The National Lightning Owners Club Inc - View Single Post - September 2006 Gen 1 TOTM - Congratulations to Steve "sstock" Stock! (NLOC #343)

madramper · 09-01-2006, 07:27 AM

...September 2006 Gen 1 Truck Of The Month – Congratulations Steve "sstock" Stock! (NLOC #343)

Steve has a wealth of knowledge and is always willing to share with the rest of the Lightning brethren. He continually strives for the best and pushes the boundries with his Speed Density TwEECer tuning abilities. His truck is clean, well built, and simply amazing!

1. What sparked your interest in the Ford Lightning?

I remember back in ’93 a guy down at work bought a red ’93. The truck was to die for but I remember thinking how it was so expensive. At that time, with 3 children under the age of 7, there wasn’t a way to find $22,000 and eat too. I had to settle for an ’87 El Camino which I drove until the spring of ’98 when I saw a Crimson ’94 on the Ford lot. It was a real eye catcher and after about 3 days of purposely driving by it to catch a glimpse of it on the front row, I finally stopped and took a look-see. It was perfect in everyway and when I found out that it had complete documentation and locally owned with less than 7500 miles (currently 70,000 miles), I knew I had to have it. To make the long story short, I dealt with the sales manager who just happened to have a kid on my baseball team that I coached. My wife was sitting with him and his wife on the bleachers at a game and told him how much I liked that truck and lined up a test drive for me (damn I love this woman). I scored a good deal and got rid of the El Camino at the same time some 4 or 5 days later. Normally I am a salesman’s wet dream but was determined to get it at a price that I was willing to pay. From the time I picked it up, it has been a love affair that hasn’t stopped. Here is a pic of it shortly after the purchase. Notice the pink bumper that was one of the first things to go.

2. Do you have any interesting stories about previously owned vehicles, before becoming a Lightning owner?

I have had tons of cars since owning my very first vehicle (a 74 Ford Pinto). In my younger years I didn’t keep a car more than a year or so. I’ve owned foreign and domestics, trucks and cars. One of my favorites was when my wife found me a ’62 Tuxedo Black Chevy Impala SS. I did a restoration on that car which included paint, interior and drive train. I hunted down all the correct parts to transform it to a factory correct 4speed car with AC. It was a project that lasted many years. Interestingly enough my first taste of forced induction was when I purchased a new’85 Saab 900 turbo. Even though it had an engine only 2 liters in size, I still remember the whoosh of the turbo and the sound of the waste gate opening. I loved that car but as the family got older, we outgrew it.

3. What modifications have you made to your truck since you have owned it...both show and go?

Oh geez, this is going to sound bad, I’ve put things on and off this truck like an insane man. It is all Sparkmans’s fault, or at least that’s what I’ve been telling him for all these years. I drove my truck for a year and half vowed to keep it original, until I started surfing the net. The first website I found was Jeff’s site called Hookatoo. You have any idea how long it took to load his pictures at 28K connection?? Nonetheless, Jeff’s truck got me hooked on speed mods and I began to yearn for performance upgrades for my truck. Back then, his truck was running high 11’s and I thought that was incredible. Little did I know that six years later I would be test-driving his truck? Only then the s-trim will be long gone and that it would have a turbo on it in its place. The power of Jeff’s turbo truck was completely obscene. By then my own truck was running mid 12’s with a Powerdyne BD11a supercharger, and I was onto the second of three blowers that was soon to find it’s way on my truck. I ran the first XB1A Powerdyne on this truck. That blower made some good boost and allowed me to run deep into the 12’s, I sold that blower because the trend back in 2002 was intercooling. The scroll on the XB1A didn’t lend itself to intercooling so I sold that blower to Matt (94bolt). He still is running the XB blower today. I ended up scoring a killer deal on a Novi 2000 that was once owned by Keith Blackburn AKA’Copperhead’(Keith has owned just about everything that could fit on a Lightning), it would be the third blower on my truck and made this truck insanely fast at the track. I had all the usual issues of belt slip, finally designing up a 12 rib setup by using a Procharger pulley cut for the Novi. I used a Pickrel bracket kit and tensioner and double 6 rib belts. That setup was very stout and ran deep into the 11’s with this combo. That was last summer and when Dave Pickrel came out with his turbo kit, I found a buyer for the Novi Kit. From that point on life has not been the same. My truck is very stock appearing and sounding with the exception that it has been lowered an inch in the front and 2 or so to the rear and has a 3-1/2” tailpipe in front of the passenger wheel. With the turbo, you can drive it around without spooling it and it sounds completely stock, that is until you crack the throttle further than ¼ way. The Pickrel turbo kit was very easy to install and fit perfectly. Currently I’m running forged bottom end components with stock crank, Mustang HO roller cam and a set of worked GT40X heads. Atop of that, the Precision 76 mm turbo pushes air through a powerstroke intercooler and an accufab 75mm throttle body. The intake is a Trick Flow box R unit that I flipped around to face the passenger side, in an effort to reduce the bends and length of the intercooler pipes. I had to move the cruise control unit to the passenger side and lengthen the wiring harness to it as well. While we are talking about lengthening things, I removed the wiring harness that connects the computer controls to the components atop the engine. 15”was added in an effort to reroute it around the turbo hot parts. All connections were soldered and covered with heat shrink and the harness then wrapped in a special heat wrap. The truck idles like stock with 18” of vacuum and is fueled with some Chris Johnson 47.7lb injectors. Tuning is done by using a TwEECer. Out back I’m running stock gears with an Eaton positraction. Rancho traction bars control wheel hop when running at the track. I bolt on a set of skinnies on the front and some Goodyear radial slicks mounted on Centerline wheels and remove the hardcover over the bed. To date my truck has run a best of 11.054 at 123.76MPH. I drive it to work daily.

