There’s a big difference between owning a hot rod and building one. This truck is proof of that. Garrett French’s ’50 Chevy pickup is an example of an owner-built project that is an absolute stormer at the track, but is more than at home when it’s time for a relaxed run down the road.
The body was all original sheetmetal — at least until the first test drive when someone backed into it and damaged a couple of fenders. More on that later, but Garrett wouldn’t let that stop him.
Yeah, we loved our muscle trucks at StreetMuscleMag.com, and this is one of the coolest ones we’ve seen in a long time. The fact that it is owner-built just makes it that much more interesting to us.
Twin Turbo LS Power
As you might imagine, this is no run-of-the-mill LS swap in the ’50 Chevy pickup.
Under the hood sits a 408-cubic-inch LQ4 LS engine built around a Summit stroker kit, blueprinted by Baldwin Motors in Oak Ridge, Missouri. The owner handled the engine assembly himself, pairing Texas Speed PRC 247 heads with Johnson short-travel lifters, TSP pushrods and a Brian Tooley Racing twin turbo Stage 4 camshaft.
A Holley Terminator X ECU manages the combination, which is set up to handle 30 psi of boost. Twin Summit Racing S476 T4 turbos, featuring 76mm compressor inducers, 88mm compressor wheels and 96mm turbine wheel exducers, are mounted using Summit Racing stainless-steel manifolds. A Shearer Fab air-to-water intercooler system, supported by a Holley Hi-Ram lower intake, helps keep the boosted charge under control.
the truck suffered some bad luck during its first test drive, when someone backed into it while the transmission was being broken in.
The power gets sent through a Jake’s Performance Turbo 400 automatic transmission before reaching a PEM Racing Ford 9-inch rearend with 4.11 gears. Fuel delivery comes from two Walbro 525 Hellcat pumps and a Walbro 450-lph pump, feeding Holley 120-pound-per-hour injectors. Those injectors are already reaching their duty-cycle limits, so a move to 2,100cc injectors is on the horizon as the combination continues to evolve.
And the work doesn’t stop at the drivetrain.
Frame Is Fortified
The truck retains its factory frame, with boxed sections added to support the suspension. An S&W Race Cars prefabricated roll-cage kit adds another layer of structure.
The body tells its own story. Most of it remains original, with the exception of the front and rear fenders. Unfortunately, the truck suffered some bad luck during its first test drive, when someone backed into it while the transmission was being broken in.
“The body is all original except the front fenders and the rear fenders because as soon as I got the truck done, I was backed into during the first test drive during transmission break in, Garrett says. “I did all of the body panel and filler work. The bedsides I made myself by taking stake pockets from doner bedsides and bending the bedsides out of 12 gauge steel for more structure and weight on the rear tires.”
The owner took care of the body-panel and filler work himself.
Details, Details
The wiring? Done by the owner. The lighting installation? His work, too. In fact, he handled virtually everything on this truck himself, from the engine assembly and fabrication to the bodywork and electrical work. The only major jobs left to someone else were the paint and ECU tuning.
That’s what makes this build stand out. The twin turbos and big-inch LS power are impressive, but the real story is the amount of work, ingenuity and hands-on fabrication that went into putting it all together.
This isn’t just a modified truck. It’s a homebuilt performance machine with serious boost potential and a whole lot of its owner’s blood, sweat and determination invested in it.
So, what’s next? Garrett’s goal is to get the truck down into the 5s in the eighth-mile. He is working on fine tuning and the launch, and if all goes as planned, that shouldn’t be a problem. While we’re writing this, he’s out doing the Route 66 Sick Week event, so that tells you about the truck’s bonafides.
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