Ford adds the Bronco 4600 to its Ultra4 off-road racing arsenal

Although Ford's Bronco 4400 race trucks are surely going to draw lots of attention when they debut at this week's King of the Hammers off-road race event, the Bronco 4600-class trucks that will accompany them are more relevant to actual customers. That's because, unlike the "Unlimited" 4400 series, the 4600 class is much more deeply rooted in production-spec parts, including the chassis, engine and transmission.

That means the Bronco 4600 race trucks you see in the gallery above use the same 2.7-liter EcoBoost V6 engine and 10-speed automatic gearbox that you'll find under the hood of two- and four-door Broncos that will soon sit inside Ford dealerships.

"Bronco 4600 underscores how ready the all-new Bronco is for competition and how Ford Performance is committed to driving the brand’s success across multiple off-road series,” said Mark Rushbrook, global director, Ford Performance Motorsports. “We look forward to off-road racing teams coming to this platform and to Ford Performance stepping up to continuously enhance the state of the art in off-road racing for them.”

Now, it should be noted that although these 4600-class Broncos do share a good bit of DNA with their stock counterparts, there are some important modifications that allow them to do proper off-road battle under competitive conditions. A quartet of Fox coilover shocks with remote reservoirs and pneumatic bump stops hold up heavy-duty axles front and rear. The front relies on  portal hubs from 74 Weld, Triton Engineering control arms, a Dana AdvanTEK e-locking differential with RCV custom halfshafts and a Howe hydraulic steering rack with cooler. At the rear are Triton Engineering links, a Dynatrac ProRock XD60 axle with an ARB 35-spline Air Locker and Spidertrax Spider 9 axle shafts and hubs. Willwood Engineering brakes, Method Race Wheels 202 Forged Beadlock wheels and 35-inch BF Goodrich mud-terrain T/A KM3 tires round out the running gear.

The package also includes Ford Performance steel bumpers, a Warn winch, Rigid LED off-road lights, Recaro seat shells and a full custom roll cage. A custom livery of factory colors Race Red, Oxford White and Velocity Blue is an American-themed touch, while a red R in the grille's Bronco script highlights Ford's racing efforts.

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