One of the cool things about drag-and-drive events is that you see a wide variety of vehicle in attendance, and you never know what you might come across. Chevy’s C10 pickup trucks are one of the most popular vehicles to modify right now, and Mike Clift’s 1969 C10 takes the platform to a new level, one with drag-and-drive in mind and a truckload of horsepower.
Oregon-based bracket racer Clift had attended a few drag-and-drive events and was looking to build something along those lines, and his vehicle of choice was a Chevy C10. Luckily, Clift didn’t have to go far as he located the perfect truck in Salem, Oregon. The 1969 C10 was already just the right colors with its blue and white original paint, patina and all. He brought the truck home and started thinking about what to do with it.
“I wanted a pickup just for fun,” Clift told us. “I know it’s not the aerodynamic or fast thing, for me it’s the fun thing.” Clift picked up the pickup in late 2019 and a year went by as he tried to figure out who he would have build it.
Mike and Kathy Clift
“I knew what I had wanted,” Clift explained. “I saw Richie Crampton’s Shitbox of Doom ‘57 wagon and knew he had built it. I saw it at Drag Week. I wasn’t sure I could get someone to build it like that, maybe a naturally-aspirated 565, something I could drive around. One day, I just made the joke to my wife, Kathy, that I was going to message Richie and have him build me the truck.”
Clift did contact Crampton, who agreed to build the pickup once Clift told him what he had and what he was wanting it to be. He then delivered the C10 to Crampton’s Indy Speed Shop in Brownsburg, Indiana, where the former NHRA Top Fuel driver began work on a full tube chassis for the Chevy.
“I’m a kid of the 1980s and wanted a roots blower sticking out of the hood because I thought it was so cool, but Richie has had several roots blowers and felt a ProCharger was the better way to go,” Clift explained of the power adder that would eventually compress the air going into the Steve Schmidt Racing Engines 555 cubic-inch big-block Chevy powerplant. An air-to-air intercooler keeps the intake air temps at a reasonable level, and a set of Billet Atomizer 245 lb/hr fuel injectors provide the copious amounts of E85 fuel to the engine.
Adam Hodson at Mid America Kustoms tuned the Holley EFI system, and with just 15 psi of boost pressure, the combination put down 1,294 horsepower and 715 lb-ft of torque on a…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at DragzineDragzine…