[americanmusc1e]

The power of the motor was insane. Here I was a 19 year old kid with a farm truck that did a 14.0 quarter mile. It's a wonder I'm not dead. The truck hit 120mph racing a friend in a souped up Titan.


The truck also lost it's turbo mufflers. In their place was a set of 24" glasspacks. It was loud enough to set off car alarms rumbling through a parking lot.



Then came the pain of "high" HP. The 700r4 just wouldn't last. I blew it up within a few thousand miles. Lost 2nd gear first and then the rest slowly went away. I took it in under warranty and the guy who built it said it was "installer error" and insisted on charging me more for him to put it in ($400). It lasted a few more months and blew up again. I took it back and he rebuilt it and told me my warranty was over. The guy was a jerk so I ended up taking it to the guy who built my motor. I got it rebuilt again ($1500) and it lasted a few months before it went back out. I got it rebuilt a couple more times after that, but I grew tired of the problems. I almost built a stalled Th400, but decided to go manual in the end. To this day I hate 700r4s and automatic transmissions in general. My daily drivers are all manuals now. T

My parent's 2001 Silverado 2500 was my first experience with LS power. bone stock 6.0/4L80E 4x4 with 4.10 gears




The factory open-diff 12-bolt let go somewhere in here. It was a big bang on the highway. I threw in the 12-bolt out of our parts truck for a few months until I found a nice 3.73 12-bolt and eventually added a powertrax locker.



The v-belt system also didn't like 6000rpm. I blew through so many v-belts. Every other time the motor would hit 6000 the v-belt would come off. I got to where I could change them in 10 mins flat. The green "garden" v-belts would give me a couple of extra runs, but even they wouldn't last.



It was somewhere in this time period that Old Skool got her name. I was out one night racing a tundra. When I got back one of my buddies told me "everyone was standing on the sideline yelling OLD SKOOL'S GOT IT!" the name has stuck since then.



Then came the manual conversion. A $300 SM465 from an 89 C2500, and a new RAM billet flywheel and musclecar clutch.