Lowering the Stance of a Ford Lightning MuscleTrux Wars Part 4

Today. It's another shot in our muscle truck series. And Kevin's 94 lightning prepares for battle

this for

getting a suspension over haul with a lowering kit, traction bars, new brakes and much better tires will give it a new stance so Kevin can take advantage of all the tailpipe turbos power. It's all today here on trucks.

Hey, welcome to trucks and welcome back to muscle truck wars where we're taking the next step in the build up of our SS SS 454 and our gen one lightning here. And today we get to address an issue that a lot of f 150 owners have come up against and that is lowering the twin IBM suspension on the trucks, making them handle even better. And in case you're new, we started a little friendly competition this year. Ford again, Chevy. It set power goals of about 400 ponies for each truck using completely different schools of thought for each platform.

For the 454 we decided to use the built in advantage of displacement. It kept the stock block, adding Edelbrock matched heads and intake along with a rolling thunder cam and lifters with crane roller rockers.

The EF I is a sequential system electronically controlled by an Edelbrock ECM that gives you the ability to custom tune your combination.

All of that is backed by A B and M shift improvement kit on the turbo 400 giving this truck a solid and time tested performance package.

The Lightnings 351 is bone stock other than BBK headers and throttle body, but helping it breathe a little better is an SDS stage three turbo kit mounted under the bed and routed into the new mass airflow system and summit boost retard module for precise tunable.

All these mods plus a looser TCI converter B and M shift improver kit and stand alone transmission controller will hopefully fill the void of 100 odd extra cubic inch advantage that that super sport has. But we'll find out soon enough.

Now both trucks are more high performance than regular production versions featuring heavy duty drive train components and the Lightning comes from Ford already sitting an inch lower than a regular stock F 150. And with the help of some aftermarket parts, we can do better improving the handling

and appearance all at the same time,

Ford's twin IB and suspension was introduced in 1965 and it was a huge improvement over the straight axle that preceded it.

And although Ford used the system in their two wheel drive trucks right on up until 1996 it presents a unique challenge when it comes to lowering our custom suspension mods.

Now, one of the advantages of the factory eye beams is they forged steel and very strong with almost no flex or twist under load. So the challenge for the aftermarket was to come up with some drop beams that were both strong and consistent DJ M accomplishes this by using dom tubing in combination with CNC cut plate steel that's welded in fixtures for quality control. Now, these drop beams

along with the DJ M drop shackle and hanger kit, we'll give a regular F 150 about three inches drop up front and about four inches out back. Now, since the gen one lightnings already sit about an inch lower. Well, we don't want to use them in combination with the three inch drop beams that'll give us about four inches total, about an inch more than we're after. So we're gonna use standard F 150 springs to give us the stance we want without any tire clearance issues.

Although new hardware does come with the kit, some of the original bolts and fasters get reused. So keep track of them.

Yeah, that's a toast.

If you guys remember when we drove this truck the first time there was a clunking noise in the front end. Well, we thought it was these pivot bushings. They're shot. Good news for us is that the dream beams already come with Urethane bushings loaded. So that'll get fixed and we put the new beams in.

Now, our DJ M drop beams utilize the stock radius arms, but these bushings are toast and there's no better time to replace them. So, a quick trip to our local o'reilly auto parts took care of that problem.

You

usually have a choice when it comes to bushings with either urethane or rubber.

Urethane is a lot more dense and gives a firmer ride and stiffer more precise handling.

This upper ball joint eccentric needs to be swapped out of the original beam into the new beam. Probably not a bad idea to chase some of this powder coat out. So you have a good fit. Now, we're gonna kind of gamble that our alignment specs are right in the tolerance, but in case you're not, if you're doing this at home, a good alignment shop

should be able to get you an adjustable eccentric, that'll fix you right up.

These drop beams are well engineered and sit right in place of the original eye beams.

And since this truck is not equipped with kingpins,

this is a project you can probably do in an afternoon.

We picked up used coil springs from all Star auto salvage. We cleaned them up and painted them and they'll be good as new

and they should keep our tires out of the fenders.

Now, our front rotors are ready for the scrap pile, but if you're keeping your stockers now is a great time to replace or repack your front wheel bearings. But since Kevin's gonna be carrying a little bit more speed, we're gonna upgrade our rotors and pads while we're at it,

these E BC vented and dimpled rotors combined with the green stuff pads will give us more clamping power. A better pad compound and less heat soak from all the ventilation.

