Well I finally have my truck that I purchased on eBay. Man it seemed to take forever to get it up here in Canada. I had customs problems which led to temporary storage issues, ect, ect, ect. I am sure most of you know what it’s like dealing with the government, the wheels don’t just turn slowly, hell I think they use square tires! This is not a turbo build thread, and not even really a build thread at all, more of a mod thread.
So after looking at the F-150 forums, I could not believe all the misinformation on the SBF I read. Don’t get me wrong there is some good old tech on some forums but when I start reading about putting afr 220 heads on a mild 351 and running an e cam, well why bother wasting my time posting there. I know there are some di hard truck guys here so I thought I would post it for people who can appreciate what this truck is.

I just got the truck home this morning after it’s long journey to Canada. It is in amazing condition with only 14686 original miles. The original owner passed away this spring and I dealt with the lawyer from his estate.
I had a 2wd version of this truck back in the day and always regretted trading it in.
My better half thinks I am crazy as this is going to be replacing my 2011 F-150 supercrew, 5.0 coyote.
While the 11 is a nice good looking truck and the coyote is an impressive engine, I do not feel that it should be a truck engine. I mean once that engine hits 3 grand, she sings but it’s lack of low end really sucks. The truck has given me some minor headaches, but they are never cheap repairs and the huge amount of electrical demand is stupid imho. I mean electric steering sucks, having the pcm monitor voltage sucks when you have to replace a battery. And the list goes on, the newer ones are even worse, I would never own a truck that can help you back up a trailer, I mean if you can’t do it on your own you should not be towing.
I had been looking for the past 6 months or so but I could not find exactly what I wanted, still didn’t as brown interior/exterior combo is not what I wanted. I always thought that Brown was for old farts! Then I realized I am 56! Holy crap I am an old fart, so I decided brown would be fine.

 

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As you can see in the pics it is a mark3 customized F-150. I am removing all the wrap and the body kit this weekend. I am getting tires mounted on SVE lightning replica wheels with the correct 5.5 bolt pattern for these trucks.
Here is a list of the parts I have purchased for the truck. I am building this engine for low end power as the engine will most likely never see above 5500 rpm. When the engine gets tired I will put a stroker kit into it. The ugly bull bumper thing is outa here too.

Tfs twisted wedge 170 cc heads, 58cc combustion chambers.
Tfs 1.7 rockers with stock f4te roller cam.
Edelbrock 5.8 truck intake.
BBk 56mm twin throttle body.
K&N cold air kit for Maf.
Ford Racing “truck” valve covers.
JBA 1-1/2 inch shorty headers.
Bassani high flow y pipe
Flowmaster cat back single 3 inch exhaust.
Wide band afr gauge kit.
Kirben adjustable fpr
Sve lightning silver replica wheels
Kumho ecsta stx kl12 285/60r18 sport truck tires.

 

Long term future plans are doing a body/frame swap. I want to have a low 4x4 so the best plan I have seen for this is to do a frame swap with a 1997/03 F-150 ext. cab chassis. I have read some very cool builds including a gen 2 lightning frame and drivetrain with a 1969 f100 body, awesome build. There are other cool frame swaps out there if your into that. With the 1997/03 4x4 frame, you can run a bell tech lowering kit. With that build I want to somehow use a raptor awd transfer case and build the engine into a 408 . That’s the plan for when I retire.

 

Well I have to say that working on this truck is like a dream. I removed the body kit and every single screw came out so easy! Even the front bumper bull guard came off super easy.
Nothing like working on 23 year old rust free vehicle. I have my rims and tires at a shop getting installed and balanced, just waiting on them to be ready for pick up. Looks much better now, need the 18 inch wheels and tires on to try to fill a bit of that huge fender gap!

 

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Here are some engine pics while stock.

 

One thing I was not 100% sure on was the fitment of the lightning wheels and the 285/60r18 tires. I am very pleased with the fit and the quality of the wheels is very good. I have ordered some chrome front wheel hubs from LMR truck. I will not be able to use the center caps on the front wheels because the hub is to wide and it does not look like there is enough room to drill them out. Hell I was not even certain the wheels would fit over the hub but the 2wd wheels fit on the 4wd trucks so I figured it should work.

