People will always have different opinions on things. Some would rather buy a car that's already fast by design, others would rather start with something that's slow and work on it from there. And this seems to be the case with this tenth-generation F-150, which isn't a factory-built Lighting version, but it might be a lot faster than one, at least going in a straight line.
For most people, this 20-year old truck will probably go by unnoticed. At least if the engine isn't running. The reviewer, Solomon, actually has to ask the driver to turn it off so that we can make something of their discussion. We learn that this belongs to a customer from Mississippi and that it's packing a Gen 2 Coyote swap, which came as a crate motor from Summit Racing.
Now, a regular second-generation Coyote should be good enough for 435 horsepower and 400 lb-ft (542 Nm) of torque, but this one also has a Vortech P1SC supercharger on it. Even though it hasn't been on a dyno yet, this truck is estimated to have north of 600 horsepower, perhaps even 650, which makes it almost twice as powerful as a stock Lightning version. It's also good to see that they opted for the 6R80 transmission, which means reliability shouldn't be an issue for the time being.
This F-150 is running a Hotchkiss suspension setup alongside a few other accompanying mods. We learn that the main reason for the savage noise is related to the Kooks long tube headers that go together with a Magnaflow exhaust, so there goes the sleeper factor of the whole thing. It's surprising to hear that this can still get 18 mpg (13 l/100 km), at least when going 80 mph (129 kph). The wheels came off the Lightning version and that's a nice touch for an otherwise pretty stock-looking exterior.
We get to see a short drive from inside the cabin, and while it does look and sound fast, it's probably not that quick when going around a corner, if that's something you're looking for in a car. Towing anything around with it is most likely a breeze given what the engine can do, but I can't help but wonder how badly this would get smashed if it would go up against a newer generation truck with similar power levels.
Still, considering this truck has been driven for more than 300,000 miles,(482,803 km) it doesn't look half bad, although it would have been nice to see more visual upgrades, to match the crazy engine swap upfront. After a few drone shots, we then get to see this F-150 doing some burnouts in the yard, and it does look like it can go through a set of tires quite easily.
The owner also comes out to see what the ruckus is all about, and we learn that this used to be a daily driver, but is now more of a weekend thing for him, and that's quite understandable, to be honest. This might just be my personal opinion, but after seeing this truck go, I think I would much rather have a Dodge Ram SRT-10 instead, even if it wasn't supercharged.
The things Dragos enjoys the most in life are, in no particular order: cars, motorcycles, diecast cars, and drifting. He's seen (and driven) many vehicles since he started his writing career back in 2009, but his garage currently houses a 1991 Mazda RX-7 FC3S Turbo II and a 1999 Suzuki SV650-S. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News