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Project Why Wait: Look Cool, Stay Cool With Proform Parts

By
DaveT
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4

Well, it’s been just a bit of time since my last update hasn’t it?

First, happy new year, second don’t worry. Work, a lot of it, in fact, has been going on while I’ve been away from the computer.

First thing’s first, as you may have seen on Instagram the truck is back from paint.

The professional paintwork was done by a local dealership painter (Al) here in Whitby that does custom work on the side at his home shop.

Al was recommended by Blair at Taylor’d Customs who’s been using him for his own personal project lately.

Considering what he started with Al did an absolutely phenomenal job on the firewall, inner fenders, doors, dash and roof.

Getting the truck back looking like a million bucks was the kick in the pants I needed to get back into the garage consistently.

Within days of the truck coming back, it didn’t take long for the urge to install the inner and outer fenders to become too great to ignore.

However, before the front end could go back on I had to figure out a rather important piece of the puzzle; the radiator.

Because of my front-end swap, a stock radiator was out of the picture. Similarly, because of my accessory drive, a mechanical fan was also out of the picture.

Thankfully, because I have Andy McJannett and Performance Improvements on my side, a solution wasn’t hard to find.

Andy suggested that I go with a ProForm Parts 1-2-3 series radiator set up for Projet Why Wait.

The 1-2-3 series or radiators are designed as a universal drop-in, save for a few minor trims that needed to be made to my already heavily modified radiator support.

The ProForm 1-2-3 kit also includes all the various relays, connectors and plugs to control the provided fan. I’ll be using my factory PCM to control my fan, but it’s nice that everything you need is included.

Just in case.

Clearly printed instructions are included as well, and it’s rated for 600hp. Quite a bit more than I need. For now.

Finally, as if everything else wasn’t enough, the radiator is also fitted with a steam port. An important feature for vehicles with LS V8 motors like mine.

Under the hood, the radiator is a snug fit, but there’s enough space for it all to work. And, being an all-in-one solution there’s no reason for me to fuss with it again.

Issyfab Speed & Engineering will be handling both the plumbing and wiring.

I’m very interested to see how Jeff (at IssyFab) manages to make it all work, but he assures me it “won’t be a problem”.

With the radiator selected and fit I could install the inner and outer fenders and loosely bolt everything together.

Because the rad will need to come in and out, I’ve left the grill off. For now.

After the front end was installed I had a local pinstriper, Stripes By Square, come by and line up the truck between the Mazda Rally White and patina blue paint.

The stripe really ties everything together. The Navy pulls from the darker blue found within my patina and provides great definition.

It’s great to see this render become closer and closer to reality.

As always, all that’s left is everything else but I’ve got a few things up my sleeve as the truck approaches road-worthy status this year.

That’s right. I said this year. I really want to drive this truck in 2022 and its foot to the floor to make it finally happen!

Thanks for the support so far and look forward to more in the land of Why Wait this year.

Event Coverage: Toronto Hot Rod Kulture 07/18/21

By
DaveT
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3

Wow. It’s been a ridiculously long time since I’ve been able to start a post with ‘Event Coverage‘. I feel like I’ve spent at least the last nine months living vicariously through others.

For the locals I’m preaching to the choir but to the out of towners; Ontario has been in some form of Covid-19 related lock down for a long time.

But all that is finally showing some sign of passing allowing local groups to hold small meets for now, and eventually larger shows later this summer.

Last Sunday, July 19th, I popped my head out of the sand to take in one of Toronto Hot Rod Kulture’s summer gatherings.

These events, which started las year, are similar to Toronto Cars And Coffee events but with more of a hot rod focus.

Held in Scarborough they’re also a little closer to home for east siders like myself.

Chill by nature, these meets bring out a nice variety of cars, bikes, and people. It’s the type of meet that reminds me why I like the Ontario scene so much.

While we have some non sensical cruft (Takeovers can go straight to hell) the majority of us just love cars, period.

We also want to be around similarly minded people without drama and don’t need any form of trophy or awards. Just a good few hours looking at cars.

For a father like myself events like this are perfect. A bunch of awesome in short order, leaving the rest of the day to wherever the wind may take me.

Living up to ‘awesome’ is this 67 Camaro. I am on a real pro street kick lately so I am certainly here for everything this car is about.

Mopar fans fret not, you were all well represented as well. This GTX pulled in as I was leaving so I’ll be sure to get more photos of it next time.

The Hemi did sound pretty damn serious if you’re wondering.
I’ve seen this truck progress over the years from the above to the below.

It currently features a rather tidy turbo setup stuffed into a relatively small engine room.

It’s nice to see a nearly ten year long commitment to iterating upon a vehicle. I’m sure it’s quite the ride now.