 

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Got it all cleaned up nicely today. Interior is nice, seats were recovered in leather. Has a factory CD player, can’t remember the last time I used one! Everything works as it should.
When I was removing the body kit I saw that the previous owner had helper air bags installed on the rear axle along with a compressor underneath. Has a nice size trans cooler too.
I am really liking this truck, next up engine and exhaust mods, can’t wait.

Ohh and best of all I found the original window sticker, awesome!

 

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Nice clean truck,and what an improvement after removing some of the junk add ons!

But what,no turbo? LOL!

Have you seen the plug n play Pimpxshift? http://www.stinger-performance.com/universalparts.html

 

Well that was my thinking originally with the 2011, but for a daily driver that will see some tow duty at times, I want to run 87 octane. Turbo on the T Bird I promise!
Would like to get it a bit lower. Apparently you can get offset caster camber bushings that will allow you a small drop and keep it in alignment. Personally I am not your typical 4wd off road type. I prefer a nice street truck but living here in the winter with a rwd truck really sucks! I just use 4wd for the snow.

Oh that wood dash and door trim will be gone too. Some of that wood they used in these conversions are just brutal looking imho. I have seen pics of some with wooden overhead consoles, not my thing that’s for sure. I do like the powered rear window that was available, you can still get one more like the type used in newer trucks. That and a set of corbeau gts seats would be nice too.

 

man, what a clean truck!

Insane it was $31k in 96...

 

Unfortunately the truck is the one year off eec-5 obd2 mass air equipped. There is almost no tuning support for this setup. I was talking to a very reputable tuner in Calgary and although he has had previous experience trying to tune one of these trucks with a diablo trinity chip and said it did not go well. I am sure it can be done, just not much support for it from what I can tell. I am sure some of the more knowledgeable guys might know as I see that even speed density lightnings have been tuned.
The thing is I really do not want to give up cruise control, I know that sounds stupid to some people, but I have not seen any aftermarket efi systems that do and when driving down the highway I like to use cruise. I have an aem wideband and will use that to monitor afr and see how far I can go on the 19 lb injectors. I think I will need to step up to 24lbs but we will see.
I will want to find a way to optimize the fuel and ignition curves. I have looked at that old school air adjuster from ist technologies, they claim you can run up to two sizes larger injectors than stock using factory Maf meter. There website is still up and running so I assume they still sell it. I also see you can get plug and play 255 Lph front and rear tank fuel pumps, I think the stocker will be good enough though.

 

I know, it was expensive I guess for the time. The thing is if I was to replace my 2011 fx4 supercrew 5.0, I would be looking at 70k for the same truck, here in Canada, For a new 2019.
I decided it would be better going this route.

 

The Pimpxshift is a plug n play replacement ECM. Remove the factory ECM, and plug the Pimp in its place. You might have to move a couple wires around in the factory harness, depending on year. Full EFI and trans control tuning!

You can keep the cruise control, it is separate from the stock ECM

 

Now that is something I did not know! Still though isn’t the pimp x only for obd1 ?

 

You will need larger injectors, and leaving the stock cam in there is leaving a lot of power on the table. The springs in those heads will handle a lot more than the stock cam, comp xe264HR works very well for a truck in that engine, I am using it in my 351w cj5.

 

I agree with you on the stock cam. I went with 1.7 rockers for a bit more lift. The budget was blown big time on the whole deal, the parts were expensive when you consider the difference in the Canadian dollar to the US dollar. It costs around 1.31 canadian to buy 1 American dollar roughly at this time. I even had to pay the Canadian government our beloved gst and other fees which would have more than covered a cam and nice timing chain but I needed to save some costs. I can always upgrade in the future if I feel it’s worth it, I think the engine management system will need to be addressed also. I want to keep cruise and make everything work properly like factory except with the upgraded power, it would also be nice to have the engine run a bit lean while cruising down the highway for fuel economy. My goal is to build it the way it should have been from the factory. I would have stroked the engine right off the bat and built it the way I wanted if I could afford to but that’s out of the question at this time as I have a lot of money into my car inside the garage that I have not even started to build yet. If I was just building this truck I would do a lot more to it, that’s for sure.