rtracer39

Hey guys,

I know its probably been asked before but how hard is it really to do a lightning swap? I found an 04 swap kit the comes with motor, trans, crossmember, full body harness, ecm, driveshaft, brakes, master cylinder, instrument cluster, radiator, all the goods. I've been talking to a local mod motor guy that builds cobras mainly and he said it's too much work. He'd rather use the lightning motor with my original harness and ecm. It seems to me like switching out the harness and ecm is the better route. I know it's fairly involved to switch the dash harness out but I pull dashes all the time at work, that part doesn't scare me.

This was my dads truck and the original 4.6 has a compression skip. I'm pretty certain a timing chain broke or fell off. Although it could be fixed I kinda want to do something cool with it.

Thanks for any input

Camper shell has to go

River1

Someone correct me if this is bad info but in 97 all F150's were on the Ford SCP protocol and by the 11th Gen trucks came out all F150's were on the mandated by 2007 protocols which I think is J1979 for the F150. I think that means you will have to swap everything. If your new engines PCM protocol is the J1979 your instrument cluster for one won't mate to your older electronics. I found this out the hard way.

This protocol stuff has come up a lot the last couple of days. lol

Edit: The by 2008 protocol is ISO 15765 which contains the updated J1979.

Anthony Kadzban

rtracer39

Interesting. But since it comes with the entire body harness, modules, ecm and cluster I dont think thatd be an issue. Maybe that's why the cobra tuner says to keep the harness and ecm and tune it for the lightning motor.

rtracer39

This is the motor as of last night. I picked it up from the "mechanic " that had it 8 years and didnt do anything last Saturday

rtracer39

I think the second comment was confused with it being an 04 engine. It's still the 97-03 body style. The lightning continued into 04 using the "heritage" body. So as far as communication protocol I dont think its different.

white89gt

That video.... is the motor actually turning over? It sounds to me like the starter is not even engaging.

rtracer39

No, it was turning over. I could see the fan spinning

River1

[QUOTE=rtracer39;6359376].

River1

This has everything for all the years. Looks like I was wrong.

https://www.lightningrodder.com/thre...-chart.302986/