Plus the black anti

corrosion coating looks pretty cool too.

Now, everybody knows the benefits of synthetic fluids, but Royal Purple also makes a synthetic grease. It'll reduce vibration and friction, letting the bearings run cooler which leads to a longer bearing life.

So that's what we're going to pack our front bearings with

up. Next, we'll make the new front sway bar mount and add the drop shackles and hangers out back and later it's some monster traction bars to help transfer the power to the ground. Stick around.

Hey, welcome back to trucks. We're in the process of changing the stance of Kevin's 94 lightning. Get it sitting in the weeds a little bit more.

So far we've installed three inch drop I beams,

upgraded his brakes and replaced the crapped out radius arm bushings. If you're wanting make a regular production F 150 handle better.

Adco has got a sway bar package that'll really help control body roll, but this lightning already comes

packing with a thicker front sway bar that matches the diameter of the Adco bar. So we're gonna save a little bit of money and reuse the old anti roll bar.

Now, if you're curious what size Sway Bar your truck has in it or if you just wanna make sure buying an aftermarket bar is actually an upgrade. Well, here's a quick tip on measuring these things because getting an accurate reading with a tape measure. Well, it's nearly impossible. So in case you don't have some dial calipers laying around,

just use the open end of a wrench. And that'll let you know exactly what size sway bar you have

in our case, one going on a 4 54 1 inch.

Now, simply due to the design of these new dropped eye beams, you're gonna have to change things around a little bit. For instance, we've already swapped and reversed these end length brackets. And what that does is get our sway bar up and out of the way of the steering linkage, which has had its location to change because of these drop spindles. And if you're lucky, that's all you're gonna have to do. But as you can see our front mounting bracket,

well, it presents a little bit of a fitment issue. So we're gonna have to do something different.

So here's what we came up with using some flat 3/16 plate. We made a couple of brackets that'll bolt to existing holes in the frame rails. We bent up some scrap tubing, we'll weld to those. We made a couple of more brackets for the de bushings on the sway bar at a couple of gussets, we'll be in good shape.

Don't be intimidated when you've got to improvise a little when it comes to things like this

one solid resource we've found are the Ford truck specific websites online, like the Delaware Valley Lighting Owners Club and the Lightning Rotter website. You'd be surprised at how many guys have modified these trucks and are willing to help you save time and money

and you might just find me and Ryan surfing the forms as well keeping up with the trends that are out there.

Now, even in stock trim, these lightnings are pretty darn stable and with the help of this snub

axle wrap and wheel hop, it just doesn't happen very much. However, when you start throwing a bunch of power at this truck, like we're doing with this tailpipe turbo, things get a little twitchy and transferring that power to the ground. Well, it can be sometimes unpredictable. However, we've got a plan that we're gonna share with you a little later on to deal with that problem. Now, these trucks come from the factory already lowered, but DJ M takes that a step further with their kit, which is definitely a do it yourself project. It's not that difficult to do, but you better come packing with a good grinder and a good chisel because you got some honking rivets to get rid of

cutting an X into the factory. Rivet heads with a cut off wheel is hands down. The best way we've seen in removing them

then with an air chisel or even an old school hammer and cold chisel, you get to take out your aggressions on some metal. Whenever you're replacing hangers or lease strings on any vehicle, don't tighten the spring bolts down until the full weight of the vehicle has loaded the suspension. That way your truck will sit level and won't find the bushings in the suspension.

These rear shackles have several adjustment points, but we're going on the lowest setting just to see what kind of drop we can get

after the break. We'll install our traction bars, rear sway bar and new shocks. Stay tuned.

Hey, welcome back to trucks. Well, we're getting closer to being able to set this thing back down on the ground and check out our new lowered stamp,

but there's still a couple of points we need to address when it comes to improving the handling of these trucks

and one of those points is traction.

So Kevin's got some new tire specked out since his old ones when they were dry, routed, pretty worn out. And since we're possibly a

over 100 horsepower to his truck, well, the demands on the drive train and suspension are gonna change dramatically one way to manage those changes with a set of traction bars.

