looking for a clean 87-95 F150

Sounds like fun Dave. Why not start off with a lightning?? Lightning's handle better, have a better transmission, and better rear end to start with. Plus they have a pretty stout 351W in them. A good friend of mine has a single turbo lightning around my house, and another friend has a twin turbo'd one. The old lightning's respond really well to boost. My friend with the single turbo ran 13.1 at 105 with everything else being stock on 9 pounds of boost. He has since upgraded to bigger injectors, and an EEC tuner, and he has upped the boost. It is a very fast truck to say the least. Good luck, Erik D. '94 white lightning

Thanks Erik , but I really do not want to pay for the "lightning" badge on the truck, I do realize they are a better built machine, a guy I know has the early and the latter 5.4sc model and loves them both... but I really want to build my own truck. It will also be a sleeper, no advertising of what it is will be on the truck at all.. I am to old for that attention and what it eventually brings with it. I have been around turboing 302s and 351Ws for quite a while now, my street car with a 351W already puts out well over 800hp, the truck will have that "capability" in the motor but I will not be going all out in the 4WD driveline part of it, just beefing up the tranni and of course pay some attention to the rear end as well. I may just run a DFI on the truck as well [ the same as my thunderbird] but have not decided yet. if I go twin turbos I will run the DFI for sure, if I go single and less hp [ something in the 600 or less range ] I may just stick with the factory A9L comp. I am building a second Thunderbird right now for the spring and really want to just start aquiring parts for this truck project.. all the truck will be used for is to haul the motocross bikes to the races and fun rides... I just like to get there as fast as I can at times.. :) . Is there any places to view a nice selection of Lighnings .. preferably the earlier ones showing what mods that were done to them?.. Thanks. Dave.

Good deal flymx. Either way, a turbo or twin turbo F150 will be badass, lightning or not. IF, you are interested in a lightning, you can check out the classifieds on

Just go to the forums and check out the classifieds. As far as paying for the name, a good lightning can be had for pretty cheap nowadays(5000ish). The quality of parts on a lightning are just so much better, it would be hard for me NOT to get one. If you want a 4x4 though, you'd have to get something else. Whatever you decide on, good luck!! Those T-birds sound bad ass, and pics or other info anywhere?? Erik D. '94 white lightning

Thanks for the info Eric. I will check out that url.. I did not know you could pic up a lightning for that kind of money.. I am in Canada [ near Toronto ] so there is the dollar difference but it is not as bad as it used to be.. I don't mind adding the 4wd stuff after the fact if I have to... but minimum it has to have a super clean chassis/body.. I don't really care if the motor even runs.. I have a complete 69 351W [ the strongest W block they made ] waiting for a truck to be put in.. I think I will probably enjoy driving the truck as much as the car.. my current [ rusted to the ground ] 88 4x4 has a "very" basic single turbo [ no intercooler ] with no real tuning to speak of ..it is slow off the line but once it gets going it really hauls, I used to chase the 5.0 guys on the hwy with it , WITH the two race bikes in the back, all the tools and gear as well.. thats gotta be close to 6000 lbs.. Thats gotta be embarrassing losing with your mustang to a 4wd truck.. :) .. some have fun , some get mad ..

There are some pretty raw shots of the T-bird [ daves , the blue super coupe ] at this site, it is a freinds site he whipped up to put his car and mine on.. his 87 is my old chassis that I put a Grand National V6 turbo motor and tranni in it for him.. nothing crazy but it should pull 400hp , it has a bigger turbo/injectors, modified intercooler etc.. so it should be a great daily driver. I may have to pic up a better 89 Super Coupe as well, the one I had in storage [ indoors] for the last 5 years has rusted a bit past more than I thought it did... crap.. oh well ... mock up on this one , get the bugs out and swap it all over to a better chassis next winter..

Supposedly the transfer case and 4x4 equipment will bolt right up to a lightning. That would be really neat if you go that route!

Thats aweseme, lol!! I beat a 5.0 with a 4 wheeler in the back of mine once, the guy was pissed, lol. Must be embarrising especially since my truck is only a high 14 second truck, lol. There's just something about beating things with a truck that I love, lol!

Nice looking T-birds. Interesting setups you have. My buddy has a '90(I think) supercoupe but its all stock, pretty sweet car though. The same guy has a '90 cougar that is pushing 1000 HP, talk about badass. He went with a blower instead of a turbo though.

