[hewittca]

Now that the core support is finally done, it has unlocked a few more items that I can work on. One thing I hadn't thought about up until recently was the air intake. To me, the air intake is the most out of place looking piece of a modern engine swap. Even so, I did not see a way around one without swapping out the whole intake setup on my engine. With this budget build, that was not happening. So, for now I am going to run a basic cold air intake. This is a universal swap kit from LS Swaps Performance Group made to work with a truck MAF sensor. This is just moc up. I will eventually paint the inlet pipe so it blends in better.







I also had a chance to get the front end pieces reinstalled. First up was the bumper. If you recall, I did a 1" body drop which required dropping the frame horns down 1". This moved the bumper down with it to match with the dropped body. The bumper lines up nicely and all I have left is to mount the braces. Here's a visual reference for what will be very close to the final ride height. The bumper is the lowest part of the center line of the truck.



Before I completely reassemble the front end I wanted to determine if I should repaint the black on the grill. I keep going back and forth between leaving it, painting it back to original '72 style, or removing all the black. I think I've decided on touching up the black, but not repainting it completely. One thing I noticed is I kinda like the look of the black surrounding the headlights. I might have to paint my headlight surrounds even though GM never did this on the GMC.