October 2004 Featured Ride:

Congratulations: Blown5pt4 - Josh

by: Blown5pt4

I remember back when I was a senior in high school Ford released a truck called the "Lightning". It was billed the fastest production truck on the planet....I remember seeing the pictures of it, I just loved the look of it. It was a truck designed by SVT to be just at home on a drag track as on the interstate doing a 3000 mile roadtrip. But as a senior in HS and having a deadend job there was no way I could afford it. So back to the junk cars I called reality.

Well, a few years later (2002) I finally landed a good job, working for the county and
making decent money. I was getting tired of fixing my old beaters just to get around town in, and after a few months I started to look into getting a still used but basically new car. I looked for a while and then one day I came across a 2001 Silver F150 Lightning on the McCarville Ford website, and it made me remember how much I wanted one. That weekend I got in my Jetta and drove out to the dealer....The truck I saw on the website wasn't in yet, because it was being traded in on a 03 Cobra when they became availible. They did however have a Red 01 on the lot for me to look at and sit in. I looked over the truck and found out it only had 4233 miles, but the asking on it was about 7grand more than the silver one I was looking for, so right then and there I elected to put down a reserve on the silver one for when it was traded in, I would get a call to come in and make sure I wanted it. No test drive. Well, fast forward about 3months and I get a call, it was the dealer and they had bad news. The silver truck was sold by the owner privately. The salesman said however he was authorized to sell me that very same Red one I sat in a few months before, for the same price they wanted on the silver one. I jumped on the deal and bought the truck.



The day I picked it up I couldnt believe it.
I had the truck I wanted and I got it on my own. No cosigner, no borrowed money from family completely on my own. Soon after I got it I started to read up on how to make it faster using clubs like F150Online.com. I put on a Ram Air intake and a Catback exhaust, and at a dyno day event I made 359rwhp and 439ft/lbs of torque. Not bad for a vehicle rated at 380/450crank. Just a few months later I was turned onto a local crew of ford performance enthusiasts, at SVTSnake.com, it started as a web board but turned into a car club. When I hung out with these guys I felt slow when surrounded by a Zo6 Vette, and I don't know how many 03/04 Cobras, not to mention a couple mean new Mach 1s and some powerful fox-body stangs.



Soon after meeting them, (around december) I got some new mods. I picked up a 6lb lower pulley(to increase boost), and a Diablo Predator Programmer. With these new mods on a cool day I could stomp it at about 60mph and break the tires loose.
I drove it around like that for a couple months, but I never made it back to a dyno...Then one day on the way to work, due to some inclement road conditions and some of my own stupidity I lost control of the truck and went sideways into a utility pole at about 55mph. Just like that it was gone. As soon as I got home I started looking for replacement cars, and when I made a post about my accident on F150online, one of the guys had a friend selling a basically mint Black 2001 Lightning with 10k on it, and a handful of mods for a great price. 2weeks later, thanks to the insurance check that gave me a couple grand left over after I paid what was left of my loan off, that truck was sitting in my drive way. This new truck came with an Intake, Anderson Ford Power Pipe, Accufab Single Blade Throttle body, 2lb Lower pulley, Bassani catback exhaust, and Truck traks traction bars. As well as a set of Slicks and skinnies already mounted and a Bedrug. The previous owner told me the truck was just a factory freak....just went faster than it should be with little boost, but I never really thought much of it. About a week later I had my first track outing in it on slicks and skinnies, I somehow managed to pull off a 12.68@107mph as a best run of the day. My fastest slip to date. Still not fast enough to beat any of the big guns in the club, but good for the small amount of boost I'm running......In the 2-3months since getting the truck I havent had the money to really add to the performance but eventually I'll catch up, its only a matter of time. Getting there is the fun part anyway.



Before I end this I gotta send a thank you to :

Rob(Rob 02 Lightning), on F150online for telling me to talk to Don
Don(Dons Bolt), on F150online for turning me onto Jamie and his truck.

Jamie(FoMoCoFan), on F150online for selling me his truck
Mike Gnolfo for turning me onto the guys at SvtSnake.com

Dom Strippoli and Jimmy Vaccaro for creating SvtSnake.com