Now, there's lots of different options when it comes to traction bars, but we wanted to use something that's proven itself on the street. And on the strip and Lightning Force performance has been manufacturing and marketing performance

parts for these vehicles and a lot of other vehicles for a long time. They really know their stuff when it comes to lightnings and check out these traction bars. These 58 inch long traction bars use a front bracket to saddle the frame

and the rear bracket sits underneath the axle. They're completely bolted, require no welding and the kit comes with everything it takes to install them

with the spring pack disassembled. First thing we do is ditch the leaf spring with the snub on it since the traction bars are gonna eliminate any acts of rotation. Anyway,

starting with the axle mount sets, the location of the rest of the bar,

then with the bar bolted in

the front mount saddles, the frame which allows you to align and drill the mounting holes.

Now, typically drilling is one of our least favorite tasks around here.

But with these can cut bits, no center plunges needed no pilot hole and they cut rather quickly too.

Then just install the front mouse.

The length of these bars also provides stability and enhances weight transfer, almost acting like frame connectors.

Now, unlike lightnings,

regular production F one fifties don't even come with the rear sway bar and the bar Adco offers well, it's a bit heavier than the stock lightning piece and that'll help control body roll. Not that that truck had a whole lot of that anyway. But if your truck's not a lightning, well, the ADCO kit comes with everything you need to add. One. Luckily for us, all we need is the De Bushings, the urethane and Link bushings and some of the hardware,

any one of these mods will really help your truck handle better. But the combination of a lowered roll, center traction bars and a beefed up front and rear sway bar work together to give you a much tighter feel to your truck with a lot more control in every aspect.

Now, one of the last pieces of the handling puzzle is shock absorbers. And Bill Stein is what a lot of guys reach for when they're modifying these trucks. So we're putting them on all four corners.

One of the reasons Bill Stein's works so well is their mono tube design that dissipates heat to the outer tube faster.

A cooler gas charge performs better and longer.

Ultimately giving you better performance under heavy demands.

When we come back, we're keeping our stock wheels, but we're improving where the rubber meets the road. Don't go away.

Hey, welcome back. Now, these first generation lightnings came with these cool 17 inch alloy wheels and they give a signature look to these trucks that we wanted to keep.

So Kevin decided just to wrap them in fresh rubber,

these Bridgestone dealers, they're gonna give us a long life and a nice ride and with the sipping and channels that are built into the tread pattern, we're gonna have good dry and wet weather traction. Now, this thing is still a truck, so we wanted to keep some side wall. So we kept the 2 75 60 ratio out back. But up front, we've got a 2 75 55 with a little shorter side wall, which is gonna help us with our lowered stance and give us a little bit more aggressive look once everything's down on the ground.

Now, even with giant traction bars and brand new tires, I still don't want to disappoint any Ford guys when we take these trucks to the track. So we had Mickey Thompson send us some of their 15 by 10 inch lightweight aluminum wheels with a 4.5 inch back space and a multiple bolt pattern and we wrapped them in their ET street tires that are dot approved and don't require a burn out. So I don't have to give R a

ride

hilarious. Now,

the stock lightning wheels are hub centric, but these wheels needed to be clearance to fit the rear axle flange, which is no big deal. We just sent them to a machine shop here in town and had them opened up a bit, but it's a small price to pay for a lot of traction. Now, Kevin's got no excuses. Let's see what this thing looks like.

Now, everything we did today to this pick up you can do at home in the driveway, didn't require any out of the ordinary tools and it wasn't that difficult. You can definitely tackle a job like this.

Now, lowering this truck definitely gave it a more muscular stance. And whether you've got a lightning or regular production F 150 dropping it down a few inches, throw some good tires on it, high performance shocks, beefing up your sway bars. Will, you'd be surprised how, well, you can make a 4500 pound truck handle.

Now, you guys know that aftermarket air bags on your truck can really level things out when hauling a heavy load.

The airlift helper springs on this 98 Grand Cherokee. Well, they've been in use for more than 60,000 miles

but manually airing them up and down can be a real pain.

Well, Streetside auto.com has the solution for you in the form of airlift's wireless air kit.

It's an on board, automatic leveling system that includes the compressor manifold, electrical hardware, airlines and a digital wireless controller.

This system installs easily and once on board your truck, it automatically maintains a preset pressure in the air bags.

But here's the cool part, the wireless handheld remote can control each airbag independently. So setting up for hauling a breeze.

So go to Streetside auto.com for more information on your particular vehicle. And while you're there, pick up the wireless air kit for just under 360 bucks.

That's a small price to pay for hassle free towing.

Thanks for watching trucks. See you guys next week.