In 2004 I bought a 1971 Chevy C10 for my son as a graduation present. He was racing dirt bikes at the time and really wanted a truck with a full size bed to haul them around. We paid $6500 for a real clean rig, 350/350 fairly stock truck. My son wanted to dress things up a bit so we went with some nice headers, a polished intake and an Edelbrock 1406, 600CFM carb. Nice open exhaust through 40 series Flowmasters and it turned out real nice and had a pleasant burble to the exhaust. What Ryan (my son) didn’t realize is that I purposely went with the little Edelbrock to tone things down a bit. He has loved this truck and the entire family has used it a lot. His dirt bike days are done, he’s married, responsible and a real joy to his mother and me.

The truck still lives at my house as Ryan doesn’t have room to park it and it doesn’t go out real often. A while back I made a decision that it was time to refresh the look on the truck and I lined up a fantastic body and paint man and we’ll be getting the truck redone soon. In the meantime, it was time to look under the hood and now that Ryan is “all grown up” I decided that the truck should return to its roots – or close anyway. I bought a Weiand spread-bore manifold and a new 750 Quadrajet. While we were there, we replaced plugs, cap, and rotor.

Fires right up, set initial at 8 degrees, 32 all in and go for a drive. I truly believe that on the eighth day, God created the Quadrajet. This 350 idles like smooth bourbon and I just love the sound and the feel when those monster secondaries come to life. First time Ryan drove it he came back with a big smile on his face, “Nice dad – real nice.”

Ahh gotta love the Quadrajet