My 1980 square build thread and life story. Ls/4500

[Cwarta]

Hello, joined up to share my build! It's been thru many changes in the last couple years. First, a little background on the truck.

My grandfather bought the truck in 1982, but didn't like it so he was going to sell it. My dad fell in love with the truck and bought it from him shortly there after, and used to for work untill 2008 or so, and then parked it, it didn't get touched until 2013, when I FINALLY bought it from him, after trying for many years. From my best guess the truck has over 700,000 miles on it, obviously I cannot prove this, but my father kept a sheet in the glovebox with info on it and it was wrote down the odometer had rolled over 6 times by 2004, so it is what it is. It Was used to haul scrap iron day in and day out for a very long time.

My earliest memory's were of this truck and seemingly everyday my dad and I would talk about about the things we wanted to do to it, many a times we both agreed we wanted to change to an 81+ front end, lift it and use it for a toy. Well when I got my hands on it, I started doing the things we constantly talked about.

The truck was an 80 k20 custom delux with all kinds of extras in the rpo codes, sm465/205 with 4:11's.

First I lifted it, 4.5" and put these 33's on it. Had a blast with it the first winter, then changed to some crappy 36" military 16.5's and got ballsy and buried it in the river. Had to leave it and and come back the next day. Sure enough the water rose and buried my truck, luckily we were able to pull it out still. But of course it trashed the engine, I had to start it with water in the oil to help get it or or leave it, so I chose to wreck the motor.

So at this point I decide, why not build a good motor, and do some body work. Built a nice little eagle Rod 355, with lt1 aluminum heads for it, got it done just in time to decide I wanted to ls swap it. So I sold that and picked up a 6.0, mated it to the sm465 and fell in love with the power and economy. Ran excellent, was pulling 18mpg with the 35's and 7.5" of lift. Then I bought a used cam kit and took a guy for his word on the springs, and, well it cost me a 6.0.

So now, here we are at its current phase of reassembly.

I wanted to turn the truck into a sweet daily, because for so many years that's what it's been for my family.



So I bought or upgraded the following over the last month.
4 wheel disk swap
New 5.3
Nv4500
241c drivers drop t case
Dana 60 front axle cad 3:55
Dana 70u rear axle 3:55
Hydro boost setup
Crossover steering like the factory 97 12v axle was but new
Xj steering shaft
Brand new steering box
New 32" tires
Dropped back to the 4.5" lift only
2" cowl hood
Among other things
Also picking up a 2004 Tahoe dash tomorrow to install using an iPad for the cluster

Now, the first responses I'm going to get is "omg why did you use that front axle, it has no lockouts and ****ty unit bearings"

Well, the answer is simple, money. I paid $525 for the nv4500,241, and the front Dana 60 cad axle. Not to mention, we own 6 cummins trucks, each has 350,000+ with zero front axle issues to date, so I'm not worried about my aluminum headed 5.3 lol. I will be running a cable actuator instead of the vacuum modulator.

Just starting to put the drivetrain back in with the new dash etc, so stay tuned and I hope I didn't bore anyone to death.

P.s, a very kind farmer GAVE me this donor truck, 4.3/400 state truck. Immaculate condition from the cab back. Thank you again sir.
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[Cwarta]

Well it would appear I fail at life so I'll upload the pictures tonight from the laptop.
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[flashed]

Welcome ,Im in to see more .

[68Timber]

Yep, gotta see this river truck.

[Cwarta]

Well, I cant go back and edit my post and put pictures were they are relevant, so here is some pictures in order ish. Ha

This picture is about 20 years old


After I brought here home, not a lot changed haha.











Here is me and my oldest after a long day of working on it. His name is Owen, my youngest name is Diesel


First fire up of the 6.0/465


Here we are picking up my wifes new 79 Camaro that I put an lc9 aluminum 5.3 in with ls9 cam and ls6 heads, she runs pretty good Wife loves it. HAd just switched from the 465 to a 4l80e with a Yanks SS3600 stall here.



Now we start the up to date progress,

Shaving off the nasty coil spring stuff here.




Installed and steering all hooked up, new gearbox and XJ shaft upgrade.



rear disk upgrade




How we sit right now!


Heres the nv4500 after I did the 5th gear upgrade




and just a random goodies picture







Thanks for looking, picking up the new tires, dash, and hood this weekend.

[Greenlee]

Cool build and story!

[flashed]

Like the story and the truck ,it has changed a lot .When do we get to see Diesel ,Owen is cute ?I think they will both be Truck Guys .

[flashed]

I forgot to mention I like the Camaro too.

[Cwarta]

Thanks GreenLee and Flashed, appreciate the kind words! Both my boys are going to be huge gear heads I believe, couldn't be more proud. My wife also enjoys the stuff, so I am pretty blessed!

