Hello everyone. First of all I would like to say that this is a great site. I've been a loyal Chevy Luv fan since 1977 when I bought my used tan 1974. I never drove a manual transmission before and learned on my way home from the dealer with the help of my friend.
My Luv has evolved from many different stages up until now. I started out modifying my 4 cylinder shortly after buying it. I put on a Weber carb on top of a Offenhauser intake manifold, headers with a custom exhaust, and a re-ground cam by Sig Erson. I had it tuned and dynoed, it pumped out 117 HP. It was peppy and fun but after a short while the clutch began slipping. Back in those days I wasn't able to find a good clutch to hold the added power.
I had read several magazines about swapping a V-8 and in 1979 I took the plunge and swapped in a 283 small block Chevy. I ended up using a Chassis Engineering V-8 swap kit. I used a Turbo 350 transmission and kept the stock 4.56 gears. Since this was my daily driver I soon started to hate the real low gears for freeway driving. A couple of years later I found a 8 3/4 rear end out of a 65 Dodge Coronet with 10" drum brakes in the junk yard. At another junk yard I found a 8 3/4 Sure Grip Posi third member with 3.23 gears. I had the rear end narrowed and the stock axles re-drilled to accept the stock 6 lug pattern. I raced the truck at the local drag strip and it ran high 14's on street tires with severe traction issues. I tried some Caldwell racing re-treads, but could never get them sticky enough to hook up decently. I ended finding a good deal on 400 small block Chevy out of a station wagon and had it rebuilt at a local machine shop. I had them keep the stock 8.5 to 1 compression ratio and had they put in a Comp Cams hydraulic cam, Edelbrock dual plane manifold, and a Holley 750 vacuum secondary cam. I invested in some M/T drag slicks and began running high 12's. Here's a picture of me at a Super Chevy event in Arizona in the early 80's. I drove there from Los Angeles, raced and drove back home thanks to those 3.23 gears.
I decided to paint my truck a Ford Mustang blue and finished up the interior. This is about the most complete my Luv has ever looked. I went back to Arizona for another Super Chevy event the following year.
As the years went by my Luv got in a accident and I retired it for a while. I always liked the California Step Side bed and found a donor truck with one on it and bought it. My friend and I swapped the cab and step side to my old frame and got rid of the Chassis Engineering motor mounts (the engine kept shifting around) and my friend welded some new mount perches to the frame. We set the motor back a little more. We also modified the front end to accept a 73 Nova cross flow radiator to help with my cooling issues.The front end was also modified with a 76 front bumper, single headlights, and wider style grill. The 400 small block got some AFR street heads and a slightly hotter hydraulic cam. This got me down to the 12.40's on regular 87 octane gas, thanks to the aluminum heads and the stock low compression pistons. Also painted the Luv a 70's Camaro Blue. Here's a picture at another Super Chevy event at Pomona, California.
As my bad luck continued, I was hit on the rear driver side of the cab and bed shortly after the above picture was taken. My engine headers were starting to get crushed on the bottom of the tubes and collectors from all the speed bumps that were being installed around the city. The final blow was when a tow truck driver finished crushing the bottom of the headers after a tow. I bought some mandrel tubing from Headers By Ed and decided to try and weld up my own headers. Per his recommendation I tried to make them as close to equal length as possible. I worked on the drivers side header almost every weekend. When I finally finished the one side I was told that my local drag strip was going to close down. I had to patch up the passenger side header and sent them to Jet Hot to have them coated. I made it down to the track and was surprised that my new headers knocked off about 2 tenths off my ET. I went down to the 12.20's and my gas mileage went up a little.
I eventually started to lose interest in my Luv and it ended up sitting in my driveway for the last 8 years and the truck really had deteriorated. I started to play around with some other cars, including some Mitsubishi Turbo 4 cylinders. I had to eventually move the Luv to my friends house because of some driveway work we were going to have done. Then it seems that a spark was reignited. I'll see if I could post some pictures on another thread in the Projects/Builds section as I try to get my Luv back on the road.