4. Do you have any interesting stories about your Lightning?

I’ve got a ton of stories about the lightning. But the fact of the matter is the truck has been the vehicle that has allowed me to meet the most extraordinary people over the course of the last several years. Many are very close friends now that just kindled from phone calls and emails, trips to Lfest and WFC. I refer to them as my Lightning family. Here in Washington we have a very tight group of Lightning owners and enthusiasts that all have become friends. We like to meet up for a monthly get- together and consume mass amounts of pizza and engage in wild stories of bench racing, plus we can see what Dale has been up to in his Gen2 turbo project.

5. Tell us about yourself, your hobbies, business or work, sports, family, etc.

I am married for almost 29 years now and have lived in the same house since 1982. I have three children: Matt 21, Kelly 18 and Michael 17. I am in my 27th year with the local fire department and currently am a Captain at station 7. My children are finished with sports now but we usually centered our vacations on where they were playing ball. My oldest is a senior at Western Washington University and will become a computer scientist this year. My daughter works at a bank and goes full time to community college. My youngest, Michael, owner of the Scooter from hell, will be a junior in high school. He just got his own car and is never home now. We have three pet terrier (terror) dogs, Jasmine, Libby and Roxie. I can’t move without all three coming to see what I’m doing. Mike and I will be at Lfest again for the third time. We were planning on driving out this year with the Scriced convoy but when gas went above 3 bucks, I couldn’t swing a 4000 mile round trip by land. It will happen though but not until I can get these kids through school or gas comes back down and that’s a fat chance. As far as hobbies, I like playing golf. My real hobby is playing with the Lightning. It’s always challenging to try and make it faster during the off-season. I have really been having a ball learning and playing with the TwEECer tuning device. It never ceases to amaze me on just how much more power can be extracted by having a tune that is on the button. It has been pretty neat that speed density trucks have been running stronger and stronger each year. Look forward to seeing the first stock computer trucks running into the tens real soon.

6. How long have you been a user of the NLOC.net and when did you become an NLOC member?

I was originally on the Yahoo email list until 2000, when the UBB went up and running, so I guess I became a member about 1999.

7. What suggestions do you have to make the NLOC.net website easier to use and navigate?

I like the way things are going now, but it really was a pain when the last UBB wasn’t backed up and we lost a ton of good pictures and links that now don’t exist if you do a search. Big D and Nan do an incredible job. People have no idea how much time is spent on their behalf to keep this club up and running.

8. Why did you pick your board user name (screen name)?

Nothing fancy first initial and last name.

9. What are your plans for future changes to your truck?

I am thinking about a cowl hood and a roll bar too. The guys at the track are not too happy with me as of lately. I just installed my bed rug that has been boxed in the garage for over a year and half.

10. This is where you link favorite websites, your website, family pictures and add any other comments.

My homepage is www.nloc.net. Is there anything more important on the web than that? I would like to thank those that have helped me along the way over the years. Guys like Jeff Sparkman, Jerry Skinner, Dave Pickrel (The Master) and Dale Robertson that are naturals at giving good solid advice and know what and how to make these trucks perform and all the WashLO guys and gals for putting up with me. My long distance friends Ralph Voorhees and Dennis Macho, Rich Penno and Justin Depalma and a person that has become a good special friend, Roy Richards (SupercabL). Without the NLOC, none of this could have ever been.

