I have a 95 Lightning. I'm looking for something to really really make it move for about $3000... any help would be great.

 

I would suggest the best heads you can afford and a quality cam recommended by a reputable cam company along with a summit forged piston rebuild kit $420 or forced induction on your stock engine given it is in good condition. Check with your local machinist and see what the cost of labor and assembly will be so you can determine how much you can invest in heads. Good luck, Check here if you haven't already they have a lot of stuff in the classifieds and their are some folks making some decent hp and tq with stock and modified motors. Go here and click on the first generation section www.nloc.net/forums/

 

I have the cast iron GT-40 design heads, high torque cam, cold air, single TB - 65 mm throttle body and hypereutectic pistons. That gives me like 250 HP and 345 lbs./ft. So what would you recommend... I need all the help anyone can give me because I don't know much under the hood.

 

How old is the motor how many miles and condition since it was rebuilt? Are you going to do the work or someone else, obviously if you need someone else to do the work you will probably have to cut your budget in half and figure half for labor just to be safe. Are you wanting to add performance with out getting into the internals or do you want to do what it takes? REason I ask is there are many many ways to get you to a certain point, it boils down to how you wanna go about it. If you could make a suggestion in how much hp your shooting for that would help as well. later

 

95000 and never rebuilt. I could have a friend do most of it. I would like to see 400 or 500+ for each

 

The best bang would be go find a set of aftermarket either performer or afr used heads or new they run around $1100 +/- throw in a crane or comp cam proper injectors and a stroker crank scat 393 crank $300 you use your stock rods and should you have the block bored get 302 pistons in whatever bore the cylinder was taken too and you will have a 393. YOur main problem is the cam you will need to keep the lobe seperation around 112-114 for your stock computer to let it idle so if you want to go with a little more radical cam to improve hp then you will need a chip burnt I would recommend it anyway($200-300) should you go with a cam that has a lobe seperation of 110 or so. Or you could convert to MAf for $500-700 that is a big chunk out of the budget and you will still need to buy a tuner to program it the only benefit will be the idle will be better otherwise you will have to program it with mods anyway. IF you can find a competant person to port your heads ($400-500) then you might save a buck or two on the heads that way but the afr are hard to beat for the money and performance. I wouldn't dump it all into the engine I would beef up the tranny some at least with a shift kit if not a higher stall converter. YOur rear axle is 4.10 I believe that is what they were on all lightnings so that is one thing going for you until your posi unit fails. You will be close if not right at 400 hp this way, go with it for a while when you get bored put a 100 or so shot of nitros on it. Get machining prices and figure up who can assemble what for how much and then see how much you have left over the stroker crank, cam, arp bolts and forged piston rebuilt kits, converter and shift kits have similar prices across the board so a general price can be figured up then see how much is left to put towards the heads. Later

 

how about a rebuild and supercharger?

 

Most supercharger's now run in the $3k mark. What about exhaust, gearing. Do a rebuild and start with a new set of head's, cam, lifter's and so on. You could away's stroke it to a larger bore.

 

The GT40 heads are nothing more than 1970-74 351w DOOE heads with a new casting number.....The flow ok as is....but they are easily outflowed by the GT40P heads....

I would seriously consider going with a nice set of off the shelf SRP forged pistons and total seal piston rings......and new clevite77 bearings....
get the crank, bores etc measured and checked for tolerances....and rebuild the shortblock....do get the rotating assembly balanced (rebuild costs about $1200-1700 depending on how much machining needed) sae money by bolting the heads on yourself....and assembling the rest of the motor...

Then go and get yourself a nice set of Edelbrock or AFR aluminum cylinder heads ($1200), portmatch the intake to these, go with some 1.7 roller rockers from comp cams($300), if going with a cam, look up hydraulic link roller tappets(pricey but drop in)....they are drop in and thy free up some ponies...and get a camahsft from www.camresearchcorp.com all they do are fords.(roller cams are pricey but worth the added power approx $260)

A chip can also be made to optimize your mechanical mods...(another $300)

JBA headers are also a nice addition.....($420) and are bolt on.

Shift kit for your tranny (go with trans go shift kit) $150 plus install

good ford racing ignition wires 9mm $45 NGK, Bosch or Motorcraft platinum plugs are good as well....

K and N airfilter to allow the engine to breathe...