During the NHRDA Texas Nationals, we came across this killer ’77 C20 Suburban. The owner, Phil Waddell had entered it into the show and shine.

“I wanted ice cold AC, heat and it needed to be intercooled,” said Waddell. “A lot of conversions don’t have those,” he continued. The intercooler posed the biggest challenge of the three because there isn’t a whole lot of room between the radiator and the front grille.

But what was he intercooling? Waddell pulled an engine out of a ’95 2500 and mated that to a GM turbo 400. Behind the turbo 400 is a Gear Vendor overdrive unit to help lower the RPM’s at highway speeds.

The engine itself is mildly built. Waddell opted for an Industrial Injection p-pump with custom delivery valves. The injection pump feeds a set of Bosch 370 injectors. To ensure the heads stay down and that combustion only happens inside of the cylinder, a set of ARP bolts were installed along with some Hamilton Cams valve springs. Once the combustion is complete, the exhaust is sent through the Industrial Injection 62mm turbocharger. The turbocharger compresses the incoming air (also, heating it) and sends the boosted air into a factory Dodge intercooler. Once cooled, the air is directed back into the intake for the whole process to start over again.

Once Waddell got the truck up and running, he took it over to John Robinson at Texas Diesel Power to have AFC mods done. The Suburban has rolled a best of 476 horsepower on the dyno with this combination.

Once he had a solid powertrain, Waddell focused on the rest of the truck. He basically restored the truck back to its former glory while upgrading a few things here and there. The interior was left mostly stock with the exception of a few gauges to keep an eye on key vitals. The exterior received a very unique Line-X coating. For wheels and tires, he opted for a set of 17” Fuel Offroad wheels wrapped in Bridgestone Duravis 265/70R17’s.

“Believe it not, that is the stock suspension under the truck,” explained Waddell. He replaced the bushings, but the springs, control arms and remaining components are all stock 1977 C20 suspension components. Another nice aspect about the Suburban is that it is old enough to be registered as an Antique; so no inspections, no smoke, no emissions to worry about.

While this isn’t exactly his daily driver, Waddell does put drive this quite often and enjoys the Suburban very much.