09-01-2006, 07:27 AM	#1 (permalink)
madramper Supporting Vendor Paid Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Alloway, NJ Posts: 11,493 NLOC member #: 937 View this user's gallery iTrader: 43 / 100%	September 2006 Gen 1 TOTM - Congratulations to Steve "sstock" Stock! (NLOC #343) ...September 2006 Gen 1 Truck Of The Month – Congratulations Steve "sstock" Stock! (NLOC #343) Steve has a wealth of knowledge and is always willing to share with the rest of the Lightning brethren. He continually strives for the best and pushes the boundries with his Speed Density TwEECer tuning abilities. His truck is clean, well built, and simply amazing! *1. What sparked your interest in the Ford Lightning?* I remember back in ’93 a guy down at work bought a red ’93. The truck was to die for but I remember thinking how it was so expensive. At that time, with 3 children under the age of 7, there wasn’t a way to find $22,000 and eat too. I had to settle for an ’87 El Camino which I drove until the spring of ’98 when I saw a Crimson ’94 on the Ford lot. It was a real eye catcher and after about 3 days of purposely driving by it to catch a glimpse of it on the front row, I finally stopped and took a look-see. It was perfect in everyway and when I found out that it had complete documentation and locally owned with less than 7500 miles (currently 70,000 miles), I knew I had to have it. To make the long story short, I dealt with the sales manager who just happened to have a kid on my baseball team that I coached. My wife was sitting with him and his wife on the bleachers at a game and told him how much I liked that truck and lined up a test drive for me (damn I love this woman). I scored a good deal and got rid of the El Camino at the same time some 4 or 5 days later. Normally I am a salesman’s wet dream but was determined to get it at a price that I was willing to pay. From the time I picked it up, it has been a love affair that hasn’t stopped. Here is a pic of it shortly after the purchase. Notice the pink bumper that was one of the first things to go. *2. Do you have any interesting stories about previously owned vehicles, before becoming a Lightning owner?* I have had tons of cars since owning my very first vehicle (a 74 Ford Pinto). In my younger years I didn’t keep a car more than a year or so. I’ve owned foreign and domestics, trucks and cars. One of my favorites was when my wife found me a ’62 Tuxedo Black Chevy Impala SS. I did a restoration on that car which included paint, interior and drive train. I hunted down all the correct parts to transform it to a factory correct 4speed car with AC. It was a project that lasted many years. Interestingly enough my first taste of forced induction was when I purchased a new’85 Saab 900 turbo. Even though it had an engine only 2 liters in size, I still remember the whoosh of the turbo and the sound of the waste gate opening. I loved that car but as the family got older, we outgrew it. *3. What modifications have you made to your truck since you have owned it...both show and go?* Oh geez, this is going to sound bad, I’ve put things on and off this truck like an insane man. It is all Sparkmans’s fault, or at least that’s what I’ve been telling him for all these years. I drove my truck for a year and half vowed to keep it original, until I started surfing the net. The first website I found was Jeff’s site called Hookatoo. You have any idea how long it took to load his pictures at 28K connection?? Nonetheless, Jeff’s truck got me hooked on speed mods and I began to yearn for performance upgrades for my truck. Back then, his truck was running high 11’s and I thought that was incredible. Little did I know that six years later I would be test-driving his truck? Only then the s-trim will be long gone and that it would have a turbo on it in its place. The power of Jeff’s turbo truck was completely obscene. By then my own truck was running mid 12’s with a Powerdyne BD11a supercharger, and I was onto the second of three blowers that was soon to find it’s way on my truck. I ran the first XB1A Powerdyne on this truck. That blower made some good boost and allowed me to run deep into the 12’s, I sold that blower because the trend back in 2002 was intercooling. The scroll on the XB1A didn’t lend itself to intercooling so I sold that blower to Matt (94bolt). He still is running the XB blower today. I ended up scoring a killer deal on a Novi 2000 that was once owned by Keith Blackburn AKA’Copperhead’(Keith has owned just about everything that could fit on a Lightning), it would be the third blower on my truck and made this truck insanely fast at the track. I had all the usual issues of belt slip, finally designing up a 12 rib setup by using a Procharger pulley cut for the Novi. I used a Pickrel bracket kit and tensioner and double 6 rib belts. That setup was very stout and ran deep into the 11’s with this combo. That was last summer and when Dave Pickrel came out with his turbo kit, I found a buyer for the Novi Kit. From that point on life has not been the same. My truck is very stock appearing and sounding with the exception that it has been lowered an inch in the front and 2 or so to the rear and has a 3-1/2” tailpipe in front of the passenger wheel. With the turbo, you can drive it around without spooling it and it sounds completely stock, that is until you crack the throttle further than ¼ way. The Pickrel turbo kit was very easy to install and fit perfectly. Currently I’m running forged bottom end components with stock crank, Mustang HO roller cam and a set of worked GT40X heads. Atop of that, the Precision 76 mm turbo pushes air through a powerstroke intercooler and an accufab 75mm throttle body. The intake is a Trick Flow box R unit that I flipped around to face the passenger side, in an effort to reduce the bends and length of the intercooler pipes. I had to move the cruise control unit to the passenger side and lengthen the wiring harness to it as well. While we are talking about lengthening things, I removed the wiring harness that connects the computer controls to the components atop the engine. 