I guess that I am in a V10 kind of mood today. Ok, well Drag Week veteran Mark Covey bears some responsibility for this because he’s the guy that sent me the link to this pretty interesting Ford truck that he found on Craigslist. At first glance it is “just” a Ford Lightning truck but upon further inspection you’ll see that there’s a lot more going on here and frankly we have no idea if that is a good thing or a bad thing. The Ford modular V10 was never built with the intention of being a hot rod engine and as much as I have tried to read up on what the power potential of them are, I am still are left with a pretty cloudy picture. Lots of people are saying 500hp with some boost before problems set in buy everyone seems to agree that the intake manifold sucks ass for doing anything so that was a constant. The factory cranks are forged, so that’s a good thing. There were some companies making supercharger kits for the engines but all seem to have been discontinued due to lack of interest.
I say all of this stuff for a reason. Mainly because the seller in this ad has added boost to his V10 and makes some interesting claims in the Craigslist ad. But let’s start with the obvious, the intake manifold. This thing looks like some sort of an overgrown bug with a big barrel center and the 10 “legs” coming off to each exhaust port. I am not sure I have ever seen an intake manifold that looks more like a cannister vacuum that’s somehow fashioned its own legs in my life. The engine is a pretty tight fit into the truck but it looks to be in there in a pretty clean fashion. The turbo is tucked up in the front of the engine bay by the passenger side fender. Most of the photos are junk but the few below give you an idea of exactly what we’re looking at here. Turbocharged V10 Ford….don’t hear that every day.
The most interesting part of the ad is the text so here it is:
ok first of rebuilt title. nice paint power leather interior. all custom gages.
adjustable front suspension has fiberglass hood and hid headlights stainless steel magnaflow exhust. headers.
4 link rear with posi 4:10 gears.
tinted windows.
has a fresh rebuilt tranny. custom lite weight drive shaft.
molly pistons Mallory rods. small cams forged internals. custom intake manifold. huge 104mm throttle body. bazooka maf. Godzilla bov. garret 88 mm style turbo. custom fuel rails.
front mount intercooler. all brand new fragola 10 an fuel lines. 8an return. aeromotive fuel pressure regulator and fuel filter. new duel walbro 465 fuel pumps. injector dynamics 1300cc injectors.
p.c.s independent tranny controller. sct programmer for truck runs on E85. truck runs and drives still needs to be dyno tuned.
has tonneau cover battery box in bed of the truck.
9.5:1 compression. dual fans. 04 v10 excursion motor.
SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THE PHOTOS AND THEN HIT THE LINK TO SEE THE AD WITH ALL OF THE PICTURES –
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE CRAIGSLIST AD FOR THIS TURBO V10 FORD TRUCK
Saw this before, it’s in my area. Real head scratcher. Seems to be the right stuff on the parts list though. Before you knock it for not being “tuned” yet, consider there are no dynos in the damn state. Seriously, the only “performance” shops around here won’t talk to you unless you want a crate SBC, and that’s their secondary job to installing 26’s and lift kits on Caprices.
I would really like to see the dyno numbers this thing would show. I would imagine it has tons of torque down low, but proves to be less than desirable on the big end. I’m all for some “dare to be different”, but I feel like for the money he could have done a DOHC 4.6 or 5.4 and made more power. I’d still love to make a pass or two in it though!
another odd Ford
Looks like they used a muffler for the intake manifold. weird. I’d really love to know what this critter is capable of though.
It’s not far from me. Up I-49 to Joplin and a right on I-44. Maybe I’ll make a try at it. I really don’t need buy a truck right now but this one is interesting.
Odd duck for sure, I admire the approach. As for tuning…there are actually plenty of tuners and Dynos in the area…two of the best are 35 minutes away in Springfield. 417 Motorsports, a Drag Week regular and builder of some of the coolest/strange combos in the country like the twin turbo 1200HP Duramax Nova, etc. ShowMe Speed, another shop with a long resume. Cool, weird truck at any rate.
4.10 gears are absolutely incorrect for a turbo vehicle, especially one that will not crank rpm. Needs something in the 3.27-3.55 range. Intake looks like a cross between an old tubular GT40 and a sheetmetal intake. It is probably fine for this application with a good sized plenum. You can probably make all of this stuff work pretty well with tuning and some patience.
Looks like a V10 TPI. I’ve seen manifolds made from header tubing, and imagine this is something similar.