My girlfriends uncle has a 95 Lightning that he has been wanting to sell to her. It has basically been sitting for the last two years, waiting for her to get her license, only being driven once a month. The engine has been re-built along with the tranny, with only 1500 miles since the rebuild. I have never seen the truck, and don't know much about it, except for what she has been able to tell me about it.

She told me that it used to have a lift on it, but they took it off. It has a new paint job. She says it has some kind of "charger" on it, so I'm thinking either a turbo, or supercharger. That is basically all I know about it. I'm thinking of selling my truck, and then buying the Lightning. He is going to sell it to us for a killer price, the engine by itself costs more than what he will sell it to us for.

So, basically, I'm asking for things to look for b4 I buy it. What do I need to check out?? Thanx for any help.

 

Anybody???

 

My son had a 94 Lightning; if you are close he can check it out and show you what to look for.

Where are you?


Paul

 

I'm in Oregon. But the truck is down in California.

 

That's a long walk from Virginia.

Oh well!

 

Yes it is!! Thanx for the offer though, I appreciate it.

 

A 95 "L" had a 351 W motor and if it is supercharged you are looking at 400-450HP. This truck is basically nice wheels and bigger brakes on a stock F150 there is little else different except that it has no rpm governor in the tranny.

 

have you concidered it may have a k&n "filtercharger"? maybe not a turbo or a blower. prob. more likely that it is the k&n kit

 

Thats an amazing HP increase from a supercharger....a freind of mine I work with just bolted on a Powerdyne SC to his 95L with drag radials it will run a 13.62 1/4 mile at about 320-330 HP. Now if it were Turbocharged I would believe the 400-420 HP range...due to the fact that a turbo only uses 2-3% of the horsepower it makes to produce the extra power where as a supercharger is a much larger load on the engine example....a 250 hp motor with a turbo producing 8lbs of boost for an increase of 40% puts the motor producing 350 HP with a 3% hp loss to spin the turbo at 10.5 to 339.5hp same level of boost with a supercharger producing a 40% increase to 350 hp with a 10% loss to spin the supercharger puts the HP at 315.

 

The windsor that went into those lightnings had GT40 heads on it and made a bucket load of power. I think I goofed on the supercharger bit and ment to say turbocharger instead. Although the motor could easily do 450HP with a few (albeit pricey) modifications. Nitrous and propane with a twin turbo setup could run you to 800 HP although you would be replacing trannies up the wazoo.

 

I own a 1993 black lightning. I can answer most of your questions. The Lightning was built from 1993-1995 and again in 1999 to present. The Gen 1 lightnings were a limited production performance truck. they came factory with hi-performance 351 (5.8) engines. the engines were rated at 245 HP and 360 ft/lbs of torqe. the engine had GT-40 heads and intake, a hi-torqe cam, 65mm throttle body, factory headers, and aluminum pistons. The transmission is a E4OD. It has a 4.10 limited slip rearend. they also came with 17 in. rims and a handling package. the 0-60 is about 7.2 seconds. as far as the "charger", it could have a aftermarket supercharger on it that will add a lot of horsepower but not as much as these guys think. Iv never heard of using a turbo on gen 1. anything under $8,000 is good. I hope this helps. P.S. call SVT, give them the vin # and they can tell you if its a real lightning, the phone number is 1-800-367-3788 if you have any more questions email me at brandoncanon(No Email Addresses In Posts!)

 

Silver State Motorsports makes gen 1 Lightning turbo kits.

www.silverstatemotorsports.com

 

Like I said you could easily get 400-800 horsepower out of this engine. Depending on how much you want to spend. After you figure in a turbo or super charger, a little nitrous, some propane here and there, it's all good.

 

you could get 450-800 HP out of the 5.8, depending on how much you spent. The part of your post i didnt care to much for was where you said a lightning is just bigger brakes and nice wheels. It does have nice wheels, along with a Hi-po engine, tranny, rearend, and nice interior. Not to mention it was limited production. In 93 there were only a little over 2,500 black Lightnings made, and just over 2500 red ones. I dont know of any other 10 year old truck that the loan value is still $7000 and resale is about 10,000. by the way nice rims dont make it a 15 second 1/4 mile truck.

SS Killer

 

Maybe 15 sec 1/4 stock

now Jason Brown is da man when it comes to Gen1 L's.