Bringing New Life to Your Interior
It's no secret that stock plastic is as exciting as your mom's mini-van; and Armor All can only make it so shiny. A great way to get rid of the stock look in your interior and still have the factory fitment is to smooth and paint the existing plastics. Looking back 6 or 7 years ago, paint and body shops went into fits trying to get paints and primers to stick to the ABS plastic surfaces used on most trucks.

Last month, we showed you the awesome '07 GMC Sierra, which was built by Jared and Reed Fullmer. This month, we'll show you how they got that new fullsize frame to rest on the ground.

For this month's Fantastic Four, we decided to pursue a basic '06 Colorado standard cab with the 2.8L four-cylinder no-frills budget cruiser. The major custom feature of the standard cab shortbed is when it is lowered, the Colorado maintains its proportional aggressive appearance.

If a custom truck was broken down into a pie chart with each modification representing a slice, the largest pieces of the pie would be paint and body and suspension. A custom paintjob has the ability to make or break a truck. Awesome suspension and interiors are cool, but if the truck lacks an overall appealing paintjob, there goes the Best Of trophy. Dave Timm's GMC is lifted high on 40s, but what really catches your eye is the multiple colors of paint with intricate airbrushing all over the truck. Jeff Schroeder of Attitude Airbrushing in Springfield, Illinois, is responsible for the tricked-out paint scheme. He shared with us how he transformed a stock, white Sierra into the cover truck you see here.

In our ever-challenging economy, saving money is of the utmost importance. Gas is at an all-time high with no relief in sight. Attempting to make the most of every $80 fill-up, we contacted Performance Products for a dual electric fan setup from Flex-a-lite.

Lifting or lowering a truck can sometimes take all day, get pretty costly, and require help from friends. For all of you truck owners with torsion-bar front ends on '88-'08 Chevy/GMC, '02-'05 Dodge Rams, and '97-'03 Ford F-150 trucks, there is a quick and easy way to lift your rig up to 3 inches or lower it down 2-1/2 inches. Suspension Maxx has released a special torsion key with an adjustable cam inside the key for rotating the torsion bar and altering the suspension height.

Improving engine performance is a continuous challenge for custom-truck enthusiasts. In this day and age of higher fuel costs, we are always looking for ways to enhance horsepower and increase fuel mileage. We couldn't help but add some bolt-ons to an '06 Dodge Ram equipped with the 5.7L Hemi V-8. Check out the images as we gained more than 30 hp in less than 4 hours.

Imagine an audio and video system that looks as amazing as it sounds. Now, imagine you built it with your own hands. If you have the desire to do just that, or hope to simply conquer ohm's law, then it might be time to further your mobile electronics education. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, with the price of college tuition these days), you won't find the proper training for this field at a four-year university. However, there are several trade schools that can help you start your career and achieve your goals. Truckin' explored these different schools to help you find a place to develop or master the requisite skills needed for this field.

It takes energy to push disorganized exhaust gases out through a vehicle's stock exhaust manifold. Headers don't make horsepower; they relieve the engine from the task of straining itself while extruding gasses through stock exhaust manifolds. Installing properly designed headers will relieve the energy previously wasted by pushing the exhaust gases. This increase in efficiency of installing headers can be thought of as a free horsepower gain.

You all know the scenario: Your new truck looks just like the one down the block and you want a little extra something for your weekend hauler. Bulletproof's new 8-inch kit was the thing to fix that problem on this '07 Silverado 4WD. Its kit is a little taller than the typical 6-inch kit, but it also looked very solid. We hauled the truck full of Bulletproof Suspension parts to 714 Motorsports in Westminster, California, along with an intake and exhaust from Volant and some brand-new rolling stock from Toyo Tires and RBP. Check out the install as the crew at 714 Motorsports got the truck in and out of the shop in one day.

We showed you the details of Reed Fullmer's '07 GMC Sierra, and we're sure you agree it's a nice truck. If you were wondering how they made more than 375 hp to the rear wheels and still received 15 mpg, we'll show you in this story.

Legions of Mopar fans rejoiced in 2003 when Dodge rereleased the Hemi in Dodge Ram trucks. Making 345 hp and 375 lb-ft of torque, these engines made power similar to overhead cam models, but cost less to manufacture. Nothing to sneeze at, the Ram lead the light-duty truck class with power and acceleration, but after placing several of these Dodge trucks on dynos, we've seen most of them average 240-250 hp to the rear wheels. With the new Rams receiving a little more power from the Hemi, ProCharger developed an intercooled supercharger system to wake up those lost ponies and roast the rear tires.

Recently, I had an opportunity to spend a day with "Mr. Horsepower" Nick Arias Jr., while covering a tech article pertaining to an Arias engine he built some time ago. Nick Arias is a man of genius when it comes to innovation, concept, design, pattern-making, development, and manufacturing of complete engines that produce nothing but mega horsepower.