15”was added in an effort to reroute it around the turbo hot parts. All connections were soldered and covered with heat shrink and the harness then wrapped in a special heat wrap. The truck idles like stock with 18” of vacuum and is fueled with some Chris Johnson 47.7lb injectors. Tuning is done by using a TwEECer. Out back I’m running stock gears with an Eaton positraction. Rancho traction bars control wheel hop when running at the track. I bolt on a set of skinnies on the front and some Goodyear radial slicks mounted on Centerline wheels and remove the hardcover over the bed. To date my truck has run a best of 11.054 at 123.76MPH. I drive it to work daily. *4. Do you have any interesting stories about your Lightning?* I’ve got a ton of stories about the lightning. But the fact of the matter is the truck has been the vehicle that has allowed me to meet the most extraordinary people over the course of the last several years. Many are very close friends now that just kindled from phone calls and emails, trips to Lfest and WFC. I refer to them as my Lightning family. Here in Washington we have a very tight group of Lightning owners and enthusiasts that all have become friends. We like to meet up for a monthly get- together and consume mass amounts of pizza and engage in wild stories of bench racing, plus we can see what Dale has been up to in his Gen2 turbo project. *5. Tell us about yourself, your hobbies, business or work, sports, family, etc.* I am married for almost 29 years now and have lived in the same house since 1982. I have three children: Matt 21, Kelly 18 and Michael 17. I am in my 27th year with the local fire department and currently am a Captain at station 7. My children are finished with sports now but we usually centered our vacations on where they were playing ball. My oldest is a senior at Western Washington University and will become a computer scientist this year. My daughter works at a bank and goes full time to community college. My youngest, Michael, owner of the Scooter from hell, will be a junior in high school. He just got his own car and is never home now. We have three pet terrier (terror) dogs, Jasmine, Libby and Roxie. I can’t move without all three coming to see what I’m doing. Mike and I will be at Lfest again for the third time. We were planning on driving out this year with the Scriced convoy but when gas went above 3 bucks, I couldn’t swing a 4000 mile round trip by land. It will happen though but not until I can get these kids through school or gas comes back down and that’s a fat chance. As far as hobbies, I like playing golf. My real hobby is playing with the Lightning. It’s always challenging to try and make it faster during the off-season. I have really been having a ball learning and playing with the TwEECer tuning device. It never ceases to amaze me on just how much more power can be extracted by having a tune that is on the button. It has been pretty neat that speed density trucks have been running stronger and stronger each year. Look forward to seeing the first stock computer trucks running into the tens real soon. 6. How long have you been a user of the NLOC.net and when did you become an NLOC member? I was originally on the Yahoo email list until 2000, when the UBB went up and running, so I guess I became a member about 1999. *7. What suggestions do you have to make the NLOC.net website easier to use and navigate?* I like the way things are going now, but it really was a pain when the last UBB wasn’t backed up and we lost a ton of good pictures and links that now don’t exist if you do a search. Big D and Nan do an incredible job. People have no idea how much time is spent on their behalf to keep this club up and running. *8. Why did you pick your board user name (screen name)?* Nothing fancy first initial and last name. *9. What are your plans for future changes to your truck?* I am thinking about a cowl hood and a roll bar too. The guys at the track are not too happy with me as of lately. I just installed my bed rug that has been boxed in the garage for over a year and half. *10. This is where you link favorite websites, your website, family pictures and add any other comments.* My homepage is www.nloc.net. Is there anything more important on the web than that? I would like to thank those that have helped me along the way over the years. Guys like Jeff Sparkman, Jerry Skinner, Dave Pickrel (The Master) and Dale Robertson that are naturals at giving good solid advice and know what and how to make these trucks perform and all the WashLO guys and gals for putting up with me. My long distance friends Ralph Voorhees and Dennis Macho, Rich Penno and Justin Depalma and a person that has become a good special friend, Roy Richards (SupercabL). Without the NLOC, none of this could have ever been.