What would a meet like this be without a small amount of engine porn? I’m always looking for engine bay inspiration for my own project.

Speaking of inspiration. This truck is no stranger to the site. I’ve posted it numerous times before from Motorama to Cars ‘N Coffee.

The tidy engine bay and flawless interior are quite elegantly done.

However, the most recent stand out for me has to be the wheels. They are made by Augment Wheel Company.

Essentially they are bespoke aluminum wheels made to look like steel wheels. Previously the car stat on Detroit Steel Wheels in candy red.

The Detroit Steel hoops looked good too but there’s just no denying this new set completely transform the look of the truck.

The owner Richie was great to talk to about a few things I had questions on with my build and wildly enough he owned the e36 that was one of the first cars ever posted on this site.

Neat.

Toronto Hot Rod Kulture plans to do more of these events throughout the rest of the year so be sure to follow them on Instagram for the next one.

Theme Tuesday: LS Fabrication Firewall Fillers

By
DaveT
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0

If you’ve read the most recent Project Why Wait  update then you probably caught the not so subtle hint that the truck will see the inside of a paint booth rather soon.

At the body shop three major items will be painted; My roof, my dash, and my firewall. As you probably also know that firewall was shaved using LS Fabrication bead rolled firewall fillers.

This won’t be the first, or last, time I thank LS Fabrication for saving me hours of work shaving my firewall. Let’s be honest if I did it the traditional way –welding up each hole individually– I’d probably still be doing the job.

As a rookie, I’ve successfully taken the job to a reasonable end point. However, finishing it out to the level I want requires the expert touch of someone who enjoys sanding more than myself.

The most difficult part of sending anything out to paint has to be choosing a color. I’m currently torn between two options. The color of my chassis, which is gunmetal, or the white I plan to paint my roof.

Decisions, decisions. What better way to help with such a rough choice than looking at what others have done? Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery after all.

The owner of this truck, who’s using the same ‘Kalinda’ firewall fillers I am, opted to use panel bond for the installation. Additionally they left the fillers in their original brushed finish.

One of the best options with these panels is that there are several different methods that can be taken for installation.

@thejcates went with bed liner for his firewall instead of paint. I’d be lying if I said I had not considered this course of action. Bedliner provides excellent durability and would cover up any areas I didn’t get done 100% straight…

Kris Hauser set this whole trend off with the original Kalinda panels in his truck. Kris’ truck remains the test bed for many LS Fabrication products.

Including their 47-54 GMC Chevy Truck hood strut kit, which is the latest addition to LSFAB’s robust product catalog. @jjkleeman combined an LS, ‘Dee Dee’ fillers, and the hood struts for a proper show worthy engine bay.

@jakeadreon went with gloss black for his ‘Tracy’ bead rolled LS Fabrication firewall fillers.

@rustynutgarage also went gloss black for his fillers, which suits the patina black truck.

@cjohnson_21 is a man after my own heart with a color matched LS V8, smooth firewall and very tidy steering column passthrough.

@mars.patrickminiard has also gone LS. Like myself he is using a sheet metal intake manifold instead of a standard one. His progress so far almost makes me want to paint my truck entirely. Almost.

@midnightbodyshop is working toward a complete bronze respray with his build. The Chevrolet script filler looks great over top of the Kalinda panels.

@Prostreet81 is well on the way to knocking his Suburban engine bay straight out of the park. Similar to myself he used the firewall and upper cowl fillers.

I love how everything is color matched right down to the control arms.

Last but not least, one of the most unique takes on the firewall filler panels I’ve seen. As a fan of great paintwork I tip my hat to whoever is building this truck.

As for me, I think I have made my final decision. However you’ll all have to wait and see what it is. Keep following Project Why Wait for updates, and of course I’ve got a few more parts from LS Fabrication stashed away ready to install.

 

Project Why Wait: Coated By Red Tower Armoury

By
DaveT
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0

Can you believe we’re coming up on six years since I first started Project Why Wait? I hardly can and I’ve been the one doing it. But at the start of 2021 it’s felt like the end is finally coming into focus.

To help relight a fire within the project Jeff Wybrow and I hatched a plan to bring Project Why Wait to his shop IssyFab Speed & Engineering this June.

Jeff will finish off wiring and firing the truck along with a few other drivability concerns his shop specializes in. While the #siegmc is gone I will bring my bed in from the backyard and start the metal repair and refinishing needed there.

The truck will also take a little trip to the body shop while abroad, but we’ll get to those plans in a different post. Before the truck leaves however, I need to take care of the list you saw at the top of this post.

Despite looking pretty complete at times a lot of the truck has just been “put” together. Several items needed coating, torqueing, painting and so forth to really be ticked off as complete.

