For a while now I've wanted to build a sport truck.  But of course full size trucks are expensive, and turning one into a sport truck is even more expensive.  For those who don't know, a sport truck is a custom, lowered truck.  They're also known as street trucks.  Like I said, they're usually lowered with nice wheels and custom paint jobs.

So to start the project I would obviously first need a truck.  I've always liked Chevy/GMC trucks the best.  In my opinion they looked the best and seemed to be the best truck to customize.  So for close to a year I shopped around for a decent used truck that was both affordable and in good condition.

I finally found a truck in 2000.  It was a 1993 GMC Sierra 1500 extended cab truck.  It had a V8, 305 engine with 100,000 miles on it.  Sure it was a lot of miles but the truck ran great.  It would start right up, idled perfectly, and still had lots of power.  The exterior paint was a weird green color that I've never seen on a truck before.  Other than that, the truck was completely stock which gave me a nice base to begin with.  So I bought it for $6,500.

One of the first things I did to the truck was remove all exterior emblems, door guards, etc.  Since the truck was stock, I removed the cheesy little chrome fender guards, followed by the black rubber door guards, and finally the GMC/Sierra emblems.  I wanted the truck to have a smooth hot rod feel to it.  

The next thing I wanted to do was lower the truck.  So a few months later I bought a 4"/6" Beltech lowering kit from Traders Trucks.  The experience I had with Traders Trucks was horrible, and I suggest everyone use a different company.  Anyways, when I finally did receive my lowering kit I decided to lower the truck myself.

The lowering kit itself contains a rear flip kit which takes the rear axle and moves it from underneath the leaf springs to on top of the springs.  Thus lowering the rear end 6 inches.  The kit also included 2 inch dropped springs and 2 inch dropped spindles for the front.  Used together they'll lower the front of the truck 4 inches.  Now with stock GM trucks, the rear end sits 2 inches higher in the rear.  So if I lower it 6 inches in the rear and 4 inches in the front, the truck will sit level all the way around.  

It took me and a friend 2 days to lower the rear end.  We decided to remove the bed of the truck to make things a lot easier.  We then had to put the rear end on jack stands and remove the wheels and leaf springs.  The axle was then held up with additional jack stands.  Next we had to cut a C-notch in the frame.  We had to perform this to allow clearance for the axle, other wise since the axle was moving up 6 inches it would hit the frame.  Once the frame was C-notched and reinforced with additional steel, we then mounted the axle on top of the leaf springs and put everything back together.  The rear of the truck now sat 6 inches lower or 4 inches lower than the front.

The next weekend I went ahead and installed the new front-end lowered springs and spindles.  This was a fairly simple process and only took several hours to complete.  Now the truck was lowered 4 inches in the front and was level all the way around.  

The truck stayed like this for a good year before I finally decided to update the front end.  In 1994 GM trucks released a new front end design with a nicer grill housing, side marker lenses, and running lights.  Since mine was a '93 it had the older style.  Now the differences were not huge, but to use truck lovers they were noticable.  So I ordered a front end update kit which updates trucks from a 88-93 front end to a 94-98 front end.  The kit included new bumper brackets to move the bumper up and forward, filler plates to sit behind the bumper, new clear side marker lenses and clear diamond running lights, and a new grill housing with a high density Billet grill.

The grill housing was only primered and needed to be painted to match the truck.  But before I got that painted I decided to get a few other things for the truck that also needed to be painted.  I bought a smoothy front bumper, sport mirrors for the sides, and a steel roll pan for the rear.  Once I had all these parts I took the truck to a body shop and had them paint all the parts and install them on the truck.

And that's where I'm at now.  The truck has sat in this state for the past 3-4 years.  I'd like to get new wheels and tires for it, but those are expensive and something that I have no money for right now.  But keep checking back here for updates on my sport truck project.  You can see pictures of my project in the gallery here >> My Sport Truck Gallery.