1996 Chevy 2500 - Mixing Business With Pleasure

In high school, Chris was driving his modified ’86 Camaro through the traps in a quick 12 seconds. He progressed to a family built, 700hp S-10, screaming through the quarter-mile in 10.7 seconds. Although the Dime was great fun, everything changed when Chris visited a local truck tug-of-war. He had always been impressed with monster trucks as a kid, and after watching those high-torque competitors battling it out, he decided that would be the new direction for his hobby.

The family business, Powder Coating by Coolrides in Debary, Florida, has been a great combination of work and play, and that’s where his latest truck was built.

Chris traded the S-10 for this ’96 Chevy 2500, and it was soon rolling on 44-inch tires and 1-ton axles. Unfortunately, he also soon realized that lots more upgrades were required to ensure everything would hold together. Working in their well-equipped garage, Chris and his father, Andy Farrell, stripped the truck down to the cab. The original chassis rails were boxed and additional crossmembers were welded in place to handle the extra weight and new power. Beginning with Rockwell 2.5-ton axles, front and rear, they fabricated triangulated four-links from 1.75-inch DOM tubing with 1-inch Heim joints. The front suspension began with 9-inch lift coils—originally designed for a ’79 Ford F-150—the heaviest coils they could find. Airlift Engineering airbags were fitted inside the springs for additional support. The combination allowed an adjustable spring rate that minimized sway when cornering. “Those bags were a godsend and made the truck handle like a tall sports car,” Andy told us.

The 1-ton differentials that came with the Chevy were not wasted. Chris traded them for the custom US 6x6 two-piece rims that hold the Michelin 16.00 R20 XZL tires used on 2.5-ton military vehicles. Although Chris and his dad tried several tire shops, no one could successfully mount the rims, so they fell back on an old technique: using a can of ether and a lighter. With forklift blades on top of the tires to ensure they did not go anywhere, they filled the tire with ether and lit it off. It seated the tire in an instant. As you can guess, the rims were updated with Sparkle Silver powdercoating—done at the family business.

The engine swap was a masterpiece of careful planning. Instead of creating a Frankenstein monster with Chrysler parts in a Chevrolet using Ford adapters, they transposed everything from the Dodge, including all the support brackets. The motor mounts and transmission supports were carefully repositioned along with the brackets for the air conditioning, intercooler, and all the accessories. (Special thanks to Clay Mooty and his CNC plasma cutter for creating the brackets Chris designed.) Once everything was in place, the engine swap was easy. “Now, if something breaks, we go to the parts store and simply tell them we need parts for a ’93 Dodge,” Andy explains. The Cummins diesel was easy to tune, requiring only a brief trial-and-error adjustment to the fuel screw on the injection pump. Exhaust mods include 4-inch pipes from the backside of the turbo all the way to the twin 5-inch Kenworth stacks in the bed. The truck now gets 16 mpg in town and 20 mpg on the highway, making the daily commute both fun and economical.

The final step was cosmetics, beginning with the interior. This time, the family effort included Chris’ mother, Diana, who handled the upholstery chores, using shades of red and gray leatherette. It was the family’s first attempt at upholstery, so they simply took the original seats apart and copied them with new fabric. Chris handled the stereo, beginning with the Kenwood head unit that powers the Kenwood 6.5-inch component sets in the doors, along with the 4x6 rear fill speakers. A two-channel 400-watt Crunch amp powers the pair of 10-inch subs underneath the back seat.

The build took about a year working part-time at night and on weekends, but Chris says it was worth every minute. In addition to being a cool daily driver and a weekend blast, the truck has become the perfect source of advertising for the business. Although prompted by a tug-of-war competition, the build process turned out so well Chris is still debating whether he will actually compete in tug-of-wars. Whatever the decision, his mixed-up monster is great fun and really good for business!