contrary to swingdaddies fantasy
the Chev trucks will work as hard as any GMC all day long in very
original condition ... both the trucks pictured have regularly carried up to 2,000# without a strain, the red 58 with a 283, the 57 with an original 235 that's never had major work in 75,000 miles, and they both perform fine under all conditions - do you want to spend lotsa money on gas trying to impress the neighbors with lotsa noise and rubber on the road? don't have to sacrifice originality, a fresh 283 can chirp the tires in 2nd gear with the stock 3.90 rear if ya wanna give it that abuse, the original overdrive allows better highway speed at lower revs and reasonable mileage
Bill
Bill, I wasn't trying to diss original chevy trucks with my post... well not too much anyway. My point is there are more parts available to modify a chevy. There are many more engine choices that will practically bolt in. The GMC trucks were built a little bit tougher from the factory with larger displacement engines, and had the option for economy with 3.08:1 rear gears.
As far as drop in improvement for a gmc, if you had an original V8 truck, you could use any 1955-1960 pontiac V8, but likely to only get an improvement from 1957-1960. With a 6 cylinder, you could always find a 302 to replace the 270.
Chevy trucks could easily use a bbc,sbc, 292 six. There are even diesels that will bolt up.
Last week I loaded the Jimmy with 1500 lbs of drywall and 300 lbs of other building material. Absolutely No problems merging on the freeway with this load... In fact I didn't even feel the weight till I unloaded it by hand.
My truck can pass anything on the road except a gas station. I built the truck more for working than for racing, but sometimes it's fun to mess with corvettes. :P
