4 Of a kind! It only took four S10 Blazers to make one!

[tornadocaster]

Hello all.
Thought its time to give back.
7 years ago I moved from British Columba to Alberta. Not having many friends yet and facing the coldest winter I had ever experienced, I thought it was time to build a project. I always wanted a sleeper and one of my favorites was the s10 blazer 1st gen. I had just finishedf helping 2 restorations, the first a 66 GTO convertible and the second a 72 vette convertible. After hearing those old v8s I started getting the bug for a project of my own.
I found a Craigslist special 305 powered blazer which I was so exited to take home I didn't "notice" the rust along all the bottom half. But at least I had motor mounts and the headers and some decent rims.
As we got busier at work this sat in our yard for months, in the mean time I had found another blazer with a 4.3 and a shot transmission but a brand new interior. Parked that one in the yard. Soon after found a long bed s10 with a 350 and 700r tranny which was the combo that I was looking for. So now with 3 trucks I thought I had enough parts to build one. I started removing parts and stripping pieces and I cobbled together what was soon to be a complete blazer ready for an engine, lots of bodywork and paint. By now I knew my way around these trucks.
I Had found a hot rod mag article on a vortex headed $3000 x 400 hp SBC build. So I took the engine from the long bed, sent it out or machining and assembled all the parts I needed. A few YouTube videos and two books later i built my first engine. I was so afraid to start it thinking I screwed something up, it sat in my garage for another season. While I was doing the body work #4 cme into my life. So I stripped #3 and finally gave the engine a home.
Fast Forward to spring 2012 and the blazer came to life...



To be continued .
Cheers
Gio

[zamora7]

So where are ths pictures and videos?

[Doodler]

^^ This ^^

[tornadocaster]

On their way... last night I had no pics on the Ipad. Now I'm at the PC.

[tornadocaster]

This was #4. As you can see it was all pro-touring from here with the 22's. The good was the after I sold the rims the truck was free.
I don't have any particular orders of pictures but I will start with this. This is the only "before" shot I have. Not many "durings" either but a few of the semi-finished product to follow.

[tornadocaster]

First of all I found a picture of inspiration. I had just come back from a hill climb event in southern Italy and while doing research of where this kind of racing is done in Canada I found a few videos of this beast owned by Butch King. He built a brutal snarling blazer that won many of the events in his area. (youtube "butch king blazer")

[tornadocaster]

I thought I had more pictures. I will check at home.
Cheers
Gio

[tornadocaster]

Here's a couple more...

[snopro]

Nice little Blazer, I started a s10 blazer project but moved onto something else before I got the chance to finish it now I wish I did lol.

[dug]

Butchs blazer is badass! I like where yours is going.

[tornadocaster]

Winter in northern Alberta has been clawing into spring in a bad way so this winter I worked on having an organized garage, plumbed for air, ran lots of plugs everywhere and decorated it a bit. When that was done a couple of weeks ago I picked up a brand new weiand 142 supercharger and installed it. After re-learning how to stab a distributor, and getting the timing sort of right, I started it up and fell in love all over again. I should now be pushing around 500 hp at the crank.

Hey I can't close the hood

All this magic... and I can't drive it anyway.

[Todd in Vancouver]

I like this thread and story

Are you out of the deep freeze yet?

[tornadocaster]

Hello Todd
There's still the mountains of black snow around and the streets are always slick from the runoff but we can see grass. Glorious brown grass.
Today it rained a bit and it reminded me of my birthplace. Vancouver.
I miss it there and my mechanic Tony. I guess moving here forced me to learn how to wrench myself.
Just read your build and I feel your passion. You've got so much done and it looks like you're enjoying it. Keep up the good work.
Cheers
Gio

[snopro]

one thing that always bugged me about the s10's and my 88-98 half tons was that you can see like 2 1/2" of frame under the rocker they would look so much cleaner with a body drop or 2x3 tube chassis so that its tucked up underneath

[tornadocaster]

I know. Its so glaring. The body and frame aren't good enough to attempt either. I saw a thread of an s10 blazerbody drop on another site and holy sh%t it is a lot of work. For that amount of work I would tackle another project. Since I am in the sheet metal business I might try a custom metal skirt with built in exhaust (something like a can am racer) I think it would look ok and wouldnt be hard to mock up in painted cardboard at least to see if it looks good enough to commit to steel.
I finally got the courage to wreck one of three hoods. I cut out a template in the shape of the air cleaner and cut out the hole in the hood in the same shape.
So as it sits now I have to get used to it. I would like to do a stainless trim around it around 1 inch wide to both strengthen and keep a theme.
I will eventually like the exhaust to come thru the rear fender with the same steel trim around the exhaust tip.
Most importantly is in the next few days I need to take the truck out and get all that dust off of it.
Cheers
Gio

[CruizinKev]

oh cool s10 looks good so far! nice motor!!

[Poopy]

Did that Butch guy swap out all the suspension for something else? Or is there stuff available for these trucks that works well?

[tornadocaster]

Butch king is like a 3-winged unicorn I hear. The truck in question ended up crashing. Rumor has it is he is rebuilding it. The little I could find is he built his own custom frame and suspension and a motor to match.
I kind of like the mystery of this as when I found the videos of this little truck, it got me motivated to start my project again. In another video i had found you only hear his voice as a co-driver helping a newb race the same course in his own vehicle. This guy knows his racing. At one time the only vehicle that ever beat the blazer was a real rally car. All this info which is easy to google is from 3rd parties. Seems legit.
In my mind anyway.
Cheers
Gio

[tornadocaster]

So I've been working on this trim ring to go around the hole or the air cleaner, one, for looks but also to strengthen the cutout. I will eventually run the exhaust thru matching trims. I like the rivet and aluminum look as I've done throughout my garage. Also if I strip the interior I will keep this theme of black, aluminum and rivets.
Cheers
Gio

[XLexusTech]

I just watched those Videos man that hill climb stuff looks like fun... got to check it out.. Love the truck BTW