New Owner. Looking for some advice..

[im4darush]

I recently picked up a 68 SWB C10 custom and am pretty excited

The truck was frame off restored by a father/son team about 10 years ago and has since put on about 13k miles. In general it is very nice, but shows some use here and there. They actually took a pretty interesting approach when restoring the truck...They chose to NOT restore the bed at all. It was not beat up at all and has no dents anywhere. Paint is original and obviously not perfect since it is a bed afterall, but generally pretty nice. Same for the inside of the cab. The dash and roof still have the original paint. Outside, the cab was completely painted when it was off the frame.

Truck sits on an air suspension and has an added front sway bar. Powerplant is your standard mexican goodwrench crate 350 with a turbo 350 trans. Has PS, PB and gauges.

So as I am new to the C10, I have a few questions. The rear shocks have not been relocated and thus this thing is a bit bouncy when it is sitting low. What is the best approach to relocating the shocks? I see there are a few different options out there with one where the shock is mounted on the outside of the frame rail. This peaks my interest because I would like to run an exaust with tail pipes. Currently it dumps right before the axle.

Speaking of exaust...Can anyone offer any good recomendations? I see that flowmaster has a complete kit for the C10 with different tail pipe exit options. Any feedback on that kit?

In terms of the engine, I am kind of on the fence about what to do. Have seen a few trucks with the 142/144 weiand blowers and that would be pretty cool since the crate motor has 76cc heads and only at 8.5:1. Yes it has a lame cam and crappy heads but I have seen articles where this little blower will make 400+ at the crank when bolted to a low compression crate motor with gobs of torque. Does not sound too bad for a street driven truck. My other option is a set of aluminum heads taken off a ZZ4 crate engine. 58cc 113 heads used on corvettes some time back. Not the best head in the world, but just the bump in compression would be a worthwhile swap. I also have a performer RPM lying around with a few different carbs ranging from qjets to 750 mechanical secondaty holleys. With a cam swap, I can realistically make about 375. GM advertises 355 with the ZZ4 cam. Hi perf Chevy tested one with CC268H and got 380 so thats a pretty safe bet. That route would be more work as I would probably pull the motor and make life easier on my back. Blower is an afternoon install but costly!!

Anyway...any and all advice is welcome.

[smoked68]

Hi, I went the blower route. The 142/144/177 will all work well. Nice power, I used some double hump heads I found and had worked on. 9:1 compression a cam that is around .500 lift and 300 duration, went with forged internals but not required for the smaller sc. Its fun, good luck

[mike16]

do you know what it means when a truck gets a frame off restoration?

I have heared that a characteristic of air bags is that bouncyness you experience. Its hard on shocks. so you may eliminate that bouncyness with new shocks. Some also claim that the bouncyness goes away as the airbags break in.

with the exuaste and the custom suspension, its better to get it done localy ie custom because with air bags and lowered you might run into cans of worms only a local shop can work around.

also you might want to wait until you get the motor blower'd befor you do the exuaste.

I dont know but are the mexican 350's safe to supercharge?