C10 pro touring project, American Dream

[Junkie]

Well my fiancé has wanted one of these things since she was a kid. We spent around 6 months shopping and finally found a great truck to start on. Its a 1970 SWB truck with little to no rust.

Plans as of now are.

-Roadster Shop drop member front suspension, roughly 6-8" of drop. Penske coil overs, splined sway bar, Wilwood brakes, etc…
-Roadster Shop 4 link rear suspension, 9" rear end, Penske coil overs, Wilwoods
-Fesler Hydroboost brake setup
-Forgeline wheels
-LSX 376, MAST black label LS3 heads, Precision Metalcraft intake and valve covers, Precision turbo billet 88mm, Stainless works LSXT turbo headers
-Ricks Stainless tank, twin 400lph fuel pumps
-built 4L80 from North Texas converter

This thing should be a reliable street truck that makes 700-800whp on 93 and 1000+ on race gas, reliably.

Here is the day we bought it.


Progress so far.













Here is a rendering of roughly what it will look like when done. Goal is to be street racing this thing at Texas 2K in March


Boxing in the frame rails, all moving suspension components are at coating now. You guys are going to **** when you see this thing assembled as a roller!

[Junkie]

We have been working on the body work and a little fabrication along the way. We want to keep the "stock" look of this truck as much as possible, while still incorporating modern touches to make this truck an awesome driver.

Stock tubs removed:




Checking for tire clearance...and it turns out we have PLENTY with only widening the tub by an inch or so (you're all ****ed):






And back to more boring stuff...body work. This is literally the only bit of rust that is on the truck...driver side door:



Working on the hood:




We are relocating the tank to the rear of the truck, so that left us with deciding what to do with the fuel door. We didn't want it to be in the bed like most others do because I didn't want to have to put the tailgate down every time I wanted to fill up (yes, I am kind of lazy). I wanted to keep the factory gas cap on the cab because I love the way it looks, but obviously it will be cosmetic only. Bob came up with a cool idea that we loved because it will keep the stock look of the truck and won't appear that we have two gas caps:



It's just the rear sidemarker light when it's closed, but when it's open:



Fuel door! The next piece we needed to take care of was the route of the filler neck. By putting the fuel door here, it basically takes a 90* turn straight down due to the bedside. This would make it a huge PITA to fill up because you would have to pump so slow in order for it to not back up and want to spit fuel back out at you. So we fabbed a pipe that takes the 90* angle out of it which will allow fuel to flow normally:



We went with Forgeline DE3C wheels, 19s up front and 20s in the back. The finish is titanium centers with brushed outers...I LOVE how they came out. I think they are perfect! A little dirty in this pic:

[Junkie]

Now that we had the wheels, we needed to work on the front tubs. We wanted to keep the coverage to a minimum because we didn't want to hide the badass suspension pieces. Once again, Bob is working his magic and they are coming out awesome:





For those of you that aren't familiar, there is a ton of empty space along the inner fender of these trucks. He took time to fill in a lot of the space to make it look like the tub is supposed to be there. It's going to look killer!

The bed is just about ready for paint as well as the two doors, but I won't bore you with primer pictures. We did decide on Viper GTS Blue/Arctic White as the colors. Of course, we will be putting our own twist on the color.

We are going to hit it hard once we get back from SEMA, so I should have more frequent updates. Here is a fun one to leave you with for now:

[Junkie]

Truck is coming together very nicely!

Cab getting ready for paint

LydiasC1001162015_1 by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
LydiasC1001162015_2 by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
LydiasC1001162015_3 by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr


Look at the custom Rick's Tanks fuel tank...this thing is a work of art and Made in the U.S.A....'merica!

LydiaC1002092015 (1) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
LydiaC1002092015 (8) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
LydiaC1002162015 (3) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr

Cab is painted!

LydiaC1002092015 (2) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
LydiaC1002092015 (3) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
LydiaC1002092015 (4) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr

[Junkie]

Installing some of the more "fun" things! Wilwood brake master:

LydiaC1002092015 (5) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
LydiaC1002092015 (7) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr

LSX, etc:

LydiaC1002092015 (6) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
LydiaC1002162015 (2) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
LydiaC1002162015 (4) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr

Dynamat is a must to try and keep the open down pipe noise manageable

LydiaC1002162015 (6) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr

[Junkie]

Vintage Air setup going in and wiring under way:

LydiaC1002162015 (5) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
LydiaC1002162015 (1) by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr

[Junkie]

Putting the front end together so we can start mocking up the turbo kit

The radiator support is custom and from AutoRad. It's pretty awesome stuff! Built in radiator and trans cooler as well. The intercooler will go in front and it appears that we have plenty of room for it!

Please excuse the dust...it is a body shop after all :p

IMG_6143 by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
IMG_6142 by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
IMG_6141 by americanbodyworks1, on FlickrIMG_6139 by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
IMG_6144 by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr

Remember those custom inner fenders that Bob was working on? Well they turned out absolutely amazing!

IMG_6146 by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr
IMG_6145 by americanbodyworks1, on Flickr

That's all for now, but we should have the steering column, intake and valve covers in tomorrow!

[Junkie]

This is how it sits today. I really can't say enough about the awesome job American Body works has done thus far. This much progress with this quality of work is amazing, especially with this type of timeline! What an awesome crew. Same thing can be said for every vendor I've dealt with. Having built a bunch of different cars, I'm shocked at how nice everything is on this thing!!! Precision metal craft, Precision turbo, North Texas Converter, Auto Rad, Ricks tanks, Roadster shop, Wilwood, Penske, Stainless Works. I mean everything just rocks.

[will69camaro]

Glad you posted this thing up. Cant see it on DR so was waiting for this thread to review the build!

William

[WSSix]

Nice build! Really glad to see you keeping a stock paint scheme. I think these trucks look classy in their factory two tone layout.