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September 2008 Gen 1 Truck Of The Month – Congratulations Dave Patterson "Dpracing" (NLOC# 521).
This month's Gen 1 TOTM features a ghost flamed '93 from Kansas. The ghost flames on Dave Patterson's truck capture your attention from the get go and once you're past those the rest of the truck flows just as nice. Dave's been a member for quite sometime and has contributed much to the site/lightning community over the years. Congrats Dave for being September's Truck of The Month!
1. What sparked your interest in the Ford Lightning?
When the Lightning first came out in 1993, I was delivering Ford parts out of the Kansas City distribution center and it was love at first sight when I saw one on a dealers lot. That was a sport truck and I thought I ought to have one but I couldn’t afford it. So I waited until 1998 and I found a used one and I bought it. That’s the one I have today and it’s been ten years now. I’m the third owner. The truck originally came from Georgia and I think it was a lease truck from the papers that were in the glove compartment. A guy from Iowa was the second owner and bought the truck used from the Kansas City auction and used the truck to pull a gooseneck trailer and hauled prize steers to show at stock shows. When I bought the truck it had 48,000 miles on it in 1998. The truck has 102,000 miles on it now. I started racing it as soon as I bought it and the modifications have been added over the years. It’s still fully streetable though as we drove it on the Hot Rod Magazine Power Tour this year. We drove to Little Rock, Arkansas to start the Power Tour, on to Springfield, Missouri, Topeka, Kansas, and Lincoln, Nebraska before deciding to come home from the tour to finish our vacation at home since it was my birthday.
2. Do you have any interesting stories about previously owned vehicles, before becoming a Lightning owner?
Not really a previously owned vehicle since we still have it but we have a 1968 Ford XL two door hardtop with the 428 GT package. It’s a specialty car from Ford and only 1900 were built that year. There’s a plaque on the dash with the original owners name that bought the car. We’re the third owner on that car. My wife’s aunt and uncle bought the car used in 1970. They kept the car and parked it in a barn in1986 with 116,000 miles on it. They knew we wanted it so they told us we could have it. We took a truck and trailer up to their farm and drug it out of the barn with tractors and drug it up on the trailer. When we got it home my son told me he wanted to hear it run. We poured some gas down the carb and it did fire up but ran badly. We pulled the engine out and found the nylon around the outer portion of the cam timing gear was gone and only the aluminum center was left so we don’t know how it even ran! The engine and C6 trans have been completely rebuilt in it now. It’s been sitting outside on my car trailer since 2005 because the thing is too big to fit in my garage. There’s a guy down the street that has a bigger garage and he does mechanical work on the side so it’s there right now. He’s gone through the brake system replacing all the parts and the fuel system replacing the lines and it looks like I’m going to have to purchase a new fuel tank as the original is rusted out.
3. What modifications have you made to your truck since you have owned it...both show and go?
For go:
Powerdyne supercharger pullied for ten PSI at 5500 RPM
Hooker Supercomp 1-5/8 inch shorty headers
24 pound fuel injectors
MSD 6AL ignition amplifier
MSD coil
Phenolic spacer between the upper and lower intake
EGR delete
Bassani catless X mid pipes
Locally fabricated 2-1/2 inch catback exhaust
Mustang 5.0 H.O. roller cam conversion
Ford Motorsport 1.7 ratio roller rockers
Permacool 16-inch electric fan with Struckby wiring
Three gauge A pillar pod with boost, fuel pressure, and trans temperature gauges
Auto gauge five-inch tach with shift light and memory
Rancho traction bars
Rear end girdle
2800 stall converter
B&M shift kit
Tuned with SCT two program chip
Dragstar wheels
Show:
Center jump seat from a conversion van of unknown origin! The wood was part of the jump seat and the material matches pretty well, but I don’t know what exactly it came out of.
Rolled rear pan
Hidden hitch
Full repaint with ghost flames
OEM chrome wheels
4. Do you have any interesting stories about your Lightning?
Last year when we changed the cam we found the distributor was leaking oil; the seal was bad. The distributor was still under warranty so I exchanged it. We put the truck back together and it wouldn’t run worth a darn! It would spark, knock, surge, and carry on, we just had a fit with it. We’d tinker with it and change some stuff and it’d run fine so we figured we’d found the problem. Soon as we’d shut the engine off and restart it the engine would have the same problems. We fiddled with it for about a month off and on and just couldn’t find the problem. I kept saying we should replace the distributor but everybody kept telling me that wasn’t the problem. This was just before WFC 10 at Indianapolis so we finally gave up and I took my Mustang to race at WFC. When I got back I replaced the distributor and it solved the problem ! The distributor was giving bad information to the computer and it didn’t know where it was.
5. Tell us about yourself, your hobbies, business or work, sports, family, etc.
My wife Sharon and I have been married forty years this October. We have two sons, Jason(wife Nichole) and Bryan and two grandchildren, Broedy and Bailey. My hobbies are working on my truck and drag racing! I work for a small fuel distributor delivering gasoline and diesel fuel to various stations in the area
6. How long have you been a user of the NLOC.net, when did you become an NLOC member, and why did you choose to become a member of NLOC?
