I drive a 97 flarside ford f150 4.2. This is the og model of the 97 f150 manufactured before july or whenever it was they decided to change things such as the header panel. The header panel makes sense and ive seen 97s with them in the scrapyard but my 97 has a few miscellaneous unique qualities. Does anyone else have this setup but with the exhaust out the passenger side like a lightning, door panel with the speaker directly above the window crank, and the bench seat with fold down levers coming out the back and a sideways tear drop plastic cover on both sides? Anyone know if not lightning 97 f-150s every came with the exhaust out the side stock? ill try and post pictures asap.

 

I had a 97 F150 XLT with the 5.4, 4x4 and E4OD trans years ago, but it was a later model build and actually had the stock single exhaust exiting behind the pass rear tire.

The early 97's did have the single exhaust exit in front of the pass side tire... But, Ford changed that after mid year or so and 98 on except for the Lighting's of course.

The Lighting's had their exhaust exit before the pass side rear tire, but it was not the same as those early 97's obviously..

Dunno about your speaker setup.. I think it had the 4 speaker setup but I didn't have the bench seat..

Here was my old 97.. Wish I still owned it!!

Mitch

 

Fair enough, thanks for shedding some light this as ive had a hard to time finding answers lol but nice! looked clean!

 

It had 255,000 miles on it when I traded it in on the 13 I have now.. This was probably a couple of years before then, but I think it had at least 200.000 miles on it in this pic.

 

well done, my beauty is running at 228 and hoping for another 30 k at least

 

My 98 XLT 5.4 had the exhaust in front of the rear tire. So did my 97 Lariat 4.6

 

That could not have been the factory exhaust on your 98, or it was really a 97.

 

It was all factory underneath when I got it. Mfg 11/97. I've still got it, can look at the date again later.

 

Yes, the earlier ones had the exhaust in front of the rear tire. I remember when we were looking at the "newer" gen (first non-boxy) F150s.

I kind of liked that. I don't know why they changed it.

I'd think it would save money.

 

probably due to complaints of co2 in the cabin when idling

 

Exhaust was moved because of discoloration of the RR wheel is what I've been told