1995 Ford F150 Lightning – Ryan Z.
The “Powerstroke Lightning” Project
Growing up, I always had Fox body Mustangs. I have been drag racing since high school and still enjoy it to this day. It has been a little while since I have been on the track, but I do currently have a build going on for another drag car. This project was my first attempt at building a truck. I wanted to try something different and learn some aspects of fabrication that I had not yet tried. Plus, it was the perfect time to learn because my son was of the age that hanging out with dad in the shop and building stuff was actually a cool thing to do and we could learn together.
So why a Lightning? I had a high school friend whose dad had a 1994 Lightning Pickup. In my mind it was the coolest truck around. I loved the Lightning interior, and the truck looked killer from the outside, especially with that front valance and the tube bumper. Those were just subtle improvements over the regular F150s but looked really slick. Naturally, I picked the Lightning as the base of my build. And why the heck use a Powerstroke diesel? Well, building big power with automotive diesels was pretty new and intriguing. I love the diesel sound and the toughness that it represents. My brother-in-law owns a local automotive diesel shop (Diesel Dynamics in Joshua, Texas) which gave me a leg up by having a top notch knowledge base at my fingertips. So, it was settled. I would use a 1st Generation Lightning pickup and an OBS F250 or F350 with a Powerstroke engine. Then I would take the greatest attributes of both trucks and make one awesome truck!
The search began and Craigslist was my go-to for anything used. I’m from the Fort Worth area but wasn’t opposed to traveling to find the “perfect Lightning truck”. And when I say perfect, I meant cheap enough not to break me and decent enough so that it wouldn’t be a total waste of time as the base of my build. Trust me when I say I looked at several junkers. So I eventually found one in Lubbock. The gentleman met me halfway in Abilene and that is where the project officially got underway. This 1995 Lightning was in decent shape (and that is a stretch), interior was terrible, the engine was tired with 199k miles, and it had been a work truck for the last several years of its life. But I knew the plan was paint, new interior, new engine, etc. so I was mainly looking for a Lightning and needed it to be pretty straight. And that’s about all this truck was—a Lightning that was pretty straight.
We settled on a price and the journey home began. The Lightning was loaded on a trailer, and off we went. My son, Cooper, and I were excited to finally have our Lightning. About an hour into our trip home, I blew a tire on the trailer. Of course, I didn’t have a spare, but it was a tandem axle so we removed the wheel with the blown tire and set out toward home again. About 30 minutes outside of Fort Worth another tire blew on the same side of the trailer. Now it was getting dicey. I wasn’t ready to call for help yet, so my son and I moved a tire from the good side of the trailer to the other side that was sitting with one wheel removed and the other wheel with the tire shredded. Then we went into limping-home-with-our-fingers-crossed mode tandem axle trailer with one wheel on each side loaded down with the base of my new project. Luckily we made it home with no more issues, but we did roll in looking pretty banged up.
Finding the F250 that we settled on was a lot less exciting. I found a 1997 F250 two wheel drive truck that was a work truck and had 390k miles on it. Again I was looking for the “perfect truck,” which in this case meant it was inexpensive, a Powerstroke based truck with no modifications, and that it was running. It was a pretty basic set of expectations. This truck met those criteria. I found it in a city nearby. My wife and the kids drove me out there and my son and I drove it home. No fun tire blowing stories with this one.
Then the work began. I will move the story along a little faster now. So we stripped the Lightning first and removed EVERYTHING. Literally EVERYTHING. In the end it was a cab with no interior or any trim, the bed was discarded because we found a ton of hidden bondo, and a frame that was stripped of everything except for the cab mounts. The heavy Powerstroke engine was the deciding factor for using an airbag suspension for the front. Then I figured since the front would have the airbags, we might as well bag it all the way around. Using air bags in the rear meant removing all leaf springs and mounting brackets and setting up a four link. I had never “bagged” or “four linked” anything but I was up for the challenge and wanting to learn. The factory rear end was discarded and I utilized an 8.8 rear end from a 2001 F150 with disc brakes. After lots of Google searching and YouTubeing, I was able to get pinion angle stuff figured out and managed to outfit a pretty healthy suspension base.
The F250 was then stripped of the Powerstroke engine, the 4R100 transmission, the front fenders, core support and ALL wiring, and again, I mean ALL wiring. Fitting the Powerstroke into the Lightning sounds tough but actually wasn’t terrible. Those year model trucks were the same base for the F150, F250, and F350. So after removing the engine mounting plates from the F250, a little bit of measuring, drilling, and welding and making sure the mounting plates were in the same location on the Lightning frame, the Powerstroke fit like it was meant to be there. We utilized the core support from the F250 to accommodate the large radiator and retain the factory install look. Then we added in the intercooler that was used on the 1999 and up Super Duty. The engine received upgrades such as head studs, valve springs, big injectors, large turbo, SRP 1.1 high pressure oil pump, and a regulated return fuel system with an Aeromotive A1000. All of the wiring had to be swapped into the Lightning (engine harness, body harness, dash harness etc.). We went with a completely new custom black interior which wasn’t offered in the Lightning but kept the factory seats because those were a staple for those trucks. I could fill pages with details of the build but as everyone knows, that is how builds go.
The “Powerstroke Lightning” took many OCD hours, meticulous cleaning, trial and error, and lots of cussing and discussing. When it was all said and done it took us a little over 2 full years to get it on the road. In the end we built one eye-catching, diesel-loping, unsuspecting great truck but built an even greater father and son bond!
I am a firefighter by trade and enjoy tinkering in the shop during my spare time. There is a detailed build on my website where I post my projects, www.bigzfabshop.com or check out the truck on Instagram: #powerstrokelightning.[lmc_story_gallery]
