1971 GMC Pickup LQ4 4L80E Ford 9" Box Chop

[AlexBC]

Well it's on the road again! The $1500CAD ($1,000USD) project that was a collection of rejected body panels from a friends build is on the street. I cut the frame and box sides, finished the 9" conversion. LQ4 and 4L80E were pulled from my 75 F100 2wd and rammed into this to power it. Very Excited to be driving it!

The rims and tires happened by chance, I asked a friend who worked at a dealer if they had any 275/40R18's for cheap. He found 6 in the system Cooper Zeon RS2's for $99CAD($70USD) each. I bought all 6. Then I needed rims. First I measured all the stock ride heights with the old springs and LS sitting in it. Then compared these to other members measurements for "stock" ride height. They I removed all the springs and rolled the tires under the truck. Lowering it until it looked right and the rubber sat where I wanted the offsets to be. I did a ton of searching and it came down the V-Rock VR8 Extractors or VR9 Terrains. I went with the Extractors in an 18x9.5 and kept the stock truck bolt pattern. All my tires are the same size and same offset.

Engine:

• LQ4
• Sloppy Stage 2 Elgin/Jegs Cam E-1840-P (LOVE THIS CAM)
• Pac1218 Valvesprings
• Holley 302-3 Oil Pan, This is the low profile retro refit pan but with 2 NPT turbo drains pre-tapped. It's also cheaper than the retro refit pan.
• 2 Bar Map and 2 Bar SD RTT Tune (Still DBW)
• AEM Wideband with output into AC Pressure Sensor to log AFR without pro HPTuners (Love This Mod!)

Axle Swap:

• Junkyard 75-78ish ford 9" from a pickup with a big cap 1310 yoke
• Junkyard Nodular 3.5 Posi
• Ebay Posi shim kit, shimmed to 100ft*lbs breakaway
• All Star Performance 31 Spline Long Axles (For the right bolt pattern)
• All Star Performance Axle Retaining Plates 72317
• Moroso Wheel Studs 46190
• Wilwood D154R Calipers with the single 2" Piston 120-14876 (70/30 braking) I found a kit on Ebay that came with pads, fittings and flex lines
• Basic Weld-On Rear Disc Brake Kit for 1978-88 GM Caliper, 1.59 In BS (These use Wilwood hats with Speedway Rotors)
• Weld-on Metric Caliper Mounts

Chassis:

• CPP 2.5" Drop Spindles CP4S3
• Ride-Tech Front Sway Bar ART-11369120
• Speedway 2" Drop Springs 91006102
• Speedway Rear Lowering Kit (Came with shocks, track bar etc.) 91006575
• T70623 Mirrors. Driver side works well, passengers side is useless.
• Speedway 58.5" Custom Driveshaft with all yokes and u-joints 1310, balanced. Swap the 1310 normal caps it comes with for Ford 1310 Big Caps.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do for paint. The truck is rough. I'm thinking of hitting it all with the black semi-gloss and then rubbing it off in the places I rub against it working on it and getting things in and out of the box. A light faux patina but only it actual wear areas. Open to thoughts.

[Tusky]

I personally think the patina think is overdone now. Everybody wants it and going to it. I say be different and go with a solid paint color off a odd ball vehicle such as fiat. Every color has a code....

[raggedjim]

You hit the stance dead-on. Nice truck, Rg

[MDPotter]

Oh man that is cool. Coming from a fellow GMC guy, I really like it.

My opinion on paint - there is something to be said for a faux tina job. It's cheap, doesn't have to be straight, and you don't have to worry about scratching it or waxing it or anything like that. You just get in it and drive it.

If the paint on my truck had been in better shape, I would have considered leaving it.

Do you have more pictures and backstory? Looks like you've redone the mechanics of the truck, but what about the electronics, interior, fuel system, etc?

[AlexBC]

Originally Posted by MDPotter

Oh man that is cool. Coming from a fellow GMC guy, I really like it.

My opinion on paint - there is something to be said for a faux tina job. It's cheap, doesn't have to be straight, and you don't have to worry about scratching it or waxing it or anything like that. You just get in it and drive it.

If the paint on my truck had been in better shape, I would have considered leaving it.

Do you have more pictures and backstory? Looks like you've redone the mechanics of the truck, but what about the electronics, interior, fuel system, etc?

Yeah I wanted to build it as a driver, I'm not a polisher.

The backstory; My first car was a 65 Triumph Spitfire, and I focused on building engines that rev 7k/8k because they had no displacement(1,300cc).
In 2017 I bought an 75 F100 I got for $500 with a 390 and 4 speed. The 4 speed needed bearings and kept jumping out of gear. I had no experience with big old v8's and kept reving the piss out of it until it through a pushrod down into the pan. Out with the 390 in with the LQ4/4L80E. Almost a drop in swap. I just had to slide the trans cross member and I used some McMaster Carr vibration isolators as mounts. The truck had beautiful patina but the frame was twisted and a one piece driveshaft on a long box just wouldn't work. I daily'd that truck in the summer for two years. I wanted to try and make the truck handle but the truck arm suspension sucked.

I had a friend with 2 of these chev's sitting in his yard and I asked if he wanted to sell one. This kicked his ass in gear on his project; he wanted to swap all the good panels to the leaf spring frame, and said I could have the leftovers. I sold the F100 without the engine/trans. I waved some cash and he got to work on swapping body panels. I picked up the dregs of his project and turned it into this. I think it was originally a brake drum truck because of where the brake lines come to on the front. I got it with disc brakes thought.
The sky seemed to be the limit for handling on the Chev truck platform vs the Ford.

[AlexBC]

Ooops forgot to answer the electronics, fuel etc.

Fuel is an AEM 385lph inline pump with pre-filter and post filter 50-1005, it draws through a -8AN fitting I welded to the bottom of the in cab tank. Nothing like listening to fuel swirl and slosh behind your head....?

I had planned to go turbo at somepoint so I have a manifold referenced AEM regulator at 50PSI above manifold and some decapped 903 injectors at 88lbh. I might go down to something smaller.

My dash is an eBay OBD screen I run on a splitter, so I don't have to unplug it to tune.

I made my own wiring harness for the motor and where it ties into the truck for things like the brake switch for the TCC. I kept the DBW because I wanted cruise control. It's wired in on some push buttons.

I will grab some pictures next time I'm out

[MDPotter]

Bodywork mostly sucks. The end result is awesome, but it takes a lot of patience and it's a steep learning curve. If money were no object, I probably wouldn't do it myself.

Looks like you have a four-legged supervisor too!