This includes the back half, which at last check looked like this:

Pretty ‘close’, but obviously the masking tape, protective plastic and uncoated Airlift Performance tanks had to go. I went back and forth on what color to do the tanks. I bated around a contrasting color, but the most

Simplest, but most obvious.

Color chosen, my next slight hurdle was coating. I wanted something that wasn’t too glossy or thick but a more natural finish to match the air compressors. After seeing a few items done in Cerakote at GT Custom Exhaust Oshawa I decided to give it a try.

If you’re not familiar, Cerakote is a ceramic finish. It’s much thinner than powder coat, but still provides abrasion/wear resistance, chemical protection, and it’s generally harder than paint.

Here in Durham Region Ontario Red Tower Armoury is the leader in Ceramic Coatings. If it needs coating they’ve likely done it. And if you’re not sure if it needs coating they’ll help you decided how and what it needs.

With my tanks being rather low on the complexity scale of work they’ve done they simply knocked it out of the park.

There’s also a few other items they did for me hanging in my garage. But, we’ll get to those later as I assemble the interior.

The tanks are black now, but the grain of the aluminum is still visible, as are the welds and all the craftsmanship Air Lift originally put into the pieces.

More importantly, it looks great next to all of the other black components. The RCI Fuel Cell, Viair compressors, and brake lines. Also, worth noting, in these photos the chassis is nearly completely wired.

The main rear chassis harness has been run through the frame, in addition to the Airlift main harness run in this post from 2018.

Since the photos above, I’ve been in the garage at least three nights a week sniping items from my list. Mid June is about thirty days away and I’ve got plenty of work to do!

As always follow me on Instagram for shorter updates on the progress as I move along.

Theme Tuesdays: Minitruck Inspired Cars

By
DaveT
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2

You guys already know that I am a sucker for both minitrucks and nostalgia.

So when a thread calling for minitruck inspired cars appeared in the Minitruckin, Where Are They Now? Facebook group I had save a few photos for those of you who are not a member, or have steered away from social media entirely.

It’s worth noting, when I say minitruck inspired, I mean wild paint, billets, speakers shaved everything and of course a slammed stance.

All the glorious original Minitruck styling vibes.

Tenth Generation Thunderbirds were a staple spotted vehicle of my youth
As were Plymouth Sundance/Dodge Shadows modified ones on Lexanis were quite rare of course..
Also can’t forget Ford Escort GTs, which I have no problem admitting I used to like quite a bit in the right hands
This Aerostar is mental, peel the folding… back body?
Amigos were a vehicle I never saw much of growing up. Neat little things and this one is awesome even today
This car is apparently M.IA somewhere in Indiana, as you can see by the truck in the rear it fit in well
Check out the extended hood over the headlights on this Accord. Unexpected trick, but not bad!
One of the best things about ‘mini truck cars’ is the creative lengths owner’s went to put them on the ground
That looks like a large nitrogen tank flanked by a cantilever set up
Sadly you can’t make out much more from this angle, but the owner does still have it!
This is a later build, but the minitruck influence is still strong
This turbo CRX was parted out shortly after a run on the show circuit
This Roadmaster is an icon in the minitruck world, and for good reason. Look at all the detail buried in the paint!
It’s still around today, which is impressive. Actually in general more vehicles are still around than you’d expect
The same unfortunately cannot be said for this car…
… after becoming pretty wild in it’s own right it was eventually scrapped

I often wonder how many cars from today will be around ten, fifteen, even twenty years from now? Makes sites like mine super important for archival purposes!

SR20 Swapped Datusn 510

By
DaveT
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1

Despite a peculiar year to say the last, a new event debuted here in Ontario in 2020; The Japanese Classic Track day.

As the name implies it’s a show that catered to Japanese cars, late 90s and earlier. It took place at Shannonville, a track not to far from my house, so I ventured forth.

One of the first vehicle’s I spotted was a tidy, and rather orange, Datsun 510.

The car both looked and sounded pretty healthy, so when it came off after a session I poked my camera around to see what was up.

SR20 motors in Datsun 510s are not a new swap, but, they are mighty effective in the car, even in relatively stock form.

I appreciate the fact that the owner of this car took their time to make sure the swap looked fairly tidy under hood.

The custom name plate is also a nice touch. One of those little pieces that’s easy to overlook but nice to catch.

The car proved rather durable too shrugging off a late day four tire off with not even a hiccup.

Theme Tuesdays: Stylin’ And Profilin’ – Feature Edition

By
DaveT
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0

In myopinion no photo better defines a car’s stance than a profile shot. I don’t think there’s a single one of us that hasn’t set our car on the ground, stepped back, and pondered the end result.

Depending on how that evaluation goes, either the car stays on the ground or it’s immediately thrust back up on jack stands for more work. As a photographer a profile shot is usually one of the first I take.

