Purchased in Spring of 2021 as a daily driver. 2005 Regular Cab Long Bed 4.8 auto 2wd. Basic work truck. Was a delivery truck for one of the gas bottle companies somewhere in North Carolina. Bought for $3500 287k miles.

No real plan for it in the beginning, but then I acquired an 02 Denali 6.0 drivetrain in trade for some side work. So the plan started to develop, something that could be used as a truck and 11.99 or better in the quarter mile. My wife would call it "boy math" to spend $25,000 on a $3500 vehicle.

 

While I was building the drivetrain, I played around with tint, wheels (20's and 305/50's), lowering (cut springs in front, shackles in the rear), brakes, shocks, general maintenance items.

 

First motor was a the LQ4 from the 02 Denali. .030 over hypereutectic flat tops, floated the rods, ARP bolts throughout, Texas Speed/PRC stage 2.5 heads with titanium retainers, 228/232 Texas speed cam. long tubes TBSS intake, LS2 90mm throttle body (87mm pictured) and X-link

Swapped in a 97/98 year model 4l80 and 9.5 14bolt from a 2000 2500. Self made crossmember, Cameron's Torque Converter, billet front, single clutch 4000ish stall. Used stock 1500 driveshaft with conversion joint from 1330 to 1350. Swapped axles for six lugs (new Moser axles), added a Detroit TruTrac and 4.56 gears/ Cobbled together the brakes, it's a mix of 2500 calipers and 1/2t rotors. Only can find the picture of the spring perches from the axle swap. I cut the spring perches off of axle, made my own perches since the perches were like 2" off of the axle tube.



Which, I started all of this work right after it 300k.

 

At this time it was my daily driver, and I got sent to California for work right at the time I started the swap. I got referred by a friend about a tuner that could help my out with with engine/transmission calibration to get me up and running so I didn't have to spend a bunch of time tuning and learning the HPtuners. Long story short, he had no idea what he was doing. Supposed to do a segment swap for the 4L80. Word of advise: the 4L60 segment will run an 80, but it won't last. Stuff was welded together inside the tranny. $2000 in parts later I was up and running again. Learned HPtuners for myself.

Performance was lackluster at best, I tried a Junkyard dog cam from Cam Motion, but best it would do was 13.10 after the cam swap in the quarter(before and after cam swap). Was a heavy pig with the 20's. Was pretty shocked the first time I weighed it, it was 300lbs heavier than my 65 Impala wagon with an iron headed small block in it. Either nicked a cam bearing on the way out, or bearing came apart. Either way motor came back out and went to the machine shop for new cam bearings.

 

Added Cal Tracks and moved the front spring hanger up/removed overload springs to lower the rear some more while the transmission was out. Swapped out stock pump for a Walbro "Hellcat" pump in the stock pump housing while the bed was off.

 

Then, while I was out goofing around with the tune up, I went super rich and broke a ring land/piston. I use a Zeitronix dual wideband for tuning. Lost an oxygen sensor, went pig rich, end of story. Went and bought another car to drive since it was going to be down a while while I fixed it.

 

So the plan was hatched to add 100 (or more) horsepower and drop 200 pounds from my race weight. Started removing brackets and whatnot. Ditched the 20's for some 17's and lightweight rear wheels.

Then they announced the 2023 Hot Rod Power Tour was coming through the south. So I was going to build a new motor, and swap this 6.0 into my 65 Impala wagon. Wagon was supposed to do the tour.

New motor is a 6.0 bored to 4.07, gen IV rods, solid roller cam, forged pop ups with 11.7:1, CNC ported 243 heads. Single plane intake, Nitrous Outlet weekend warrior plate, GZ motorsports vacuum pump. I used a bunch of ICT billet brackets to used a Camaro water pump and lightweight power steering pump. Made my own intake tube, ditched the MAF and went speed density only. 2" stainless headers to 3" dual with X-pipe. Was running a 4" diesel exhaust for a while.