At a svelte 6,000 pounds, Tom Wests 1993 GMC 2500 utility box truck is by far the lightest vehicle he works on. That doesnt really make sense until it dawns on you that West operates Specialized Truck Repair, a very real heavy-truck repair service that comes to the rescue of broken big-rigs on the heavily traveled Interstate between Nashville and Memphis. (Car Craft fans may remember Project Jake, the Cal Trans 1993 GMC three-quarter ton pickup that Jeff Smith famously built, here .) We spotted Wests GMC last fall at the Holley LS Fest in Bowling Green, Kentucky. For the curious, Holley LS Fest is the worlds biggest gathering of fans of GMs Gen III, Gen IV, and Gen V powertrains. A buddy of mine had this truck, and I was getting it from him for little or nothing, says the 35-year-old West. You know, it had a 6.5L diesel in it, and we had this crazy idea to make it a racecar. Sound insane? Hardly. When you love trucks like West, it makes sense. And when you consider how voluminous truck engine bays are, the sheer quantity of severe-duty driveline running gear available for them, and the dirt-cheap price of obtaining a used one, you might then wonder, why build anything else? Finding Like-Minded Crazies As sensible as a GMC C2500 utility-box race truck sounds now, it took some convincing to gather together the necessary partners in crime. The whole concept of this thingI couldnt have done it without this guy right here, West says, waving a hand at David Hines, a like-minded gearhead at Boost Addicts in Gallatin, Tennessee. Whenever we first came up with this, I kind of had this idea in my head, and I called David before I really told anybody. I said, Ive got this old truck man, and I want to make a racecar, and he was like, well, what kind of truck is it? I told him, and he laughed and I laughed. The Reactor Core Procharger blow-off valve helps regulate boost pressure on the Chevrolet Performance 370 LSX long-block to a max of 15 psi from a D1 compressor. As we interviewed West in his pit area at Beech Bend Raceway Park last September, the truck hadnt yet made a full-out, pissed-off pass down Bowling Greens quarter-mile yet, but it had gone a smattering of partially angry mid-13s. It also had garnered quite a few looky-loos from new fans who had taken the time to tromp all the way back to the trucks far-flung resting spot near the tracks shutdown end. When they arrived, they were rewarded in seeing a fully built Chevrolet Performance 370 LSX long-block (fully-built, top to bottom, says West) topped with a Holley Hi-Ram manifold, and strapped with a D1 Procharger making 15 psi of boost. The 370 LSX long-block in Wests 93 GMC makes in the neighborhood of 800 hp and relies on a Holley Terminator X engine management system, a Holley High-Ram intake, and a D1 Procharger. A Holley alternator powers the charging system. Making the date to have the truck ready by LS Fest, however, was anything but a foregone conclusion. West not only had to convince Hines and the crew at Boost Addicts, but he needed them to step on the gas pronto. I was like, Ive got all these parts layin in the garage, Lets do something. We still at that point thought it was a little ridiculous, but we kept going, and the more we kept going on it, the more involved we got, and we were like, this thing has got to be done, its got to go, so we kept going hard as we can. Everybody at Boost Addicts pitched in. Matt Samford just got through tuning with it, so we can get out here and make a pass in it. Hauling Mass At 6,000 pounds, Tom Wests GMC 2500 utility-box truck isnt light. A 14-bolt severe-duty truck rearend from an 08 model is loaded with 3.73 gears and a spool. Beadlock wheels with P295/50R16 Hoosier drag radials do their best to hook the truck at the starting line. As economical as used-up-work-trucks-as-reborn-racecars are, there is a proverbial fly in the ointment: mass. As anybody whos ever seen Farmtruck on Discovery Channels Street Outlaws can attest, it takes a lot of strength to keep one of these bricks hurtling toward the finish line under full steam, and that means having a strong transmission. To that end, West chose the obvious, a 4L80E four-speed automatic overdrive. Experts will agree that as the genetic descendant of the original Hydramatic Turbo 400, the 4L80E is the right slushbox to pick for a rig like this, and under normal circumstancesthink 10-second Camaroit would be nearly perfect right out of the box. Only thing is, Wests truck is more like a box that a Camaro comes in. West lamented: We had two transmissions in it. Its actually making so much power it blew two of em completely out of it. And then Thursday night, Tim Hollis [of Tennessee Transmission] pulled it out and completely rebuilt it. It was very long and very exhausting, but we got it done. Caution: Bombproof Trans Required! Hollis gets a lot of credit, says West, as without a bomb-proof transmission, nothing else matters in a truck like this. After all, who would they call if it broke down? As experts in the field of broken-down trucks, Specialized Truck Repair can hardly afford to light up the caution ball on the roof for their own benefit. Nevertheless, thats exactly what happened. Friday morning, we got ready to come here, and we blew the water pump out of it, so we pulled over and started over again, says Tom. We got all that done, and we got here yesterday about 3:00. That evening, we put nitrous on it, did some tuning going down the road, and were getting ready to make our first pass tonight. [Scratchy record sound] Nitrous too?! You bet. More is better, and thanks to an ever-increasing base of fansincluding vendors in LS Fests manufacturer midwaythe folks at Nitrous Express came to the rescue. David over there at Nitrous Outlet hooked us up with a 200-shot last night so that we can go fast. Update: Whats in Store For 2020 We caught up with Tom West recently to find out the fate of the race truck after 2019 Holley LS Fest, and he says belt slippage on the supercharger had simply become too much of an issue, so the decision was made to embrace twin turbosand a far more serious chassis effort. We completely stripped the truck, took the 370 out of it. Its got a 403 LS built by Tommys Auto Machine with a six-liter block. We completely went crazy with it. Its got twin 76/78 Precisions on it now with the Nitrous Outlet plate. Were hoping to make somewhere in the ballpark of 1,500 to 1,600 horsepower. Tom West (left) stands with Tim Hollis of Tennessee Transmission in front of the GMC at Holley LS Fest 2019. That kind of power changes everything else, so the dominoes swiftly began to fall. Says West: We back-halfed the truck and lowered it. Its actually on a real good set of beadlocks now. Weve converted it to five-lugs all around, dropped a whole bunch of weight on it, put a killer fuel system in it. Our plan this year at LS Fest is to call out the Farmtruck. Were hoping to get in the nines with it. Now the real funs about to begin. Indeed, it does. --> The post LS Fest Fan Favorite! LSX-Swap 1993 GMC Utility-Box Race Truck appeared first on Hot Rod Network .