September 2004

Neil Franklin

A bit about myself, I grew up and lived in Queens New York until I graduated college. I attended the State University of New York Maritime College a relatively small Military type school, and one of only a few Maritime Academies across the country, with an attendance of about 800 cadets. The school was founded was 125 years ago to train merchant seamen. Graduates receive U.S. Coast Guard licenses in Deck or Engineering positions and the school currently offers various science and engineering degrees. During the summer we operate the school's 550 ft training ship and sail to various ports in Europe and the U.S. I graduated in 1988 and have a Bachelor of Engineering in Marine Engineering and a license as a Third Assistant Engineer, Steam or Motor vessels of any horsepower. The school is the best place to be from and I'm proud of it.

After school I worked as an engineer on a tugboat for Matitrans, a tug and barge company that moves large petroleum barges on the east coast and gulf. Maritrans transports more oil than any other US coastwise carrier. The last tug I worked on was pushing the largest oil barge in the world on the Delaware River lightening oil tankers. I decided to get married and get a shore job and currently work for the Navy at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Ship Systems Engineering Station in Philadelphia. I've worked developing Naval engineering plant operating procedures and currently work with engineering ship control systems. The ship control system is the computer automated system that runs and monitors the propulsion, auxiliary and various systems and machinery throughout the ship.

Ok, enough of the fluff and on to the reason why I'm here. Right after school, thanks to my friend John Brown, I became a gear head and purchased a 1989 Mustang GT which I still have 220k later. It's my daily driver and is heavily modified. As my son Neil Jr. got bigger I decided to get a family vehicle and when I saw the 1998 D I just said WOW! I had to have one. I loved the way it looked, it offered a big engine, came with full-time 4x4 and was just what I wanted. I discovered the DOC in late 1998 and learned a good bit about the vehicle. I did my homework and my wife Angela agreed with me on Flame Red which I ordered in December 1998 and it arrived around the first of the year.

I became a Gold member and pretty much of a daily reader/poster. I knew a lot about modifications from my Mustang but said to myself, “naw, I'm going to leave the D alone.” Then people on the DOC started posting about their mods and I said “Humm, all the cool kids are doing it.” Peer pressure is an ugly thing so within a few months of ownership I got out my Summit catalog, the wrenches and installed JBA headers, a Borla cat-back and a K&N intake. Next came Chrome R/T wheels came to go with the chrome tube side steps and stainless push bar. Then a group buy was organized by the DOC for Hotchkis Sway Bars and Bilstein shocks. I wasn't planning on doing that but the peer pressure thing hit again and it “was” a great price. The sway bars are the best mod I've done. No body roll!!

“What's this, Fastman is coming to town?!” (thanks John) Well in that case I’ll take a nice shiny ceramic chrome M1, 1.7 roller rockers and TB. Dan was great. He came to my house and put in the time to get it right and the used Mopar PCM from a DOC member capped it off. I had it dyno’ed at 246.7 HP and 319.0 FT-LBS. That's around +60 HP over stock which is pretty good for bolt-on mods.

I'm still a daily poster/reader and will be for a long time as I'll never get rid of this vehicle till the wheels fall off (which may happen as I'm still on the original ball joints.) I haven't had many problems. A lot of oil leaks and an incompetent dealer cost Chrysler a new motor at 16k. The tranny pan and transfer case have also leaked multiple times. Oh well, the EPA has not fined me yet.

I'm on various D/Dodge/Dak forums daily but the DOC has the people I'm closest to. I've been to four NJ annual meets, two NEDOC birthday get togethers, one mini meet and going to my third plant tour.

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