I first found NLOC in 2000. That was after I met Jeff Sparkman in Ennis, Texas in 1999. We were down there visiting. I didn’t know Jeff or any others there with Lightnings, but Jeff was outside the track changing his rear tires to his slicks while waiting in line. I got to talking with him about Lightnings so we decided to stay the weekend to watch the racing. Vern Jones’ truck was there as well but we didn’t know anyone there at the time. I did notice Vern’s personalized Missouri plate on his truck but never did meet up with him over the weekend. I saw Vern’s truck again in 2000 at WFC in St. Louis but didn’t meet him again. Later in the year the local Ford dealers put on a Ford Fest in Kansas City and again Vern and his truck were there. I finally got to meet him! I met Shawn and Donald there as well and they told me about NLOC so I got involved with that. We convinced the local track to have a Lightning only class as we had around 18 trucks and MKLO grew out of that. I became a paid member in 2001 with the formation of MKLO.
7. What suggestions do you have to make the NLOC.net website easier to use and navigate?
I wouldn’t change a thing!
8. Why did you pick your board user name (screen name)?
It originally started out as litnindave as I was the only Dave around with a Lightning. I tried a bunch of different spellings of lightningdave and the board finally took litnindave. My email address was Dpracing though and litnindave never really stuck with anybody so I changed it to Dpracing. I have litnindave under my user name and Big D started listing my name as litnindave when I registered for L Fest last year and this year.
9. What are your plans for future changes to your truck?
Long range plans are probably mass air and an E series cam. Probably a set of aluminum heads too. What I’d really like to do is pull this engine out and build another motor for the truck. Don’t think I’d do a stroker but just a 357 ci for the truck. Mass air for the truck since there isn’t anybody around here that can tune for speed density.
10. This is where you link favorite websites, your website, family pictures and add any other comments.
First of all, I’d like to thank my wife Sharon and my two sons, Jason and Bryan. Big thanks to Donald (five0drw), Vern (Vern), and Shawn (RhinoRacing) for sparking my interest after meeting them through NLOC MKLO and for selling me parts. As they would step up for parts to go faster I’d buy their used parts. At the point they started breaking parts I quit adding to mine! And last but not least, Mark Shelton for helping me install the parts on my truck.
Congratulations to Dave Patterson and his 1993 Black Gen 1 Truck of the Month, September 2008!
This month's Gen 1 TOTM features a ghost flamed '93 from Kansas. The ghost flames on Dave Patterson's truck capture your attention from the get go and once you're past those the rest of the truck flows just as nice. Dave's been a member for quite sometime and has contributed much to the site/lightning community over the years. Congrats Dave for being September's Truck of The Month!
1. What sparked your interest in the Ford Lightning?
When the Lightning first came out in 1993, I was delivering Ford parts out of the Kansas City distribution center and it was love at first sight when I saw one on a dealers lot. That was a sport truck and I thought I ought to have one but I couldn’t afford it. So I waited until 1998 and I found a used one and I bought it. That’s the one I have today and it’s been ten years now. I’m the third owner. The truck originally came from Georgia and I think it was a lease truck from the papers that were in the glove compartment. A guy from Iowa was the second owner and bought the truck used from the Kansas City auction and used the truck to pull a gooseneck trailer and hauled prize steers to show at stock shows. When I bought the truck it had 48,000 miles on it in 1998. The truck has 102,000 miles on it now. I started racing it as soon as I bought it and the modifications have been added over the years. It’s still fully streetable though as we drove it on the Hot Rod Magazine Power Tour this year. We drove to Little Rock, Arkansas to start the Power Tour, on to Springfield, Missouri, Topeka, Kansas, and Lincoln, Nebraska before deciding to come home from the tour to finish our vacation at home since it was my birthday.
2. Do you have any interesting stories about previously owned vehicles, before becoming a Lightning owner?
Not really a previously owned vehicle since we still have it but we have a 1968 Ford XL two door hardtop with the 428 GT package. It’s a specialty car from Ford and only 1900 were built that year. There’s a plaque on the dash with the original owners name that bought the car. We’re the third owner on that car. My wife’s aunt and uncle bought the car used in 1970. They kept the car and parked it in a barn in1986 with 116,000 miles on it. They knew we wanted it so they told us we could have it. We took a truck and trailer up to their farm and drug it out of the barn with tractors and drug it up on the trailer. When we got it home my son told me he wanted to hear it run. We poured some gas down the carb and it did fire up but ran badly. We pulled the engine out and found the nylon around the outer portion of the cam timing gear was gone and only the aluminum center was left so we don’t know how it even ran! The engine and C6 trans have been completely rebuilt in it now. It’s been sitting outside on my car trailer since 2005 because the thing is too big to fit in my garage. There’s a guy down the street that has a bigger garage and he does mechanical work on the side so it’s there right now. He’s gone through the brake system replacing all the parts and the fuel system replacing the lines and it looks like I’m going to have to purchase a new fuel tank as the original is rusted out.
