What car crafter has not longed for a dependable pickup that can do it all: run for parts, haul home that greasy automatic from the junkyard, and tow a trailer? Of course, you also have to look good doing this. While El Caminos and Rancheros do a decent job in this arena, the real workhorses of the parts-chasing world are the 11/42-ton pickups, especially the late-'80s to mid-'90s versions. This is the story on one such pickup and its move from utility workhorse to the object of a car crafter's attention.
The BeginningAfter just getting by for way too long, reality smacked us like a 2x4 in the forehead. We needed a real truck. Our El Camino had performed yeoman duty for many years, but its accidental conversion from road urchin to beauty queen left us without a true utility machine. We decided that this time, we'd step up to a real 11/42-ton pickup. The main reason for this was so that we could tow a trailer without risking life and limb. The goal was an affordable pickup that was intended to be a mild street driver with serious load-hauling capacity that could handle hefting engines to the dyno as well as pulling a race car on a trailer over the steepest grade without whimpering. We wanted a truck that could do it all, and we didn't want to invest much to do it.
Car Craft contributor and auction maven Tim Moore led us to a recent California Department of Transportation (better known as Cal Trans) auction where the state was off-loading a collection of 15 faded-orange '93 GMC 11/42-ton, shortbed, standard cab pickups. After inspecting the entire lot, we decided that any of them would do, as long as we stayed away from the one with 204,000 miles on it and the big dent in the tailgate. This truck had at least 50,000 more miles than any of the other trucks and was obviously the runt of the litter. If you haven't guessed by now, it should be obvious which pickup we ended up with. It was one of the last trucks offered, and we had been out-bid up until this one when we offered up $2,600 for what we assumed was a road-weary 305ci, TBI-powered overdrive automatic.
These fleet trucks are considered strippers, but we discovered that while they had rubber floor mats and construction-worker interior appointments, they were fitted with a 4L60-E automatic overdrive (the electronically controlled version of the TH700-R4), power steering, power front disc brakes with ABS control for the rear drums, and air conditioning. Our fortunes quickly improved when we learned that this truck had been blessed with a new 350ci small-block to replace its ailing 305.
Our pal Tim also scored a nearly identical Cal Trans orange GMC still with its original 305ci TBI with 140,000 miles on the clock. We quickly dubbed the pair Jake and Elwood after our favorite movie felons the Blues Brothers. Our truck will impersonate Joliet Jake, while Tim's truck, making its debut this month in Chevy High Performance magazine, is Elwood.
Our approach for these trucks is as simple as their namesakes. These are blue-collar bruisers, simple machines that forsake the slammed "image is everything" approach for more practicality. We'll do some simple bolt-on engine improvements, trim the ride height, and add practical things like a bedliner, a hidden tow hitch, and a couple of appearance add-ons for the sake of style.
Power ApproachOnce we'd driven the truck for a couple of weeks to check out the brakes and suspension to make sure nothing was going to fall off, the next task was to run over to our pals at Westech Performance and roll Jake up on the chassis dyno just to measure its rear-wheel power. We weren't expecting much, especially since the stock '93 TBI 350-powered trucks were only rated at 210 SAE flywheel horsepower. Given this, we were pleasantly surprised when Westech's Tom Habrzyk rolled up a 140hp baseline with 200 lb-ft of torque. As a point of reference, Elwood was able to crank out 128 hp with torque at 200 lb-ft. It was time for some changes.