My brother Lorne's '85 GMC Short Bed

 This page and truck are both under construction.

This is the first indication the truck isn't quite the same as GM made it. He started with the stock grille, added a chunk of an old U-Haul sign with the rocket shape ground out, some pieces of a '06 Impala tail light and some Fusor 100EZ adhesive. Spray a couple coats of primer, left over silver basecoat and some DCU2060 flat clear and you have a one of a kind grille for very little $$$$.

 
Big Block Olds Power It's a '71 455 that still has a basically stock bottom end with a nodular crank, reconditioned rods and the original cast pistons, with new rings of course. He used '70 E heads and did some extensive port work and added the Harland Sharp roller rocker arm set up so it's now an adjustable valvetrain. It has a nice size hyd cam and Cutlass headers. The iron intake had to go for both weight and performance reasons so a Torker intake was added after these pics were taken. That seems to be the performance intake of choice for most of the Olds guys. It also has a 700R4 trans that needs a real converter instead of one from an S10. I can't wait to see those e.t. improvements. The Precision converter rep claims it will knock off a .5 second. I hope he's right, a low to mid 11-second street driven truck is pretty hard to beat. I think the converter should be the last thing the truck needs besides paint. It cruises 75 mph @ 2200 rpm!!!! I'm definitely jealous of that.

Oct '08 Update: They made it to PRP one more time this year. So far she's run a best of 11.93 @ 111.5 with the Q-jet on it. You just couldn't ask for better air for racing. I couldn't go that weekend so he took my 800 Holley double pumper and some adapter plates to give that a try. For some reason it only ran a 12.54 with my carb. I'm wondering if there is something up with my carb I'm not aware of. I would have bet $$ the Holley would make improvements over the Q-Jet. 

Sept '08 Update: Sondra has finally gotten some more seat time and a lot more used to the truck. We went to PRP on Sept 13th for the King of the Street race. It was very hot and humid and she managed 12.50's all day, which we were satisfied with. We went back the following weekend when the weather was warm but the air was good and she managed numerous passes in the 12.30's and a best of 12.29 at almost 107 mph. Only bummer is that the truck still needs bags of ice on the intake between rounds. We also noticed the truck hasn't broke since she's been the only one racing it. There's a video on the 12.29 run and as soon as I figure how to post it I'll put it on here.

Unfortunately, these hood up images had been all too familiar since its maiden voyage at the 9th annual Dick Miller Olds meet in 2006. The truck was run hard all weekend with no major incidents but until July of '08 this has been a patience trying experiment. I'm hoping that's all behind him now. He missed the '07 Olds event due to breakage of some kind. The last race day of '07 when he ran his best at the time of 12.44 @ 108 mph ended with a bent pushrod and valve. This year basically started the same way only in a neighboring cylinder compared to last year. We pulled the driver side head again on Wednesday, just 2 days before the 11th annual Dick Miller Olds Weekend at Norwalk. This was completely unexpected. All of this craziness took away from the scrambling being done to get the 9" installed with less than a week to spare. The scary thing was we both thought of towing the torn apart truck up to Norwalk at the same time. We stared at the motor with a head off and a bent valve and pushrod and figured as long as we could get the head fixed we could put it together Friday at the track. On Thursday morning, Lorne took an extra valve and the head to C J Rombold Engine Builders, here in Beaver Falls, and Donnie fixed him up. He left for Norwalk that night. The guys at Rocket Racing would have gaskets when he got there. When I arrived at 6:00 Friday he was ready to tourqe the heads down. The pass head had to be removed since he couldn't get the same thickness gaskets as before. We finished it Friday night and left it sit until Sat morning to add oil and antifreeze. The only mechanical issue needing addressed was an obvious vapor locking problem. The steel fuel line got VERY hot and the truck fell on its face in the 2nd time trial pass. Lorne realized what it was did and kept it iced down the rest of weekend. He went 3 rounds Saturday night with a best of 12.66 @ 105 mph.

He let his wife drive all day Sunday. Sondra is fun to pick on so we harrassed her about the eventual 14-second slips she would probably get. She proved us wrong by starting in the 13's, even with him in it. After he slowed her down the first couple passes, she threw him out.

After going under her dial in round one by running a 12.86 @ 104 on a 12.91 dial, he bought her back in so she could get more seat time. She lowered the dial-in to 12.86 and won round two. She even lifted when she had the guy covered at 3/4 track! Needless to say we were very impressed. Prior to her getting off the throttle the run was a little off the 12.86 so in round 3 she raised the dial to a 12.90 but out of nowhere ran a 12.60 @ 106 mph! Needless to say she lost, but nobody cared when it ran that well. The fact this was in 90 degree heat was very respectible. His 12.44 was in near perfect 55 degree air. She hasn't harrassed him nearly enough over the fact she ran faster than him. Probably because his excuse will be that she should be faster because of the weight difference. Using the "every 100# equals a tenth in e.t. formula" for when he rode with her, he weighs 600#'s.