It helps reveal if I need to hind anything in successive shots to do the car justice, or, just fire away. Only just now have I realized that these shots would make a tremendous Theme Tuesday.

If you think this was good, I also do this at shows, where the occasion permits, and I have even more of those shots. Stay tuned.

Kept Low, Kept Forever

By
DaveT
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0

About ten years ago I saw this beauty of an orange Blazer at a car show in Durham called Extreme Invasion.

Of all the vehicles at that event it’s the one I think about most to this day.

I’m a Blazer nut and if you follow the site you know this. Of all of the Blazers to ever come out of Ontario this truck is in my opinion one of the best.

Heck, I’d even go as far as to say it’s one of the best S trucks to come out of Ontario period.

Later I found out the truck was owned by Sean Johnston via Mike McConnell who took these photos at Toronto’s Motorama.

Even now, looking at photos of the truck my opinion has not changed. It’s extremely well done, and the modifications have withstood the test of time.

However recently –via the awesome Minitruckin, Where Are They Now?– group on Facebook I discovered something that blew my mind. This orange version of the truck is not its first, or even second look. It’s the third.

The truck was originally teal and purple the first time it debuted. The look is definitive 80s/90s minitruckin’

Apparently there was also a red version between this one and the orange one, which was when the truck was first bagged, but before it was body dropped.

Sean still has the truck, creeping up on thirty years now, and the photo above is the last time it was out.

I hope to be able to have a similar journey with my own truck, Project Why Wait, when it’s done.

Long standing relationships with vehicles is such a rare thing these days and this truck is damn near perfect.

Theme Tuesdays: OBS Chevy Trucks

By
DaveT
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0

OBS Trucks, or old body style (GMT400 or 88-98) GM Chevys are super, super hot right now. Many are referring to them as the new C10 because C10 market has ran off into insanity after it’s own recent highs.

In general however it seems like all vehicles from 88-98 are seeing a boom as they become that get into the 15-25 year old range.

F bodies in particular have also started to hit their second stride. But let’s focus on OBS trucks, for now.

(Apologies for some of the smaller photos, some are ten years old!)

This is probably the quintessential look for OBS trucks, then and now, static drop, white letters billet grills
Of course, classic looks look even better on the ground
Speaking of classic, this was the thing to do for quite a long time in the truck community, OBS on OBS
Building on the above examples, some graphics, a phantom grill and laying door never hurt anyone
If memory serves this truck is still kicking around Ontario, hopefully just as clean
I’d like to hope this one is still around too
The Swedes operate on their own agenda…. clearly
An OBS with a surprise our two  from the swapsareeverything.com archives
Surprise 1
Surprise 2
Hands up if you wanted a 454 SS… don’t recall them being so dang high back then though
It’s remarkable how much a wheel swap and a drop can do to modernize the look of a truck. Perfect tidy daily driver quality vehicle here
Obviously I’m all for laying door with them too
On the flip side, a well used 1500 as an autocross truck never gets old
This truck was my introduction to big (giant) Billets, I dig them, wouldn’t want to buy tires for them, but I dig ’em
Don’t for a second think I forgot about dually OBS Chevys!
I have a lot of photos of this truck, it gets around
This is a local build, by a fairly well know builder out here named Curtis Cox
The paintwork on this truck is super impressive
This truck from SEMA will forever be a banger in my eyes
Severed Ties does slammed trucks well

Turbo Chevrolet LS6 Swapped 1957 Chevrolet 3100

By
DaveT
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0

In 2018 Rod Authority sent me to Detroit Autorama to cover the show on their behalf. It was a pretty sweet gig, I did it for them three or so years in a row and would come back with a massive pile of features and photos.

Most of the photos went there way, but some I squirreled away for a rainy day. So far 2021 has been pretty rainy so I’ve unearthed pictures of Garrett turbo Chevrolet LS6 swapped 1957 Chevy 3100.

At Autorama that year it wasn’t a runner, but the key parts where there. Namely the z06 LS6 motor and the Garrett GT4202R ball bearing turbo.

The T56 6 speed lifted from a Dodge Viper was also present along with the triple master Wilwood brake set up.

Also present at the time of spotting was the custom chassis the owner built in his garage. It’s constructed using  2×4 inch 0.120 wall tubing, that’s been glued together via careful tig welding.

The patina truck is air ride and the front clip was narrowed so that the truck can turn lock to lock while riding low.

Bead rolled panels are used fairly extensively throughout and much of the aesthetic is race/Nascar influenced.

It was finished about a year or so after I saw it, and the entire feature can be seen on inthegaragemedia.com.

I’m glad I looked the truck up so many years later because it really is quite awesome. Love the new Forgestar CF5 wheels too.

Wonder if it won anything in Detroit that year?

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