1986 GMC Sierra Classic – Racie D.
Love My Daily Duty Muscle Truck
During the summer of 2017 I decided I was tired of waiting and hitting roadblocks on my ’68 C10. I really needed something old with character to fill that void for daily driving. All the new toys I have never seem to keep my attention and I quickly move on. So to keep from racking up miles on my Hellcat, I turned my attention to finding a squarebody C10. By fall, after about three months of research, in September I got lucky and found exactly what I wanted, a complete clean 2nd owner C10 that was a roller.
The truck had been lightly restored in about 2010 but not frame-off and had 56,000 original miles on the body and chassis. The body had only been repainted one time, and the interior was perfect and bone stock with no tears or fade. Story was he built it for his grandson to drive to college. Evidently the kid had never checked the engine and maintained it properly and burned the old 305 up. The truck was abandoned behind a Pep Boys, and the kid graduated, moved to Vegas and never told grandpa. Someone contacted the grandfather since it was still in his name, and he went and hauled it home. After that it sat in the garage for four years.
He had intended on doing a LS setup in it and leave everything stock as well but that never happened. So here we were after hours of hanging out and drinking beer, he said, “You know, I like you and I think you will take care of this truck like the rest of your toys. And you are a family man.” So he then said, “Forget the $4500, but I have to at least get $2500.” I said deal and gave him $1000 earnest money and came back with a trailer the next Friday and his cash.
This was perfect for me to begin building a sweet LS built daily driver. Yea, I hear it all the time. Everybody is going LS swap. But you know, the older I get the more of a bang-for-buck guy I become, and Chevy built the perfect setup to get power and efficiency in one package. So as I searched ads I found me an LQ4 6.0 and built Stage 3 “supposedly” 4L60E. I bought the setup and started laying out the plan to build a truck that would be fun low-end to mid-range light to light, and keep a smile on my face, yet be reliable. So my old childhood friend Scott Forman, owner of Venomous1 Racing, reached out to me and offered to help make the old ’86 a street beast.
We quickly planned out the build with completely building the motor with Stage 3 Texas Speed Heads, Custom Grind Camshaft, complete Holley Sniper EFI setup with 102mm throttle body, Circle D 2800-3000 stall, 9″ narrowed 3.70 posi Ford rear end, and 4″ custom aluminum driveshaft. That gave me a stout but not over the top drivetrain. We also slammed it to get the aggressive stance we were wanting and tubbed it to get the billets I planned on using on my ’68 to fit with no issues. But not without drama. We found out the 6.0 had more miles than we thought, along with other issues, like the wrong computer was sent. After we worked this out, we got her fired up, and the Stage 3 4L60E was complete garbage. She wouldn’t even pull out the driveway and would fall dead when put in reverse. So as frustrated as I was, I went and visited Eric over at Protouring Texas. He picked her up and hooked me up with a Bullet built 4L75E with all the goodies to last. But I still wasn’t out of the weeds yet.
After 127 miles she completely destroyed the rear end. This led me to meeting Korey Day at Day Performance here near Prosper, TX. Korey hooked me up with an awesome rear end completely fresh built and done right, and he cleaned up a little tuning for me. He did some tweaking with the a/c and we put 42lb injectors in since the stock 24lbs had me in the danger zone. When I got the truck back I completely gutted the stock interior, installed heat insulation with sound dampening, re-installed the custom VNX gauges in the dash and moved the mufflers further back to the rear, running pipes along the frame and out the back.
The last few months I’ve done nothing but enjoy the old ’86. She is much quieter inside and cooler, which helps. It’s amazing how much we get spoiled with the new cars. The truck drives perfectly civil with no bucking or surging issue but pops major popcorn when idle. I can chug along in overdrive, a/c blowing cold at 75-80mph like a new Sierra, or it will lay to solid deep lines for blocks off a 30mph roll. The gas is worth the smiles per mile and I love it. I drive it 70-80 miles a day 4-5 days a week rain or sunshine with no regrets.
If there are any improvements the next few months it will be a nice quality sound stereo system, undercoating, four link and coilover setup, and probably a nice power adder like a Magnuson or LSA kit for more tire roasting fun. Until then, I will enjoy what I have. I love my daily duty muscle truck….mission accomplished.[lmc_story_gallery]
