Need some help on the history of the L's. Got some OK help over at NLOC but not enough to answer all my questions. Please if you would read the following and give me the correct #'s for anything listed as ***. OK here goes.

Back in 93 Ford rolled out the F-150 Lightning. Released along side the SVT Mustang Cobra the Lightning was not even designed by SVT but by the truck division. Ford had decided that it would make more marketing sense if it looked like the Lightning had been developed in-house. First year saw only 2 colors red and black. Next year saw the inclusion of white at the request of southern dealers. Your money didn’t buy simply a bigger motor in the same box. It came with all different suspension, factory slapper bars, thicker frame (.170 Vs .143) and 275-60/70 Firehawk GTA tires. Brace plates are added over the rear kick up on the axle, quick ratio steering box, aluminum drive shaft and a lowered from stock of about 1” front 2.5” rear. The heart of this beast older or new has always been the motor and for these first generations it came as a 351W with GT-40 heads, upper and lower intakes, 65mm throttle body, tuned stainless headers and an all stainless exhaust. Factory rated at 240 horse power and 340 torque. 11563 Gen 1’s were produced from 93’-95’. Stock they would turn a 0-60 of 7.2 sec and about 15.6 in the quarter mile remember these are #’s from 93’.


Four years later in 99’ SVT released the Gen 2 Lightning. Factory rated at 360 horsepower and 440 torque. Soft rear springs help to plant the 295-45/18 Goodyear F1’s to a 0-60 of *** and a quarter mile of about 13.8 sec. When planning for the new edition of the lightning two versions were shown to the test subjects. The loser was a Ranger with a 5.0 motor. It was thought the Ranger would be to small and besides it had major sticker shock. The other was an F-150 standard cab with a blown 4.6 motor. Before release the newer 5.4 (330cid) became available and it was given an Eaton type super charger with 8 PSI boost while the only modification internally were forged pistons and stronger wrist pins. 01-04 models got more power at 380/450. My 02’ dyno’s at 360/408 stock. Handling in one of these trucks is a real surprise, I went looking for a Mustang Cobra but after one drive I fell in lust. The power is all you could want (until the warranty run’s out at least) and the cornering is more car like than you would believe. It comes with almost all option’s PW, PL, Cruise, 6 disc CD, Air, Tow package. Payload is rated at only 800 lbs and towing is restricted to 5K. SVT is taking a year off in 05’ to redo their plant and the Focus will be dropped. 06’ will see the new Mustang and the new F-150. The Lightning will have a new motor design with super cooler technology, it saves up cold from the AC compressor and releases into the intercooler for about a 30 second horse power increase. The Lightning had held the Guinness book record for fastest production truck at 147.54 MPH. It was recently broken by the Dodge Ram SRT-10 with it’s 500HP 525 Torque Viper motor it’s no surprise. It beat the Ford by about 7.04 MPH. The Ford beats it by being about $12K less, not much of a surprise to me.

Need's to be a little more interesting but I'll make it flowery later. This will go in the local SAAC car mag and I'd like to make a good showing for us since most people don't think truck's are capable performers. Thanks for the help and I'll let ya know how it turns out!

 

Hope this will help you, but you can find more information at SVT's website below.

http://www.svt.ford.com/flash/index.html