Mash the gas and dump the...
Mash the gas and dump the clutch on this 462ci (454 bored 0.030 over) Lingenfelter-built big-block and even with 35s you'll be doing four-wheel burnouts. How do we know? You know how! The engine is based on a '93 four-bolt main block with 9.5:1 compression pistons, and uses a Pete Jackson geardrive to spin the Comp Cams High Energy 270 camshaft and roller rockers. An Edelbrock Performer intake sits between an 850-cfm Quadrajet and a set of 1970 oval port (casting number 781) heads that were cleaned up and port matched to the intake.The door was open, so we hopped up onto the reupholstered '85 Suburban bench seat, cranked over the engine, and were gone in less than 60 seconds. (Hey, we go to the movies too, you know.) We weren't surprised to see that the interior was cleaner than our house, but we have ways of dealing with cleanliness. So we headed to the closest sandpit we could find and flew through with the windows down. We were surprised how well we were able to grip the late-model steering wheel even when it was covered in dirt.
We had to do it. We couldn't bear the thought of Todd Hoffman's '80 K25 Sierra show truck spending another second at the Lima, Ohio, Jamboree unless the Quadrajet's secondaries were slapped open and it was covered in mud. Frankly, we just don't believe that there is a truck out there that is more fun to wash and wax than it is to romp and stomp. Do you? Of course not! So while the trophies were being handed out and the judges were looking the other way, we took the only appropriate course of action we could-we stole it.
Whaaa, whaaa, whaaa-stop your crying. You wouldn't have been able to resist the temptation either after you experienced the GMC's big-block fire up. We could almost hear this truck's pleas to be rescued, and we had to step in. Rest assured we'd do the same for your rig. And it's not like we entered it in the Tough Truck competition (we couldn't afford the entry fee) or ran it on the monster truck course (they said our tires were too small), but the truck did go boggin' in the mud. By the end of the day our conscience was getting to us (OK, we just ran out of gas) so we had to give up the truck and hand it over to its rightful owners. Kids, don't try this at home. We are professionals.
Looks like we weren't the...
Looks like we weren't the first thieves to swipe this truck. Turns out someone else must have snagged the original GM 14-bolt, so Hoffman had a Dana 70 axle originally from a '95 31/44-ton Dodge dropped in. The Dana 70 has a slightly bigger ring gear (10.54 inches) than the 14-bolt, which in the case of our stolen truck houses 4.10s. New 4-inch lift spring packs from National absorbed our roughest landings no matter how high we jumped it.
Rather than head for the chop...
Rather than head for the chop shop with our new PPG bright blue metallic K25, we were off to the mud pit to see how much tire spin we could get with the NP205 in low range and the SM465 in Third gear. The 4.10 gears and Trac-Lok in the swapped-in Dana 60 front pulled us through all the slop and let us make a clean (well, everything is relative) getaway.