Chevy Pickup Makes Huge Power With Turbocharged Inline-Six
Blue 1936 Chevy pickup dares to be different with a heavily-built inline-six from a UPS delivery truck that churns out over 1,300 horsepower.
Throughout the course of hot rod history, the premise has remained basically the same – giving vehicles more power and style, with most accomplishing the first task with big V8s or similar powerplants.
The V8 has remained a staple among those looking to swap engines or build powerful street machines for a long time now, and for good reason – they’re quite adept at such tasks, and GM makes a ton of good ones ranging from the old, venerable 350 V8 to the newer school LS family. However, the folks that built this 1936 Chevy pickup decided to do something totally different.
In this recent video from FuelTech USA, we get a close-up look at this incredible 1936 Chevy pickup, which was put together by Graig and Steven Staff from Staff Bros Garage. They just put a proverbial bowtie on this setup, and wanted to get it on the hub dyno and see just what its new powerplant was capable of. The engine itself is really the story here – even though it’s in a truly cool truck – which Staff Bros actually destroked and reduced displacement to 285 cubic-inches as a way to bring the revs up.
The I-6 gets much of its power from a gigantic Garrett 5020 Gen 2 88mm turbo up top – in this video, pumping a massive 42 pounds of boost into the fortified mill, which utilizes FuelTech’s FT600 ECU, FTSPARK ignition system, and EGT-8 CAN. Funny enough, the block itself came from a UPS delivery truck, it seems, but it’s been built to the hilt to handle copious amounts of boost, and rev to a somewhat lofty 7,000 rpm.
Inside, the I-6 features a custom billet steel crank from Marine Crankshaft, forged GRP connecting rods, JE flat top pistons, a dry sump oiling system, a Sissell ported head, and a custom ground Bullet cam. Overall, Staff Bros has spent a considerable amount of time testing this setup – 300-400 hours, it estimates – on top of roughly 1,000 hours of research. Obviously, it would have been much easier (and cheaper) to just stuff a built LS in this thing, but that monumental effort resulted in something truly unique.
Not only is this setup unique, but it’s also incredibly potent – sounding like 1,000 angry bees at its redline, this 1936 Chevy pickup winds up churning out an impressive 1,320 horsepower when it’s all said and done, which should be more than enough to secure some seriously impressive times at the track, too.
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