This 49 Chevy truck was sent to us by a customer in Canada.  It was built as a pure road-race truck, and we are going to turn it into more of a street-race truck.  The plan is to add a custom wood bed, gut the race-inspired interior for a more luxurious leather trimmed interior, add air conditioning, and finish up some of the sheetmetal (inner fenders, bed extensions, dash, etc..).  

It arrived with a bunch of boxes of parts, but in great running condition.  An LSX 454 and 6-speed power this beast - something like 700HP on tap!!!  

First order of business was to move the front high-mounted fuel cell to under the rear of the bed so a wood bed could be installed.  This required using a new fuel cell container, rerouting the exhaust around it, and ditching the top-mounted track bar - replacing it with a bottom-mounted panhard bar.

The engine bay was built for racing, meaning minimal extras, a front accessory drive setup for just alternator and power steering, and no innerfenders.  For the street, we swapped in a Billet Specialties serpentine belt accessory drive in order to add an AC compressor, and added factory inner-fenders painted to match the body.

The wiring was a bit of a mess, so quite a bit of cleanup was done there.  These are the before pics...just too much extra wiring that was unnecessary.  Wires to the engine area had to be rerouted to clear the new inner fenders.

Under the dash after wiring changes, and fenderwell wiring rerouted...

Without the typical runningboards, the frame is exposed behind the cab, so bed extensions were built and painted to match.  The factory style taillights stuck out too much for our taste, so more flush-mounted LED lights were added instead.

We removed all the gauges and switches that hung from the bottom of the dash, then built an extension that adds 2" to the bottom of the dash to hold all the gauges and the added AC vents.  The original speaker grill on the dash was filled with new speakers.  AC controls mounted in dash, and Vintage Air AC system tucked up under.  Custom seats and a center console are being mocked up in place...

A custom wood bed made from Sapelle wood that will be stained a dark walnut color..

The interior was sharply dressed up with custom seats fro TMI, then the console was wrapped and stitched to match, as were a rear panel behind the seats, a headliner and doorpanels.  Custom carpet was cut and fitted around the  Tilton pedals.

Underside was finished up with custom coated exhaust, wrapped around the fuel cell, exiting in the center rear.  Everything under here is powdercoated, ceramic coated, chromed or polished !!!

All done and looking good !!!