Take a closer look at the next step in Dieselworld Mag’s editorial build

If you’ve been around for a while (or not) you’ve probably seen “Stock to Not” littered throughout show coverage, tech articles, and my editor piece in the front of every issue, giving little updates as to what the plans forward are with this build. We’ve gone to countless events, done over 35,000 miles over the past year and a half showing the Diesel World that building a higher power truck is attainable by ANYONE! This truck has been built in the driveway, hands on by me and some really close friends – and honestly that’s what this hobby is all about! The memories made with this little single cab 12 valve are imprinted into my head for eternity and I’m super happy to say we’ve done it all ourselves, minus machine work.

THE PLANS

Stock to not has one huge issue right now at the current power level – it doesn’t hook! Being that it is 2wd and pretty light for what it is, the truck loves blowing the tires off under wide open throttle and for drag racing, that’s less than ideal. I’ve mentioned the 4wd swap coming soon in prior issues and now is the time!

A few months back, we purchased this cab n chassis 1998 12 valve (yes it’s a 98 with the newer dash) and have been doing little things to it like the very common Dana 60 CAD delete and rebuilding the transfer case with Torqueking 4×4 parts, but the real work is just upon us. This truck clearly is not a single cab long bed length, but we are about to go around our ass to get to our elbow in this situation, and I can’t wait to take you all through it.

This chassis will get shortened to single cab long bed length so we can bolt our existing bed right down on this old girl, along with a 4 link suspension front and rear, and a little bit of DOM on the back half to save some weight…. But the real question is, why are we doing all of this?

The real answer is – I have an addiction to these second gens and I’m pulling all of my readers in with me! But seriously, I’ve been watching some awesome creators online like Cleetus Mcfarland and Robert Rowley do events like Sick Week and other drag n drive events and that has me 100% intrigued with going out to do a few of them over the course of 2025/2026 along with a trip to SEMA 2025.  There’s so much fun being had and I’m having some serious FOMO.

I want to say thank you to all of the companies and sponsors that have been making this build possible like REVMAX Convertors, Smeding Diesel, FASS motorsports, Dynomite Diesel Products, Precision Replacement parts, Liberty Forged, Dusk Till Dawn Diesel, and Nick’s 4×4 and More. I can’t wait to show you all more on this build coming next issue!