All that happened around July of 2007, and it stayed this way for a long while. Being an active duty Marine, 10 months after i got back from Iraq, i was on a plane right back there.
This time while I was there, i bought an extremely low mileage LS1/4L60E/PCM/Harness from a 2001 Camaro SS.
Now back in 2007, this wasn't the common swap it is today. There were still swaps happening, but not to the extent they are now. Due to this, the setup wasn't as cheap as they are now.
Although I had bought the motor powerplant, it would be 2 more years before the truck ever seen it....
Once I returned from my deployment, I went back to my life in San Diego working on all my junk out there. Meanwhile, Nasty sat at my dad's just waiting. September of '08 I came home to go to the Rod Run in Pigeon Forge, so I wanted to get the truck looking a little better under the hood, so in a mad dash, I got the engine bay painted, and the roll pan on.
Its not glorious, or super clean, or anything spectacular, but scroll up a bit, and look at what is was before... For about 20 bucks worth of paint, it was worth it.
Here we are, my Dad's 72 and my 68 at the show
While I was down there, I decided to pick up an all chrome 71/72 style grille. Once I got back to KY, it had to go on before i went back to SD, and it did.
(this is a newer picture, as I don't have the original one from this time period)