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So I recently inherited the remnants of my father’s ’55 Chevy truck. It was his shop truck for his motorcycle shop back in the ’70’s and ’80’s. It’s been sitting disassembled in his backyard for the last 35-ish years. Needless to say it’s seen better days.
That’s how it sat at my father’s house. The original frame and suspension had been turned into a work table so I decided to use the frame from a 1994 Caprice cop car that I had parted out.
Alright, so I’m sure you guys are thinking “What the hell! Where’s the Hemi?!” So I’ll get on to the good stuff. I didn’t just want to have another LS swapped rat rod ’55 Chevy so I found a 5.7 Hemi from a 2008 RAM with 120,000 miles on it and a “rod knock” (as per the previous owners description).
Couldn’t tell the exhaust bolts had broken off while the manifolds where still bolted on. The heat shield was hiding it and on cold start the exhaust leak and slapping of the manifold against the head it sounded awful!
Knowing some of the short comings of the earlier 5.7 engines I decided an upgraded rotating assembly with low compression pistons will be a necessity. Also, a good ecu and harness will be needed. I’m planning to use Holley’s Terminator X to handle the thinking. I’m undecided still on the transmission… was thinking either a TH400 or a Powerglide… but I’ve been told a Small Block Mopar TorqueFlite 727 is a direct bolt on and fairly beefy. So I kind of like the sound of that… no adapters needed!
It’s a Holley Hi-Ram with an adapter to mount a 8-71. The blower I used for the mock up is an old junk 6v-71 that’ll eventually be swapped for a BDS 8-71. The injector hat is a mechanical unit that I’m converting to use as a throttle body. The barrel valve is a piece built by Joe Blo Speed Shop out of Australia and houses the TPS wiring will be routed through the -an lines.
I picked up a set of rebuilt 2010 5.7 heads so won’t have to worry about the old valve seat issues. But I’ll have to have pistons made, I’d like to keep the compression under 9.5:1 for reliability… or for when I decide to crank the boost up! This is a low budget build so it’ll be slow going as I don’t want to compromise on quality. I’ll post more as I make progress.
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