Here is our family picture for this year




I really have a thing for the ls engines, anything v8 I own currently is ls, my dads 70 ss and 73 SS are ls swapped, and my moms 68 firebird, well they are all in the process. Im a broke country kid, so everything I do is on a tight budget, used parts are my favorite haha. I build my own harnesses, trans, engines, t cases, fuel systems, I also had HP tuners from my gto days so that's a big plus, self tuning haha. etc. All my ls swaps I have less thank $1000 into including buying the drivetrain. Ive got 4 5.3`s and two 6.0`s currently sitting, waiting for the perfect chassis haha. I just sold my 2004 gto, 416 ci lsx stroker, 6 speed, low 11 second car with stock ls6 heads, in 3,500 d/A. miss it

Here is the stock 6.0 with a tune and the sm465 vs a Bolton eclipse, I couldn't launch hard at all because the truck wheel hops insanely bad, as you can hear until I let off and hit it again. bangin gears with the 465 is not fun haha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deNETRWWbqk

here is a snippit of the wifes ride, runs pretty healthy for a 5.3 vs a true 5.7 ls1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvTb4xD1dkE

[flashed]

That is a great family picture ,you are a lucky man .My wife and I were not blessed with kids so we have cars and trucks instead .My wife is a gearhead too.

[Cwarta]

Originally Posted by flashed

That is a great family picture ,you are a lucky man .My wife and I were not blessed with kids so we have cars and trucks instead .My wife is a gearhead too.

Well I'm sorry to hear that flashed, that is very unfortunate! It's a wonderful thing when your spouse supports your hobby isn't it?
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[Cwarta]

Well I got the dash out!
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[Gregski]

love to see every day driver truck threads like this one, welcome, I have a feeling we are in for a treat

[Cwarta]

Originally Posted by Gregski

love to see every day driver truck threads like this one, welcome, I have a feeling we are in for a treat

Thanks! I hope it all comes out pretty decent! I can't wait to get back to driving my truck, sure have missed it haha.
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[Cwarta]

Well as luck would have it, at the very end of my 9 hour trip to get my new hood and tires, I found a guy with a 2007 6.0 on Facebook for $500 so I snagged that, going to put one of my 5 spare sets of 5.3 heads on it and get the compression up to 11:1 or so, help with tq and economy! Perfect weekend!
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[Cwarta]

Originally Posted by Cwarta

Well as luck would have it, at the very end of my 9 hour trip to get my new hood and tires, I found a guy with a 2007 6.0 on Facebook for $500 so I snagged that, going to put one of my 5 spare sets of 5.3 heads on it and get the compression up to 11:1 or so, help with tq and economy! Perfect weekend!
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[Cwarta]

Originally Posted by Cwarta

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[daddyjeep]

Nice find on the 6.0 and good info on the head swap. I'm currently looking for a deal like that on a 6.0.

[Cwarta]

Originally Posted by daddyjeep

Nice find on the 6.0 and good info on the head swap. I'm currently looking for a deal like that on a 6.0.

They are out there. I've got 3 6.0's, this latest one is a gen 4 though, so it has the really nice rods and Pistons. Pretty stoked about this deal lol.
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[Cwarta]

Picked up a Texas speed 228r cam and Brian tooley racing platinum dual spring kit with titanium retainers today. So much gas mileage lol
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[MalibuSSwagon]

Man some sweet deals you got! Around here its hard to pry things out of peoples hands, you gotta pay top dollar in most cases.

it's funny, I've got a 5.3L/SM465 truck, and my gf/future wife has a 81 Z28 that we put a 6.0L/T56 into. She is an aspiring gearhead as well.

[Cwarta]

Originally Posted by MalibuSSwagon

Man some sweet deals you got! Around here its hard to pry things out of peoples hands, you gotta pay top dollar in most cases.

it's funny, I've got a 5.3L/SM465 truck, and my gf/future wife has a 81 Z28 that we put a 6.0L/T56 into. She is an aspiring gearhead as well.

Man I hear yea, it's hard to get your hands on this stuff sometimes without overpaying. People get crazy for no reason it seems haha.

And heck yea on the wife's car, that's sick! We were driving one day and we passed an old run down 2nd gen and my wife's like "Wow I really like that, what year is that? I want one!" And I'm like , well I just so happen to know of a roller for $500, wanna go look at it. So we did and she fell in love. Unfortunately right now the car is down right scketchy to drive on street tires. It's heads/cam with 4:11's and it really gets crazy in 1st. I gotta get some good tires on it. I used a dbw harness when I put the car together so throttle response is crazy lol.
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[slotard]

I sure wish I could find LSs that cheap around here, everyone seems to think they're gold.

Sounds like you need to tub the transmarobird and put big rubber on. 4.11s on reasonably small tires, I can see why it's crazy.

[Cwarta]

Originally Posted by slotard

I sure wish I could find LSs that cheap around here, everyone seems to think they're gold.

Sounds like you need to tub the transmarobird and put big rubber on. 4.11s on reasonably small tires, I can see why it's crazy.

It's got 275's out back, it's the family DD lol. Don't want to rub it, I just need to run a drag radial full time lol.
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[Cwarta]

Making progress! Got the 6.0/nv4500 in Wednesday, got the 04 Tahoe hydro boost system modified to fit the square body firewall, t case put in, got my fuel tank sump finished, bought a new gas gauge and sender, new motor mounts put in, new trans mount and modified the trans crossmember for the nv4500, new floor shifter put in for the driver side drop 241, picked up a dodge front driveshaft from the local yard, fit perfect. Filled the trans and engine full of fluids, picked up a new inline precision pump, re sealed the tcase, etc etc etc.

I also did some performance mods. Got the 228r cam in the 6.0 with lifters and pump, new BTR platinum spring kit with titanium retainers, and I cut the truck intake in half and ported it then plastic welded it back together.

Now to order the pieces to build my back driveshaft!
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