Big things are happening in the truck market. Last fall, General Motors introduced its all-new Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, and in February, Ford launched the completely redesigned Super Duty trucks. Not content to be left in anybody's tire smoke, Dodge, Toyota, and Nissan have also recently revealed new, updated '07 and '08 models. Here are the highlights.
10 Mostly Worthless Facts
1.We might have found the first Donk to ever hit the big screen. It was a '66 Mustang featured in the crappy sci-fi movie, Cherry 2000, which starred Melanie Griffith. Griffith drove the 'Stang, which was outfitted with a winch and lifted to clear a set of Yokohama off-road tires and 15s. Recognize, bitches! Since there weren't any low-profile tires and huge rims available at the time, the fact that they lifted this car to clear the tires makes it a prehistoric Donk in our book. Either way, it's still lame.
2. Powdercoating your motor mounts will sometimes make you think you have a dead battery and three bad alternators after you reinstall your engine. Don't forget to put a ground strap from your engine block to the chassis and firewall of your truck. Ask Mike how he knows this.
3. A big-block Chevy crankshaft rotates clockwise when the engine is running, so advancing the timing with a crank trigger system requires you to move the pick-up counterclockwise, against the rotation of the engine. Duh.
4. Driving on under-inflated low-profile tires will lead to cracked sidewalls and, in extreme cases, the tread separating completely from the sidewall. Our friend Cory once watched his tire come right off the rim and roll down the 57 freeway, while the sidewall of the tire stayed on the rim, protecting it somewhat as he limped his Nissan to the shoulder of the highway.
5.Installing a carburetor onto an LS2 small-block is interesting, if not unnecessary.
6.Regearing your truck after installing larger- or smaller-diameter tires can help improve driveability, but it can also make fuel economy even worse if you pick the wrong ring-and-pinion gears. The goal should be to put the engine back into its powerband (near peak torque) at cruising speeds on the freeway. If you miss the mark, you could find that you'll have to push harder on the go-pedal to get the truck up to speed or that the engine is racing along at a very high rpm at cruising speed.
7.Ex-Nba star Dennis Rodman used to own a lifted Ford pickup with a monster audio system and the name W.F.O. airbrushed on the tailgate.
8.If you look closely at re-runs of The Dukes of Hazzard, you might notice that sometimes Jesse Duke drives a '73 Ford F-100 Ranger, and other times, he's piloting a Dodge painted dirty white to throw you off. If you want to see some bitchen models of all the regular Duke's vehicles, visit: users.pandora.be/roadmaster and click the Scale Models link.
9.This issue of Sport Truck has something extra special bound inside, and if you like this issue, then you are gonna love the next three in a row.
10.The firing order for most GM engines used to be 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2. The LS-series small-block Chevy swaps cylinders 3 and 2, and 4 and 7, and is reportedly worth more horsepower with the right intake manifold and header combination.