Never before has a thread title summed up years of agonizing over a build, or described the project's owner so well.

I made a pinky promise to write all this down, and we all know what happens if you break a pinky promise.


Anyway, let's get this show on the road.

The project started 3 years ago when I bought the truck from my grandmother after my grandfather had passed away. The truck was already lowered, had wheels, and I installed a massive sound system, as any self respecting idiot would.




The truck stayed like this as I daily drove it for about a year, before I was called out to Texas for work, opening new stores for In-N-Out Burger. I was in Texas for a little more than 5 months and while I was there I was talking to my friend about fabricating a turbo system for the truck. Conversations soon turned to parts boxes showing up, which lead to welders making sparks, which lead to the turbo system that is in the truck today. Sadly, while my friend can be trusted, his friends cannot. He brought the truck to a tuner in Fresno, CA who had no idea what he was doing. After 3 weeks of no progress, I pulled my truck from his shop, only it wasn't at his shop. It was at another shop in another town 40mi away. The truck didn't run at all, so I put it on a trailer and towed it to Motor Machine Super Shop in Carmichael, CA so the healing could begin. The guys at motor machine were great to deal with, despite having a cluster **** (which I believe is the technical term) on their hands. The wiring for the MAP sensor, throttle body, and the entire ECM had been tampered with and each part had to be repinned by hand. After nearly 2 weeks of beating their heads against a wall and redoing work that had previously been done by the original tuner, they got the truck running and making boost. The first time around, the truck made 280rwhp on 5.5psi of boost. Not great numbers, but it certainly was fun to drive and I would constantly sneak up on Mustangs at stoplights.







I daily drove the truck like this for a while, until I started trading emails with the editors of Truckin' Magazine. After a few emails, they invited me to their 'Throwdown' event, which is a performance truck shootout, and we got cracking on the truck to make it competitive. At this point, we added all the exterior treatments, and turned up the boost to 9.5psi, making 315rwhp on 91oc.

When we were at Throwdown that year, we melted two pistons while racing. It was heart breaking after the effort that had been put into the truck that year, but we towed the truck back to Motor Machine and started from scratch. We had custom forged pistons made, forged connecting rods, ported the head, polished the crank, all the fun stuff. It took months of waiting on the pistons, but we finally got the motor back together and on the dyno where it then proceeded to turn the #3 cylinder sleeve into powder in the oil pan. Motor #2, gone.




http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...-55-59_154.jpg




At this point, I was beyond ready to give up on the motor and just go back to stock, but I held out, waiting to see what the parts manufacturers were going to do, and after many more months of waiting on those jack holes, we finally got a new set of pistons. We then started with a fresh, low mile block and got to work. The truck had been down for a year at this point, and oh, we had already been invited back to compete in Throwdown 2013. Well, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. The rings that the piston manufacturer sent were the wrong size, and when they red labeled us a new set, they didn't even include the oil rails. 5 days left to Throwdown. The guys at Motor Machine were able to pull a set of oil rails from a stock set of pistons and make them work. Once the motor was back int he truck, the charging system refused to work. Two days were spent working on that problem when it suddenly and miraculously, just solved itself. All they did was flash a new tune on the ECM and none of the parameters in that tune file could have affected the charging system. Either way, we were happy that the truck moved under it's own power and was making power; 335rwhp on 12psi of boost.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...psa5185188.jpg

 

After getting the truck over to Jay's Hot Rods in Sacramento, CA to have the new prototype Wilwood brakes fitted, we loaded the truck on my buddy's trailer and steam rolled down to Irvine for the race. We came prepared this year and went down swinging, taking home 5th overall in a field of trucks that were far superior in almost every way with drivers who had more experience not only in their trucks, but were more experienced overall. More importantly, the truck survived without a scratch or squeak and performed flawlessly (except for the driver. that guy was an idiot. Oh wait, that was me...)




http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...ps0d35d591.jpg







Now the truck is back home, being daily driven and taking no prisoners. AMG Mercedes and all manner of Mustang, Camaro, and Nissan Z, have no idea that this little truck with an exhaust that sounds like a farm tractor, is packing so much under the hood. We are constantly tweaking the truck to make it better and most importantly, improve driveability. There is alot of power that is left on the table with this current setup, but we aren't after crazy numbers anymore. This time around, we just wanted to build a fun truck that could withstand the punishment we planned to put it through and make it reliable enough to drive every day.

So, uh, yea. That's pretty much it. Any questions?

 

Wow cool story and well put together .

Awesome truck and different type of build , I like it !

Do you have a meth kit on or in future plans ?

 

I like that you didn't just end up swapping to a V8, even though it would have been easier in the end.

Sucks to hear all the trouble you had, but now you can actually enjoy the hard work put into it.

 

Cool build man, got any vids of it running around? I've contemplated building a colorado from time to time, but V8 of course.

 

Cool build and story. Nice truck also.

 

Cool to see something different. I would guess it runs high 12s? or is it mostly a auto cross toy since those are the only pictures I saw.

Now that you have a great story it is time to swap in the LS and make it scream.

 

Very cool. I'd be curious to see where it lands on a 1/4 mile run as well.

 

I believe it ran a 12.6 at Throwdown.

Fun truck. I've been beating my head against a wall with this thing for a long time now, so it's glad to see that the repeated bashing finally wore a whole through the wall and made a door.

Almost forgot;

Specs:
2005 GMC Canyon
3.5L Inline 5cyl engine
4L60E 4spd auto

Forged Pistons
R&R Forged connecting rods
Ported head
Gutted Primary cat
Seimens 60# fuel injectors
Walbro 255lph fuel pump
Aeromotive boost referenced fuel pressure regulator
Custom STS remote mount turbo system
Treadstone TRV1259 front mount intercooler
Custom engine calibration by Mark Romans and Motor Machine Super Shop
Custom Transmission cooler
Turbosmart Eboost2 electronic boost controller

Makes 335rwhp on 12psi.

QA1 coilover conversion (front)
McGaughy's front spring kit
2" lowering kit (rear)
Custom Traction Bars
Belltech sway bars (front/rear)
Prototype Wilwood brakes (front)
GFX-OR7 wheels (18x8.5)
Nitto NT05 tires (275/40/18)
Factory Locking differential

SS front bumper
SS urethane roll pan
Factory ZQ8 fender flares
Painted factory GMC grill
One-off black anodized billet door handles

Pioneer AVIC-Z110BT navi deck
Audison BitOne Processor
Audison LRx 5.1k amp (1630w)
Hertz HSK 165XL components
Hertz HX300 subs (12")
Measured at 143dB playing music
Custom ported box behind seats
Carbon fiber door panel inserts
Custom A-pillar for Eboost2
Sinsity Kustomz (SSK) Billet Auto Shifter
One-off SSK HVAC and lighting control ***** (further customized with LED's from HiLEDs.com)
SSK billet seat levers and one-off lumbar adjustment ****

 

Very cool truck! I've always wanted to build an s10/colorado. Any future plans for the truck?