3. What modifications have you made to your truck since you have owned it...both show and go?
For go:
Powerdyne supercharger pullied for ten PSI at 5500 RPM
Hooker Supercomp 1-5/8 inch shorty headers
24 pound fuel injectors
MSD 6AL ignition amplifier
MSD coil
Phenolic spacer between the upper and lower intake
EGR delete
Bassani catless X mid pipes
Locally fabricated 2-1/2 inch catback exhaust
Mustang 5.0 H.O. roller cam conversion
Ford Motorsport 1.7 ratio roller rockers
Permacool 16-inch electric fan with Struckby wiring
Three gauge A pillar pod with boost, fuel pressure, and trans temperature gauges
Auto gauge five-inch tach with shift light and memory
Rancho traction bars
Rear end girdle
2800 stall converter
B&M shift kit
Tuned with SCT two program chip
Dragstar wheels
Show:
Center jump seat from a conversion van of unknown origin! The wood was part of the jump seat and the material matches pretty well, but I don’t know what exactly it came out of.
Rolled rear pan
Hidden hitch
Full repaint with ghost flames
OEM chrome wheels
4. Do you have any interesting stories about your Lightning?
Last year when we changed the cam we found the distributor was leaking oil; the seal was bad. The distributor was still under warranty so I exchanged it. We put the truck back together and it wouldn’t run worth a darn! It would spark, knock, surge, and carry on, we just had a fit with it. We’d tinker with it and change some stuff and it’d run fine so we figured we’d found the problem. Soon as we’d shut the engine off and restart it the engine would have the same problems. We fiddled with it for about a month off and on and just couldn’t find the problem. I kept saying we should replace the distributor but everybody kept telling me that wasn’t the problem. This was just before WFC 10 at Indianapolis so we finally gave up and I took my Mustang to race at WFC. When I got back I replaced the distributor and it solved the problem ! The distributor was giving bad information to the computer and it didn’t know where it was.
5. Tell us about yourself, your hobbies, business or work, sports, family, etc.
My wife Sharon and I have been married forty years this October. We have two sons, Jason(wife Nichole) and Bryan and two grandchildren, Broedy and Bailey. My hobbies are working on my truck and drag racing! I work for a small fuel distributor delivering gasoline and diesel fuel to various stations in the area
6. How long have you been a user of the NLOC.net, when did you become an NLOC member, and why did you choose to become a member of NLOC?
I first found NLOC in 2000. That was after I met Jeff Sparkman in Ennis, Texas in 1999. We were down there visiting. I didn’t know Jeff or any others there with Lightnings, but Jeff was outside the track changing his rear tires to his slicks while waiting in line. I got to talking with him about Lightnings so we decided to stay the weekend to watch the racing. Vern Jones’ truck was there as well but we didn’t know anyone there at the time. I did notice Vern’s personalized Missouri plate on his truck but never did meet up with him over the weekend. I saw Vern’s truck again in 2000 at WFC in St. Louis but didn’t meet him again. Later in the year the local Ford dealers put on a Ford Fest in Kansas City and again Vern and his truck were there. I finally got to meet him! I met Shawn and Donald there as well and they told me about NLOC so I got involved with that. We convinced the local track to have a Lightning only class as we had around 18 trucks and MKLO grew out of that. I became a paid member in 2001 with the formation of MKLO.
7. What suggestions do you have to make the NLOC.net website easier to use and navigate?
I wouldn’t change a thing!
8. Why did you pick your board user name (screen name)?
It originally started out as litnindave as I was the only Dave around with a Lightning. I tried a bunch of different spellings of lightningdave and the board finally took litnindave. My email address was Dpracing though and litnindave never really stuck with anybody so I changed it to Dpracing. I have litnindave under my user name and Big D started listing my name as litnindave when I registered for L Fest last year and this year.
9. What are your plans for future changes to your truck?
Long range plans are probably mass air and an E series cam. Probably a set of aluminum heads too. What I’d really like to do is pull this engine out and build another motor for the truck. Don’t think I’d do a stroker but just a 357 ci for the truck. Mass air for the truck since there isn’t anybody around here that can tune for speed density.
10. This is where you link favorite websites, your website, family pictures and add any other comments.
First of all, I’d like to thank my wife Sharon and my two sons, Jason and Bryan. Big thanks to Donald (five0drw), Vern (Vern), and Shawn (RhinoRacing) for sparking my interest after meeting them through NLOC MKLO and for selling me parts. As they would step up for parts to go faster I’d buy their used parts. At the point they started breaking parts I quit adding to mine! And last but not least, Mark Shelton for helping me install the parts on my truck.
Congratulations to Dave Patterson and his 1993 Black Gen 1 Truck of the Month, September 2008!
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