She ran in the stock class so she was chasing most of the people she raced. That sure is a lot easier, especially for a beginner. The best part was the truck made the 150 mile drive home. It was an awesome weekend for everyone involved. We probably won't make it out racing again until mid-August but until then they are driving the wheels off the thing. She even hauled a load of mulch in it earlier this year but unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it.

Another snorkel was added to the air cleaner and hooked to the plastic duct work getting fresh air from behind the grill. The Torker raised the air cleaner just high enough that the one hose had to be heated and stretched but it worked out in the end. He welded the inside of the air cleaner to make a smooth transition into the Q-Jet carb. This change was made while the truck was down for the bent pushrod/valve incident, so we may never know if it is of any value.

This where the things really start to get interesting:

Rack and Pinion Front Suspension
The end result was all of this being eliminated. He hasn't had a chance to weigh the truck since the front end installation to see what the difference is. It should be substantial due to the ease of moving around the aluminum chunk that replaced it. Hopefully it amounts to a couple hundred #'s.

The width of the new front was about perfect. Welding some of the frame rail allowed use of the original mounting bolts.

The mounting brackets in the back had to be fabricated, of course, but when finished look like GM put them there.

The steering shaft had to be custom made and needed a couple Borgeson joints to avoid the obstacles. The tube was put into the frame to restrengthen it after being cut away.

You can see how much better the truck sits now. The great thing is that there is more ground clearance now even with the truck sitting that much lower. To get the rear suspension lowered as much as possible the spring perches on the frame have been raised to the point where they're almost touching the bed braces. Even after all that, there was still too much of a rake in the front. The only thing left to do was channel the body over the frame. The cab floor under the seat was removed so he was able to lower the cab where he wanted it. When he was satisfied how it looked, the floor was put back in and filler panels were welded to where the cab was now sitting. Once the cab was lowered the bed sides had to be brought down about an inch in order for the body lines to match up again.

The ugly indention for the steering box had to be eliminated so this metal patch was welded in.

Before and after pics of the front wheelhouses. This is where I started to be of some help on this project. I'm doing my best to help but I would have to quit my job or give up sleeping to have a chance at equaling the hours he has in my Mustang. Both wheelhouses needed boxes made and welded in to clear the upper control arms. The factory rubber splash shields were even able to be used. The driver's side inner wheelhouse had a funny shape to the front where it avoided the original steering shaft. I welded in a 3" piece of metal and put the lip back on. They were then sprayed with a couple coats of DP90LF.

The wheelhouses were cut in half and a strip of metal was welded in to widen them a couple of inches so the much larger ET Streets can be mounted to 15" x 10" Weld Wheels. I eliminated the 3 little indentations on each end, smoothed up the welded seam and then sprayed them with DP90LF. The underside was coated with a high quality chip resitant coating called Gravitex, made by Upol. The wheel houses remained attached to the bedsides when they were lowered so they are a little shorter compared to all other GM trucks.

The Ford 9" was added right before, and I mean right before, the Olds event at Norwalk in July '08. The rear had to be narrowed, spring perches and shock brackets welded on, sandblasted, painted and the Crown Vic rear discs installed and bled. The rear end was moved above the springs to lower the back of the truck some more. That required the front spring perch moved again plus releveling the fuel cell. That improved the ground clearance on the cell a little. This was all done with a couple days to spare. He tried 3.70's when the rear was originally installed but eventually pulled them out for 3.50's. We personally have never seen any et improvements by installing a gear steeper than 3.50's in any of our vehicles. I can't explain it but it just seems the further you get from 3.50 the more they slow down. Maybe it's a combination of torquey motors, less than 6k rpm shifts and too tight of converters. I just don't know.

A fuel cell was mounted under the bed with the gas filler lid moved into the bed floor. A homemade skid plate is protecting an Edelbrock fuel pump also mounted under the bed floor.

This neat looking torque strap is another homemade item.

This is the best picture of the interior I have at the time. It's mostly stock except for the tach.

Home Page
Engine Compartment/Undercarriage Pics-Page 2
Engine/Drivetrain Pics-Page 3
Exterior/Interior Pics-Page 4
Serpentine Belt Set ups-Page 5
'01 Big Block Mach 1 Clone/Other Projects-Page 7
Fun Pics & Links-Page 8
Friend's Rides-Page 9
My Side Work-Page 10
Power Tour Pics-Page 11