You might recognize this Silverado 1500 from a Fantastic Four article in 2007. This truck was our first GMT-900 to go under the knife, and we really loved the look we got from the Pro Comp lift, wheels, and tires. The JBA headers and exhaust, combined with an AEM intake, boosted power across the rpm range. And, it also gave the truck a couple hundred rpm in the top end before it began to fall off. But even with an extra 25 hp and 23 lb-ft of torque, the truck still was not quite as peppy as it was with its original wheels and tires.

Building a truck is by no means an easy process, such that every bolt lines up the first time, parts are always in stock and shipped the next day-or better yet-people who you're depending on actually pull through. These factors, as well as many others, contribute to the headache and stress in the process of creating a wild show truck, or even an over-the-top daily driver.

Answering the call of dozens of readers who wanted to see more Tacoma tech, we went big with this story. Starting with an '07 Toyota Tacoma PreRunner 2WD with the 4.0L V-6, we contacted Pro Comp for one of its new 6/3.5-inch Stage 2 lift kits with premium MX 2.75c coilovers in the front, strong lift spindles, and MX6 adjustable shocks in the rear. This kit allows the midsize Tacoma to clear fullsize 35-inch Xterrain M/T 3 tires and we ordered those from Pro Comp Tire. Bolted onto 18-inch KMC Hoss wheels with simulated bead locks, the 35-inch tire combo screams custom, especially on the Tacoma. For added power, an Advanced Flow Engineering (aFe) intake was quickly bolted on and a MagnaFlow performance exhaust was installed.

Stance is a major piece of the overall custom-truck package. When building a simple daily driver, getting back to basics is a good thing, especially when talking about dependability, reliability and driveability. Sometimes the more technical we make things, there is a greater risk of error.

We've been fans of regular cab shortbed trucks for a long time, and have featured many of them in the last few issues. Regular cab trucks have great proportions, and just look right, especially when they're lowered. So, when we had the chance to give our Fantastic Four treatment to an '08 GMC Sierra, we jumped at the opportunity.

When I introduced myself to Rodger Lee, the owner of Ironworks Speed & Kustom in Bakersfield, California, I was impressed. He was an unknown, 26-year-old visionary builder with ambition, drive, and knowledge of design, style, and function. He stands 6-feet 6 inches, wears a size 15 Red Wing boot, and his shop dog's name is Jake. I sensed his abilities and self-made customizing business would develop into a key component in the major leagues. Fast forward four years later, the past 18 months I have been making frequent trips to Bakersfield, following along as Rodger, Brycen Smith, and Sean McDougall designed, fabricated, and assembled this one-of-a-kind all-tubular frame and chassis that will be the foundation of the wild custom '57 Chevy pickup, project Black Gold. As I became involved in such an in-depth project, I became more connected and committed to its journey. I have seen it develop from the tubing rack to an incredible masterpiece. Its progression has been documented on the glossy pages of Truckin' in nine tech articles.

We have been following Casey and Ron Scranton's CGS SEMA project of a Ford Sport Trac, named Coppertone. It began with a vision, which was transposed onto paper by rendering artist Sean Smith.

During the past 18 months, we've shown you many different examples of how cool your truck can look doing what we consider the four basic modifications of any custom truck: lift or lowering, wheels/tires, intake, and exhaust. We've provided you with fullsize trucks, minis, and SUVs; Chevy, Ford, Dodge, Nissan, and Toyota trucks; and as you can see, the good times keep on rolling.

Let's face it, the days of finding a cool, cheap classic in your local rag are long gone. For some specialty vehicles, finding a wreck with a salvage title isn't even an option. If your wallet looks like ours after the monthly bills are paid, about the only thing left is jean lint and garage dust. Sometimes a few tools and lots of cleaner is the best method of managing the dollars spent on your aspirations. Unfortunately, all the cleaning in the world wasn't going to turn our longbed into a short one. We decided to put our best foot forward and attempt to convert this '69 Chevy C20 to C10 status, as cheap as we could.

We have been following the buildup of this '57 Chevy pickup since its inception, more than a year ago. Rodger Lee and his crew at Ironworks Speed & Kustoms in Bakersfield, California, have been creating one of the most incredible custom trucks to be documented and laid out in Truckin' pages.

Committing to building an early-model custom truck from scratch can become a major challenge. Using the original parts and pieces, which in some cases are 50 years old, can test your fabricating and mechanical skills. Consider yourself lucky if your project vehicle comes to you in one complete form. Refurbishing worn, original components can be more of a pain than it is worthwhile. Purchasing new re-popped parts is sometimes easier, but watch out for the fitment and quality.

Scott Harris was on us like white on rice about this Chevrolet Colorado project that he was planning on building for the 2007 SEMA Show. We're always in the market for a good story about a cool truck, so we got the opportunity to shoot a couple aspects of the build for this truck. Last month, we showed you the cool interior transformation this Colorado underwent, thanks to Classic Soft Trim.