Project D.E.A.

[George C]

in 2012 the Wife wanted to get more involved into the hobby ive been part of since I was a kid, since my truck was a stick and little too much for her at the time she wanted her own toy. We set out to look for a factory performance vehicle and narrowed it down to a silverado SS or a Lightning. We ended up with a lightning, Now its time to let the story begin

We set out fillers for one of these trucks with no mods and We found one at choice motors in murrysville pa, Heres the pics of what it looked like from their website

[George C]

truck was a 1 owner and all original, carfax checked out but later found out a few things were redone on this truck. Truck at first glance was clean later on findings found it was your typical PA driven truck.

[Terminated]

I wouldn't mind finding one of these in DSG.

[George C]

I spent some time when we brought it home bringing the paint back alive, I had the stock 18s powdercoated black since 3 out of 4 were matching and 1 was newer so shade of silver was off

[George C]

always hated the stock seating of these trucks so went ahead and had a console made and found a modded pass seat

[George C]

next up was time for a cowl hood so I picked up a harwood 3" cowl and threw it on. I realized truck needed some body and paint attention, since hood was black gel coat it was tossed on for the time being not painted

[George C]

During this time the wife was enjoying this truck some, With a exhaust, tune and CAI truck ran 13.0@104.7 with a 1.91 60 on street tires, she ran a 13.1@ 104 and she was hooked. This ended the 2012 season, come early 2013 season I tossed on a lower pulley and retuned truck. with a set of 17x9 steel rear wheels and my old slicks from my silverado we managed a 12.42@108 with a 1.72 60 on stock suspension with a 400 rwhp tune....this is when all was well went to shit... After my 12.42 pass we iced the blower and intake for the wife to make another pass. We removed the bags of ice and away she went....he slip came back as 14.4@98 mph...She had no idea what had happened.. I tossed the 20s back on truck and fired it up..Truck pegged wideband and when trying to drive home it was missing bad so I limped it to a buddys shop at the time so i can check it out later. The next day i pulled the plugs to find out number 8 was full of water. Swapped plugs and seemed to run fine

well the following week I had my repaired blower show up and tossed that back on truck. truck was down on power vs before when had same blower on. Took it to track with new blower and little more power and It only ran 12.45@110 but had no bottomend, next pass truck went 12.5, next pass 12.6, next pass 12.7 next pass 12.8 next pass 12.9 and each pass it lost 1 mph, truck was down to 104 mph which it did when it had 377 rwhp

scratching my head i figured throw more boost at the truck and redyno it, now with more boost it almost made same power as it did before when blower was first put on. so at 18 psi truck only made 444 rwhp and before it made 455 on 15 psi so I knew something was up. After doing some suspension mods to truck and adding a converter I took it to PRP. During this time I had found out my driverside front spring was broke into 3 pieces { the previous owner used truck to tow a camper}

we I get to PRP and do burnout, Truck leaves pretty well and before 1/8 mile motor let go and I had to be flatbedded home

time went by and I tore motor down to find only 2 rods survived and rest was scrap. After talking to a few ford guys and engine builders they point at how when wife made a WOT pass missfiring for a entire run that it damaged the number 8 rod. Since truck lost so much power and each pass it made it went slower and slower pointed towards this


now some haters out there want to say it was tune related but Logs dont lie, the run where motor failed the AFR was 11.1-11.5

heres 2 pics of the carnage

[George C]

I knew I wasnt gonna stay 2v, its a piss poor design that has no place IMHO, I also knew I wasnt gonna stay blower as Im a turbo guy at heart. At this point I weighed my options and was looking for a navigator motor

[George C]

heres a few pics of it with new suspension and the 20" reps

[George C]

So after searching craigslist I found a complete 5.4 32v navigator motor for a 150$. At this point I weighed my options and then decided to sell off the navi heads and etc.

[George C]

some of you have followed my build over the last few months and with enough ppl asking questions thru PMs, I figured it was time to post up

so heres a few pics of the motor and its goodies

heres a pic of the seasoned block before any work done



i went ahead and had the block tumbled


went with Diamond pistons, Cobrajet crank and oliver rods




couple pics of the shortblock assembled



heads i picked up


went with GT500 cam covers and welded bungs in for the breather system, chose to use the boss 302 intake with a custom accufab tb for this swap



aeromotive fuel rails for the boss intake



now onto specs of the shortblock:

GT500 windage tray
ARP main and side bolts
ARP2000 head studs
Gt heads will have upgraded PAC springs
cleaned up inconel exhaust valves
slight blend work of ports to match the boss setup

zero Dek .020 Diamond pistons
H-13 Tool Steel .200" Wall Wrist Pins
Total Seal AP stainless steel rings
Calico coated bearings
Upgraded Oliver I beams with ARP 7/16" 3.5 bolts
FRPP cobrajet crank
ATI 8 rib balancer

the block was decked .008 and the pistons sit .015 out of the hole
motor should be right around 10.25cr, the engine builder and i were shooting for best quench possible
motor was built to handle 1200 rwhp and higher rpms, said past that the block may become a question



accufab made this TB for the cable tb swap for a boss or coyote intake

[George C]

I originally bought Navi heads, with those heads i decided to go with the path of using the coyote intake. I went ahead and bought the adapters to use the Coyote intake on the Navi heads. I then decided to use the boss intake so i didnt have to relocate the alt.

after coming across a deal on some GT heads i went that path. This is where a problem lies. the coyote adapters dont match up to the boss intake that well and really dont match the GT heads.

for them to work on the GT heads new mounting holes had to be made, also have to blend the heads to opening of the flange, make a injector boss in the flange as well. With that all done the flange then needs some work to match the boss intake.

Heres a pic of the flanged during its prep work stage to work on the GT heads. if you look you see a marker line on the flange were the coolant ports are. This area will be cut off on all 4 sides so I can still use a stock style coolant setup or the adapters that are sold for using AN fittings




if youre wondering the flanges help this intake to be used. yes you can drill and tap the heads but the problem lies is with the angle of the air path doing so. The flange once blended and reshaped allows the intake to flow better into the ports

[George C]

here's a close up of the flange again. The machine shop has tapered the flange to flow into the GT head. these are the not the MMR flanges, these came off a guy that originally made them and was selling them on EBay before MMR ever even made them

[George C]

After waiting and deciding on what paths to take for timing components and valve springs.. we chose to use Manley springs and Ti retainers for this motor and FRPP timing components

Its almost ready to come home finally
Big thanks to Street Lethal Performance

[George C]

This truck will have a set of Twins on it

im hoping to get started on this project by mid summer, I have some work cut out for me involving chromoly on this project.. This truck will be more targeted as a driver with power around 1200 rwhp

something I can run mid to low 9s with and the wife on low power can run 11s

[George C]

heres how the motor sits currently, I chose to ditch the stock style Alt in favor of i think its a 3c Alt for that cleaner look

[sutyak]

Beautiful

[03 OW SVT]

Great thread. Super nice truck.

[TooFast98Cobra]

I Want One Of These So BAd . CAlebs Is Work Of Art Also

[George C]

This truck may end up sonic blue as i hate keeping black clean

This build will be a complete frame off with the frame being powdercoated

It will have alot of detail for show as well as performance