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5.3ish Isuzu Hombre Custom

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Old 10-22-2020, 10:23 AM
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Default 5.3ish Isuzu Hombre Custom

My other thread I started is about my Silverado, but since there is a section for Midsize & Compact Trucks, I felt obligated to throw up some pics of one of my other toys.

For a backstory, one of my junior soldiers had a pos s10 blazer her wanted to get rid of because he just picked up an equally pos’d infinity. So I told him I’d take the blazer and in trade id ‘semi-gloss black’ his infinity to make it look better.

Long story short, I tinted all the infinity lights, sanded the car down, did some small body work, and sprayed on a few coats of semi-gloss black. The car looked pretty slick, I probably have a picture somewhere on my hard drive ill post up for reference.

I lost money on it, but I made a young soldier happy and to me that’s all that matters in the grand scheme of things.

So now I had a beat 4 door 2001 blazer.

Second part of this story is a friend says some guy on craigslist or facebook ads has a hombre they want to trade. I show him the blazer, tell him of its faults, but he is happy since the truck is too small. I reiterate the blazer is a pos, and still he says he is fine with it.

I load the blazer on the trailer, and head over and we swap titles. The guy didn’t tell me the axle in the hombre was toast, and a replacement junk yard piece was in the bed. This was fine by me, but I told him all about the blazer, and didn’t get that vital info back from him.

Anyways, I start and drive the hombre on the trailer, tie her all down and head home. The next day I check out the truck in the sunlight. The body was nearly perfect. A few dings here and there. Interior was what you’d expect for a nearly 25 year old throw away truck. The previous owner’s mom was driving the truck back and forth to work with cold AC. When the rear axle went out, she upgraded and the hombre just sat as an eye sore.

Anyways, it had a new clutch, new cylinder head, new battery, so in my opinion I was happy, as my job was about an hour away in rush hour traffic, so this little thing toted my big @ss to and from work with about 30 MPGs and nice cold AC.

A new set of seats out of a 2018 toyota got fabb’d in the truck, a nice custom behind the seat box that held a 10inch shallow fosgate woofer, and 2 amps, one for the woofer, and one for the mid/tweet combo in the doors and dash. So not only was I getting decent fuel mileage I could watch jenna jameson do her thing on the way and back from work on my double din head unit, and pumpin some good tunes at a respectable sound level.

That lasted about 7 months before the head gasket went out. Luckily the man above was watching me that day, because as soon as I felt the motor lock up, the freeway opened in such a way that I was able to cruise from the far left lane all the way across the freeway to a dirt section and not cause any hiccups or accidents or middle fingers thrown at me.

There I sat, called a few buddies and before I knew it, I was getting tugged home by a buddy who was laughing at the idea his ford was towing a Chevy home. Which I reminded him it was an Isuzu.

For the next 3 months or so I drove my balzer to work, which is fun in its right. The blazer has a custom chassis, and sits pretty low and tucks the 33x22 mickey T’s pretty far up inside the fender wells.. One day I though I'm not putting a dime into a 4cyl 2.2 engine. It already tossed a head gasket once, so I called a customer and asked to use his ‘core’ for my build. Next thing I am ordering swap parts to get this truck 5.3 bolted into the chassis. Once I was satisified, or umm not really satisfied with how things fit after I mocked up the engine/rad/fans I decided to move the firewall back 3 inches for more overall clearances on everything under the hood.

Well, I'm a bit long winded here, so, in a nutshell, I’ve got about 8-10k miles on the truck now, and have started detailing some of the things I didn’t do in the first stages of test fitting and mock up. Then I left to do my service overseas. My truck is sitting at a buddy’s house, and plenty of more work is being done to it. For those whom ask, I'm 45 years old, and am an OG in the minitruck world. So, yes, I have that crap in my blood, and being an all makes, models, gear head, I tend to spend way too much money on vehicles. Sh*t, ive spent most my life possessed by the Demon Tweak, chasing horsepower and or parts for making stuff that eventually turns into horsepower. (demon tweak was a term hotrod magazine used in the 90s and it’s always stuck with me)

Enough with the BS, I’ll post up some pictures now.

It takes forever, because of where I'm at and internet speeds here rival dial up speeds of when I had a Commodore 64 as a kid..



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Old 10-22-2020, 11:02 AM
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First night I brought Alice home

removed the 1996 doors and swapped on 2000 full power doors

sanded truck and sprayed some leftover basecoat from other jobs to make truck one color
Old 10-22-2020, 11:07 AM
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This picture is sort of funny to me. A guy was on the S10 forums or facebook, I don’t remember which, and needed a cross member from the rear frame section in order to pass Canada DMV tech to register his truck. Everyone told him to just weld in a 2x3 cross member and it’d be fine, after several hours of telling people he cant do that, he3 needs a real factory piece of a truck, I said, f*ck it. You paypal me $200 USD right now, I’ll stay late at work, pull my bed and cut my cross member off, and mail it to you the next day. So, I do what I say… lol
Old 10-22-2020, 11:10 AM
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Motor shot... planning on holley mid rise, and single turbo once I am back home

how it sits currently

..playing peak a boo

small photoshoot with 'faith' before I left
Old 10-22-2020, 11:33 AM
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And I call the truck Alice Hombre, because LS sounds like alice when spoken.....and Since I'm a 90s mintrucker, all minis need a hood mural. So on the 10th my hood is being dropped off for a rather expensive hood mural featuring milla jovovich (my long time crush) as "alice" from the resident evil movie franchise. This picture is my rendering i drew in photoshop, the artist says he can duplicate it for me.

Old 10-22-2020, 01:16 PM
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Nice truck, what made you go with a quick change rear?? No hate here, i just know they are $$$
Old 10-23-2020, 12:34 AM
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Originally Posted by wretched73
Nice truck, what made you go with a quick change rear?? No hate here, i just know they are $$$


No hate taken amigo..

Being an LS swapped “s10” those are a dime a dozen, so with the custom interior being built, all dakota digital controls, vintage air ac, I needed something to make it different from the other trucks out there.

The truck gets some looks at the local hangouts, but it’s the older crowd that gets chubbies when they see the quick change. Lots of stories start happening.

To me, having an axle that’s worth more than the truck is silly, but hey who cares..am I right?
Old 10-23-2020, 07:05 AM
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I bought my truck in 2011 for $11k. It is worth about $3k now and I put a motor that I've spent over $6k on in it.... Most of us here are familiar with dumping more money into vehicles that aren't worth it hahaha

My project car is a 1988 camaro, the full tank of gas in it is worth more than the whole car
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Old 10-23-2020, 07:42 AM
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Originally Posted by wretched73
My project car is a 1988 camaro


I’ve got a 3rd gen too.. what are you doing to yours?
Old 10-23-2020, 08:32 AM
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Originally Posted by IIGW
I’ve got a 3rd gen too.. what are you doing to yours?
The works. Taking the LS from my truck, twin turbo, t56, 9" rear, full cage. Cage work starts later this year, t56 will get rebuilt around the same time. 9" will get ordered in the spring and that's when I'll part out my truck and pick up a GMC Canyon with the baby max for DD duties. With any luck, I'll start the turbo build in late summer after I get it road worthy

I plan on doing mostly autocross with it. I don't care what its road manners are like
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