We want a real old school cool feel to our ’55 shop truck so it was important that, when we pop the bonnet, it doesn’t look like a late model Commodore. We don’t mind those cars, but we don’t think it works on a cool old truck, so Ryan sat down with Chubby from Lowe Fabrications and Scotty from Oxytech to sort out how to make it look cool and different.
That last part was the hard bit. LS1 V8s have been getting chucked into all manner of cool streeters since they launched onto the market back in 1997, and it’s almost at saturation point now there are dozens of them available cheaply and easily. So how do we make our truck stand out from the crowd?
We retrofy! Ryan wanted the old school carburettor look with the modern convenience, reliability and power of injection so he ordered a complete Holley throttle body injection kit for the LS.
The Holley set-up runs injection that can be hidden under that ice cream-cool finned rocker cover, as it replaces the valley pan and intake manifold with a carby-style set-up. While the Holley set-up cures one issue there are still the problems of ugly rocker covers and coil mounting. This has been cured by replacing the stock valve covers with these sweet new billet units by Lowe Fabrications.
They’ll all get a custom powdercoated finish from Oxytech to appear like an old and weathered Quadrajet-fed Gen 1 Chevy small block, but will be lickety split brand new.
We’ll bring you more on that job soon, but we also have to show you the cool job Sam from Bombwerks did on our dash during the right-hook conversion. Sam, who has a mental V8 EH Holden and a prime period ‘50s hot rod in the build, cut the stock dash into one big metal jigsaw before TIG welding it all back together for us. It’s a work of art so we won’t be covering it up with paint.
Keep an eye on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/unitedspeedshop) as we’ll be posting plenty more updates as we thrash on it to get the truck done by October for the Mendooran Rod Run.
