Return Of The Alabama Army Truck

Building A Bigger Big Chevy For Dirt Every Day.

- Fred Williams

THE 1986 CHEVY TRUCK I BUILT three years ago has been sitting idle a few years now. The K30 square-body, referred to as the Alabama Army Truck, had gotten a 550hp supercharged Chevy 6.2L crate engine, but then that engine was robbed for my Jeep, along with the transmission. And then the truck got mothballed. But readers of 4WOR and viewers of Dirt Every Day have been asking for it back, so I decided I would rebuild it bigger than ever. I had just two weeks to make the work happen for an upcoming Dirt Every Day episode, so I called everybody I thought might want to work on it and begged them to come help, and we knocked the build out of the park.

The old engine was impressive but very expensive. This time I opted for a used 8.1L big-block Chevy from a 3 ⁄4-ton Suburban for good power on a budget. I also wanted to run the new 42-inch Trepador tires from Maxxis and have enough gearing to make them work, not to mention rehash the entire suspension. It wasn’t the easiest build, but it came together quickly and resulted in a truck that is fun to wheel and worked better than expected. You can see it all on an upcoming episode of Dirt Every Day on You- Tube. Here is a behind-the-scenes look at how it went down. We’ll show you more on the 8.1L engine swap and suspension build in future issues of 4WOR.