Owner: Robert Cheever | Location: Mascot, TN
The Canvas: 1983 Chevy C10 Short Bed
They say you don’t buy a Square Body; you adopt a family member. You don’t just buy the metal; you buy the history, the dents, the rust, and the potential.
We all know that feeling. You stare at a truck that needs everything—floor pans, cab corners, paint, wiring—and where most people see a headache, we see a dream. We see the finished product sitting low on the pavement, the idle chopping hard, and the sun hitting that perfect body line that only GM got right in the 80s.
This is the start of that journey for my ’83 Short Bed.
Right now, she’s in the “drawing stages.” The truck needs a complete restoration, frame-off, nut-and-bolt love. But the vision is already locked in. This isn’t going to be a quiet farm truck. This is being built to street brawl in East Tennessee.
The Blueprint
The heart of this build is a 6.0L LS swap that’s getting built for violence. We are shooting for 11:1 compression to make sure it snaps your neck when you hit the throttle.
• The Lungs: Straub Technologies VEPR LS Heads (the secret sauce).
• The Chop: A Sloppy Mechanics Stage 2 Cam (because if it doesn’t sound angry at idle, what’s the point?).
• The Trans: A built 4L80E with a Transgo Shift Kit to handle the abuse, paired with a 3000 stall converter to get it out of the hole.
• The Rear: A 3.90 Limited Slip setup to make sure both tires eat.
• The Shoes: Staggered SSR Spike wheels—15×10 in the rear for the meat, and 17×4.5 runners up front for that aggressive street/strip stance. ( Rear 15×10 SSR Spike ) ( Front Runners 17×4.5 SSR )
The Phase 1 Plan
We are going to get it running on the stock EFI and intake first, work out the bugs, and get the chassis dialed. Once the truck proves itself, we tear into the motor for the heads, cam, and compression bump.
Why We Do It
Why spend the money? Why bust the knuckles? Why spend late nights in the garage in Mascot when we could just buy something new with a warranty?
Because a new truck doesn’t have a soul. A new truck doesn’t shake the ground when it fires up. We do this because we are the keepers of the flame. We build them because we have to.
Welcome to the build. Grab a cold one and watch us turn this dream into a reality.
