(72-93) 1st gen dodge truck weigh & suspension

I'll start off with saying I'm new to this site but been on other sites for a while. Anyways to the point.
I'm wanting to lighten up the front end of my dodge truck (I.e. I know they make fiberglass parts but cost to much for me.) And also better and bigger front brakes if anyone have done that. And any better front suspension parts, and that are lighter. I daily drive my truck, but also run 9's in 1/4 mile on the weekends.Has a turboed small block. It's lowered 4" in the front, 6" in the rear. And just body dropped the truck 3.5"
Thanks for the help.

Hey, welcome to the site!

Wow, got any pictures of this Beast you can show us? Sounds right up my alley anyway.

A couple of suggestions for your brakes:

1. Expensive, but see if you can locate a wrecked SRT Ram and grab the whole braking system and anything else you can from it and adapt it to your truck.

2. Much cheaper, look into adapting a set of brakes off of a 3/4 ton truck.

As I'm sure you've noticed, the entire front-end on these is big, empty box. I've seen a couple of these trucks involved in front collisions and they fold like a carboard box, and so does the cab. I mean, from what I saw, they have horrible protection for the occupants. My opinion, You really take your life into your own hands if you start removing the inner fenders and going fiberglass hood.

Didn't the Texas Monkeys use a newer Ford Crown Vic front stub on one? Plenty of brake, sprung about right, R&P steering and just right width IIRC.

Hp383 can tell you how badly these trucks fold up. He had a bad collision in one and now has a wheelchair in his signature.

I've had a few minor to mild collisions in mine and I can tell you it hurts.

im pretty sure i follow you on intagram boosted warlock. judging by the body drop comment

@72d100 you might be following me in Instagram my username is boostedwarlock as well.

Once I get on my laptop I'll post pictures of the truck and other 1st gens I have.

I'm building a 12 point roll cage for it right now. I'm not doing the crown Vic set up cause I have a lot of Monet wrapped up into what I have now.

I've thought about the srt truck brakes but I want to stay with the 5 on 4.5 bolt pattern. I'm thinking about seeing if someone has a used spindle, and brake set up off of an A,B,or C body that I could use to see what it would take to make the brake works on the truck, and then I'd be able to use the aftermarket brake set ups they make for them.

Anyone have any ideas how to lighten a truck up I think I've done it all but I might have missed something. Once my warlock is back on the road I have a Mr.norm truck I'm going to build and it's going to be on a tube chassis with a cool turbo set up and small block.

Thanks for the help guys, glad to hear from you all, and hope to be able to help you all when I can.

Here's one of just being lowered before the body drop. Building 1 1/4 front sway bar and a 1 3/4 rear sway bar.

Last one of my truck cause no one wants to see my old work truck

IIRC, the C-body and 1/2-ton trucks used the same size upper balljoint, so if you're thinking car knuckle, that's your likeliest bet I'm guessing.

That might be true some had said that as well. Now I just need to fine an old one someone has laying around with all the goodies so that I can do a little bit of measuring.

The '73 C body rotor was shared with the early trucks. AndyF made a big brake kit for this rotor so you might want to see if you can scrounge one up. If I remember correctly it was a 13x1.25 inch rotor and viper calipers.

1) cut the braking surface off your rotors and convert them into hubs.
2) open the center register of 2005 Mercedes S500 brake rotors to fit the truck center registers. Redrill the bolt pattern to match.
3) make a bracket to mount the proper caliper in the best position.
4) if using a multi piston caliper be sure the wheels have the spokes far enough away from the mounting surface to clear big fat calipers.

Another option is to send me the truck spindles and enough cash to build the setup you want.

Sounds like a good idea but want to make something that you can get from a parts store and not have to specially make every time you change brakes, or if for some reason I ever sell it, trying to explain to the person all the work it takes to change brakes and rotors. When I could be like 99 mustang rotors and pads for example.

Here's another question I've got for a daily driver and weekend racer, tie rod ends or him joins. I'm replacing them all so witch will be stronger? Last longer? And better driving quality?

i cant see the gains in playing with the brakes to make it lighter----time to lose sheetmetal weight---toss the hood hinges--cut the inner panel out of the hood----cut off 1/2 of the inner fenders--lose the bumpers and that is about all you can do....

If you want to use a single sided caliper with larger brakes you can grab more common off the shelf rotors like the 2007 Charger RT.
You will need to turn your rotors into hubs and install slightly longer studs.

The Charger center register and bolt pattern are the same as your truck. The shallow offset of the rotor means a floating caliper will be required. You will need to adapt the siding caliper mount to the spindle.
It's possible to do that but, again, I'd need the spindle, caliper, hub, and rotor to build it.

That would give you $30 rotors (13.5") and $20 pads. All parts would be off the shelf except for the hubs you make out of your stock rotors.

17" wheels would be required, possibly 18" depending on the caliper chosen.

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Here's another question I've got for a daily driver and weekend racer, tie rod ends or him joins. I'm replacing them all so witch will be stronger? Last longer? And better driving quality?

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I'd stick with a good quality ball joint. Heims don't make for long life on the street. You can cover them and use the latest/greatest variant but they're still not going to return the service life of a ball joint.

There's not much weight you're going to save on that truck.