Well I finally have my 2003 Lightning back on the road again after a LONG time down. The truck has been down since November 1st of 2005, which is 16 months and 15 days.
And you know whats even better? Its also PAID off !!
Last friday I went to the bank and paid it off . . . the went home and busted my butt to finish it up and was out driving it later that afternoon !!!
A little bit of background history for those of you that don’t know . . or have forgotten since its been so long.
I originally took the truck apart to fix a broken valve and had planned on just installing some ported heads to replace the stock heads. But when I removed the heads I saw some scarring on the cylinder walls of the engine block and decided to pull the whole engine for a rebuild. And at the same time I decided to build a turbo setup for the truck.
Also during this time, I had been collecting up parts to add a turbo to my 93 Lightning and I wound up spending a LOT of my time on the 93L. I did however get the 03’s turbo headers build, a section of the downpipe, and the Muffler /tailpipe assembly finished.
But I hit a few problems . . . The 93L turned out to be a MUCH larger project than I intended, I had some financial difficulties, and then I changed my mind about the direction I was headed with the 03L.
I saw that the 03L was headed towards becoming a dedicated race truck and I realized that’s not what I wanted. So I removed all the turbo stuff before I was even finished and sold it all and started putting the truck back together as a supercharged Lightning.
Here is a rundown of what the engine WAS BEFORE:
VT Engines built shortblock
Stock heads
Crower stage 2 cams
Accufab tb and JLP sheetmetal intake
Dynatech longtubes / high flow cats / Bassani catback
Kenne Bell 2.3 / JLP sheetmetal intake
529 / 615 – 11.85@115 mph on 20 psi
And here is the NEW combination AFTER:
Built shortblock (by Me !!) .020 overbore with Manley Rods/ Manley Pistons and rings
Fox Lake Stage 2 ported heads with SS 1mm oversize valves
Comp Cams Stage 3 cams
Bassani headers / Bassani catted mid pipes / Bassani catback
Steig stage 4 ported Eaton / stock upper plenum / stock tb
Meziere electric water pump
Reicard Racing blower spacer
Reicard Racing 2.80 blower pulley / 6# lower
PSP nitrous plate (just incase I want to add meth inj. Or nitrous later)
I plan to run 16psi of boost
I also powdercoated everything !!!
Here is a few teaser pics.
I will try to get some better pics up later this week.
