This is the 1994 Ford Lightning Built by Steve Martin and myself. Back in 1995-96, Steve and I used to race this truck in the Fun Ford Weekend Lightning Shootout Series. This truck won its class championship in both years taking the street and modified categories. Since 1997, Steve and I ventured into other racing areas and the truck has been in a climate controlled storage. Earlier this year we decided to revive the truck and give it a new home. With the advances in technology since 1995 when we started this project, we are currently
updating the old with new.
In 1994, we decided we wanted a street legal truck that was capable of beating the rest of the Lightning class trucks without the use of a power adder. The factory GT-40 cast iron heads were replaced with high flow TFS R-model heads and flow matched within 2% of each port. A custom camshaft was selected and an exhaust system to match. With Slicks and skinny front tires, the truck would dip into the high 12-second quarter mile times and run consistent low 13's.
In 1995, we decided enough time was spent playing around. Vortech was offering a supercharger kit and its popularity was growing across the nation. In true fashion, we broke from the norm and decided that a turbocharger would be in the best interest for our needs. Our decision was based upon the knowledge that a supercharger produces peak boost at peak rpm, whereas a turbo produces peak boost just off of idle with the proper sizing of the turbo. This proper setup nets a far greater amount of torque at a substantially lower rpm... just what a 4800+ pound truck needs to get moving.
With turbocharging many simple tasks become difficult if the right measures are not addressed. Fuel management is a huge issue and getting it right is sometimes a greater mountain. We addressed this by contacting friends at Ford Motorsport and securing one of the few Extreme Performance Engine Control (EPEC) computer systems. This system allowed full control of all EEC-IV functions and added a few others that are greatly needed for building the ultimate in racing machines.
Heat management is also a large task and with the help of Polymer Dynamics, our ceramic coatings keep heat within levels not usually associated with normally aspirated engines let alone turbocharged ones.
The pictures below will show a great deal of our rebirth of this exciting project. Stay tuned for the upgrade to a single Stand Alone AEM complete engine and drivetrain management system. This will allow full integration with the transmission and engine control systems. Also allow us the added flexibility of traction control for high boost performance launches. The dyno tuning will be performed by Douglas Wilks at TopSpeed in Alpharetta, Georgia.
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