Those old t-birds/cougars are cool cars(especially when they have a lot of power.)

Good luck with your search! Erik D. '94 white lightning

Ya, I don't see any problems there , just durability, but I am pretty sure I will not be cranking it up in 4wd anyway, that is just for getting in and out of hard to get at riding areas.

From a roll , hp to weight wins hands down, from a dead stop traction is thrown in ... my 87 Thunderbird would not hook worth a crap , but it still ran [ with C16 @ 23lbs boost ] 10.70s @ 135 mph on street tires threw 2.5" "real" exhaust... no Flowmasters on anything I have to drive... way to much attention .. and noise.. for a pig of a car [ 3800 with me in it ] it went pretty good, even on pump gas it still went 128mph.. gotta love turbos.. I am doing a retro fit of Fords A9L computor and harness onto my uncles mildly modified 440 chrysler for his motorhome.. it came with a Carter carb pos.. he has tried the holly projection.. another pos... The Ford fuel injection should work quite nice on it. Other than the adaptor to mount the ford distributor and putting fuel injector bungs and rail on his Weiand intake it should really be a fairly easy job. Or not.. :) . Dave. Oh , a question, is there such a thing as a lightning with a long box on it.. I need a long box for the bikes and gear to all fit in . I just had a quick look at that site and went to one of the pics that showed a whole lot of trucks, and they all looked like short boxes..

All lightnings are short bed, regular cab.

Erik D. '94 white lightning

Well thats that idea shot all to hell.. Oh well, thanks anyway Eric. Maybe if I found a wrecked one I could pull alot of the "good stuff" off for my project.

Sounds like a good plan, but here are a couple things to keep in mind. The E4OD tranny is controlled by the computer, so you would need either a C3P2, CP31, or ICYU(I think) computer to control the tranny and engine. Either that or you would need a seperate controller for the tranny(ex. bauminator) and an A9L or something of the like. So you may be better off going with a C4 or C6. The rear end is great, probably the best rear end ford ever made, but its still gonna need some sort of locker because a turboed 351 will probably tear the stock trac-loc to shreds(both of my friends have detroit lockers in there turbo lightnings). So in all honesty, you may be better off just going with a regular F150 to suit your needs, unless you wanted to go with the lightning CPU(which could use a little tuning work in itself). Do you plan on using some sort of aftermarket computer(like FAST???) I dunno, anyway it sounded like a good idea at first, but now that i know what you want more, you'd probably be better off with a regular F150. Once you start working on it you should keep us posted. BTW, the guys on NLOC.net are very knowledgable and there are a few guys there who are good with the turbos. I don't know if you like forums, but that is a good one for F150 owners even if it isn't a lightning. Good luck!! Erik D. '94 white lightning

Ya, I almost bought one of those years ago when they came out, but ended up just sticking with the 2004R tranni ... chevy has stronger trannies but the buick has done me well so far, I have only broken the inpute stator once. I will not use a 3 speed at all, all my cars have to have an overdrive , so I will most likely end up with the E4OD sooner or later.

So you may

The lockers are a bit noisy, and I have had pretty good luck with my 8.8 once the shims/plates were set properly.. it is not "the best" but it has been a very good compromise as it will still go around corners without any noise or bind.

So in all honesty, you may be better off just going with a

I have an extra DFI not in use so I will use that one. I actually bought the first "ford" unit DFI made yeeeeeers ago[ before he sold it to Accell] .. they screwed it up the first time around, I had to send it back for a fix [ because the way the ford distributor turns, they had it retarding when it was supposed to advance... that and they sent me the Chevy pattern injector harness as well ...buttheads..] .

I dunno,

Ya, it will be much simpler and of coure cheaper in the long run , I figure it is better for me to pay for the stuff I really want on the truck and not for the stuff I don't , it is not going to be a show stopper [ or at least that is not my intention, that and I am really bad at cleaning my vehicles... the bikes on the other hand are usually spotless.. ] , it is going to just be transportation .. just a little more exciting than the plain stock ford offerings..

Once

I will try, I got my hands full as well with a new son, so my "play any time I want to days " are over ... for a while anyway.. Or until he is old enough to ride a dirt bike... about three ought to be good :) .

BTW, the guys on

I may check it out a little more in depth later this week , thanks again for the leads ... now I just gotta find a truck to start working on... Dave.