. over the last 2 years we have been spending every dollar and every minute putting all these creative ideas into reality, learning what not to do really fast. after about a solid year, hunudreds of hours we finally had our first prototype kit. 2015 f150 "race kit" was born under our name. our goals was and are to make quality parts, killer design for a decent price. ill get into the other products later because thats not what this thread is about. anyway, prototype v1 was her and we could start the tear down so lets get started...

 

[KLFAB]

mind you, this truck is well past this stage so im going to be writing here, explaining the journey until we are up to date. the truck we started with is a 2015 f150 3.5 NO TURBO. (more products to fix that later) first things first, if we want to go fast, we need a cage. were on the fence with offering a WIY cage for these specific trucks due to the aluminum cab. i dont think this is a great platform for the garage guys. one slip up and youre ina bunch of trouble. this metal is so damn thin and cuts waaaaaaay too easy, so if you have one of these, and you want a cage, take it to a shop.

anyway back on track, i dont have many pictures of the cage process but ill explain how i did it if anyone cares just lmk. super basic cage, cut the frame off and laid out the link setup. we shortened the wheel base in the rear about 4" and used open airs WIY links to get some numbers. a shortened wheelbase crew cab either means 1 of two things: shocks are going inside the cab or shocks are going to favor the axle side and run a bigger package. being that this is a prototype truck, we had no intentions on making any products that need the shocks inside we took the numers we need and the coilover is now located where the bypass pocket is and the bypass is equal distance further back, running a 16/18 setup. our next product was born. 55" 7075 billet links running 4 uniballs and clevises. i know king makes them but we like fox so we made our own for fox shocks. our links are for short wheel base trucks that dont want the shocks inside the cab. we also programmed our cnc so if you want to change the shock location we can offer custom layouts for roughly $300. they also come witha 4130 skidplate. pretty stoked but as of right now we are still running the open airs as we put money towards other parts of the company. ill attach our drawing below.

so now we have a caged truck, links setup and we decide to toss the tailgate on as well just so we can blend in a tad on the street. we get a little excited with the 500 coming up so we slap a wrap on, grab a starmount and load it up on the trailer and send it mexico untested and tired. got a last minute spot at estero beach resort, unloaded, did a quick nut and bolt check and hit the trails. had a great time no problems other than a brake line.