78 Big 10 on Wide Fives

[GoSki]

Introducing myself,

Hello everyone, my name is Nick and I'm new to this forum. Some of you may be familiar with my good friend Corey (hewittca). He has had a presence on this site for some time now. I helped him out with the build of his 72 GMC a few years ago, after that I decided I needed my own. I've loved the square body for many years, and owned a 4x4 variant years ago, but this time I decided I would do a 2wd build.

I've worked in motorsports for the entirety of my career, and always thought race cars were cool, however, I've also always said, "If I ever have enough money to go racing, I won't." And that's because it's a money eating machine that you can't drive to work.

Being in motorsports for several decades has exposed me to many types of racing, as well as a lot of racing history. At some point along the way I discovered photos of of a few square bodies and other 80s trucks in racing trim. They were from a very short lived series in 1983 that the rumor mill claims was started by Buck Baker. It was those photos, combined with my familiarity and access to race car parts that let me decide I would do a race "themed" or "inspired" street machine.

There are a few things worth noting about this build thread.

1) I'm about 2 years late on starting it, I bought the truck in October of 2023

2) I have a lot of information to share, but I'm not the greatest at remembering to stop and take photos (Corey is much better at that)

3) I've had two main guiding principles for this build

A) I wanted to build something that I thought a guy in the early 80's would build, with a fairly real world "normal-ish guy" budget.

B) I do in fact have to operate with a real world "normal-ish guy" budget

It is because of these two things that you are not going to see a 4-link in the rear, you are not going to see coil overs and tubulars on the front, or rack and pinion steering, and you are not going to see massive slotted rotors and 6 piston Brembo's on the corners. I'm going to spend some money, but in calculated areas, and in the areas where I can reuse factory parts, I'm going to. Again, think about "just some dude" in the 80's who thinks race cars are cool.

It is worth noting that for a lot of the modifications to this truck, although I did not spring for expensive aftermarket parts, I did invest a lot of time and I do have access to a lot of tools that many people don't, so that is worth considering if we are going to be fair about it.

If you were at the Fall Revival in Denton, NC last weekend, you may have seen what the truck looks like right now. But on here, we are going to rewind back to October of 2023, and start at the beginning of this build.

I live in Huntersville, and the truck I found was local to the area, it was purchased from a local Huntersville car dealer in 1979, and has never left the area. The guy I bought it from was the only person to ever drive the truck. Although it was in fact a "one owner", it was not garage kept, it was kept in a field, under a tree, and had been very well used.