This truck is my life-long project.
I've owned it for twenty years and my Dad bought it in '70. It's
a piece of junk, but it's
my piece of junk.
This was how I originally built the
truck when I was 16 years old. The flatbed was used because the bed
was so rotten. It had 250 inches of inline six power that would pin
you back in your seat...um, well...at least make you sway backwards a little.
Once I got to making some money, I started trying to make the truck a little faster. I replaced the straight six with a 350 while I was in college. I paid $50 for the complete small block and automatic transmission from one of my buddy's fraternity brothers who had run over a fire hydrant in his '74 Impala. I spent a whopping $450 dollars on a new cam, headers, and miscellaneous parts to get it running. (I said I was making some money, not good money.) I left the unsynchronized three speed behind the small block and it lasted most of the summer. I replaced it with a close ratio Muncie 4 speed. The Muncie provided excellent acceleration, but with 3.73 rear gears, shifting was like stirring cake batter. The meats were purchased from a neighbor that ran a dirt car and made me good deals on his worn out tires. They had about 11.5" of tread which made the truck hook up pretty well even with no weight on the rear end. However, running in rain was an experience and tread life was non-existent. I think I ended up buying about four sets of tires from him.
After ten years of limited duty,
the truck needs some work. I had started to fix a few things when
I blew the motor up in my '82 El Camino. I decided to sell the Camino
and fix the truck up to be my driver. Unfortunately, the $500 motor
in the truck was lunched after four months of driving.
It's alive and it's ugly. The
whole motor and tranny project took about five months. The motor
is a .030 over 350 with flat top pistons, .490 lift cam, block decked .010,
roller rockers, Hooker headers, Edelbrock Performer RPM manifold, and Holley
750 w/vac secondary. The tranny is a 700R4 with a TCI 2400 rpm non-lockup
stall converter and a B&M Pro Stick. I don't understand all of
the parts that Kyle threw into this thing, but it will snap your neck on
all three shifts. One of the goals of this project was to make sure
the slug for this ugly truck would roast Sam
Eichmiller's pretty boy Firebird. That didn't prove to be too
hard. As shown in the back window, I managed a 9.58 on its first
trip to the dragstrip. Traction was nonexistent with the open
rearend. My best time came when I eased it out of the hole, tromped
it, then pedaled the accelerator as I shifted to second gear. It
was still in second when I crossed the finish line. All Sam could
muster was a 9.70. Losing has bothered him so much that he is now
buying a new cam and a set of heads. Before we go next time, I think
I will just bolt some weight in the back end so that I can keep my foot
in it. I figure it ought to run in the eights under full power.
