Dustin Baker is a small town country guy that grew up on a farm about an hour west of Indianapolis, Indiana. For as long as he can remember, Baker has been wrenching on anything and everything that had a motor.
“Nobody in my family really had a car addiction,” says Baker. “I grew up riding dirt bikes and 4-wheelers. When they broke, my dad would show me – one time – how to fix it, and then it was up to me to finish it if I wanted to ride it. That’s how I learned how to wrench on everything, and I got addicted real fast.”
Since Baker didn’t grow up around a plethora of car enthusiasts, his passion for cars and hot rodding was something he developed on his own, spending countless hours in the garage. At 14, Baker was given his first 1984 Chevy Blazer, which later turned into the first “Spool Bus”.
“Man it was a pile of crap,” says Baker. “All of the windows were busted out, the interior was moldy and wet, the body was rusty and dented up, the motor was locked up and it had a bad transmission. But it was mine and was where everything started for me. I’ve probably had a good 30-plus cars In my lifetime – from Fox body Mustangs and Eclipses to other small block-powered S10s, and even a turbo single-cam Dodge Neon. I have learned to have respect for all various builds of any make or model.”
Baker spent most of his high school career working a minimum wage job so he could assemble his first car.
“My goal was to be able to drive it by my senior year,” Baker explains. “I spent a lot of time during the day at a vocational school rebuilding the 4.3-liter motor that was in the blazer. With about a month left of my senior year, I had the car together and I was able to drive it.”
The Blazer ended up being Baker’s daily driver outside of high school for years. It had the 4.3-liter that he had built in high school and a NV3500 5-speed transmission. At the time it was quite the off-road machine with four-wheel-drive, a lift kit and 31-inch tires. A few years passed before he decided to purchase another daily driver and put the old blazer up on the chopping blocks. The old engine was sold to fund a 383ci stroker with a 5-speed behind it.
“I got it all together but I hardly got any time to drive it like that before being deployed to Iraq In 2009,” admits Baker.
Dustin has been enlisted in the U.S. Army going on 11 years now and is a Staff Sargent, currently serving as a mobile metal worker. While he was deployed, one of his battle buddies had a mildly built LT1 out of his Camaro for sale.
“Man I picked it up for a great deal and threw it in,” says Baker. “It was a basic heads, cam, intake motor that made 320-horsepower on the dyno through the newly added T56 transmission.”
On top serving his country, Baker likes to pick up the occasional side job that’s car related – wrenching, welding, painting, you name it and he can do it.
“I just really enjoy learning more and building things,” says Baker. “I started college at Ivy Tech in Terre Haute where I had some amazing instructors that let me bring the Blazer up to school and work on it as my project. That’s when it started getting interesting. I picked up a P1SC ProCharger for an F-Body. I come to find out that it didn’t even come close to fitting in place. This is what began my road to loving fabricating. I made an engine bracket to mount the P1 on my chassis then added in the well-known big ass front-mount intercooler and started making some boost. We made about 480-wheel horsepower and I just wasn’t pleased with it. We decided to add in a 100-shot of nitrous and gave it hell for a bit. Well, the LT bottom end was short-lived as the crank pulley broke off and took the snout with it.”
After succumbing to the brutal dose of boost and bottle, Baker had virtually no choice other than to rebuild the motor to make live up to the power he wanted to make and the torture he wanted it to endure. Baker ended up selling the ProCharger and nitrous setup with plans to move over to a turbo build.
“At first I started with a Borg Warner S374, but then stepped it up to a S480 the next year. The Blazer was a bright yellow color at this time and that’s where the whole ‘Spool Bus’ thing was born,” Baker continued. “I had a RPM-built faceplated T56 and then decided to ditch the factory Optispark ignition for a cam/crank sensor setup and decided to use MS3 Pro as an engine management solution. I started learning how to tune and mess with timing myself. I did a lot of pulls trying to work the bugs out. One thing I must say is building custom cars has taught me to have an insane amount of patience. Almost every time I tried to make an event the past couple years something catastrophic happened. The first Street Car Takeover in Indy my clutch started going and the second one my transmission pump burnt up and the convertor started locking up while trying to race for 1320Video. Besides the little issues, we had a lot of fun with the ‘Spool Bus’ and the motor lasted a good five-years of beating before the bearings let go. Sadly, it was going to cost more to fix than to jump on the LS bandwagon so I bought a forged 6.0 when I picked up the new project, ‘Spool Bus 2.0’.”
When STREET/RACE Magazine first laid eyes on this new-and-improved version of ‘Spool Bus’ earlier this year at Street Car Takeover Indianapolis, we had no idea this was an entirely new chassis. What we originally thought was a paint job and new turbo set up ended up being quite the change up the original yellow Blazer. Besides the shape of the body, the ‘Spool Bus 2.0’ has an impressive list of improvements that makes this one of the most unique Chevy Blazers in the world.
“The current ‘Spool Bus 2.0’ is a completely new truck from the former yellow version,” says Baker. “The yellow one was a 4×4 chassis on some old torsion bars that got pretty sketchy. While I was at a military school, I stumbled across an abandoned project hotrod in Ohio this guy was selling, and it couldn’t have been more perfect. I picked up the new Blazer and it had a tube chassis with a chrome moly cage, Strange 8.8 rear-end, a mini-tub, Wilwood Brakes, Heidts Mustang II front clip, and it was fresh out of the paint booth. Wildest part of the chassis was the custom one-off design rear suspension setup. I picked it up and tore it down to nothing and started from the bottom up. It had no wiring, fuel lines, brake lines – nothing. I know people will argue that it’s not a street car, but I’ll drive this thing anywhere.”
The countless hours in the garage and years of learning turned an old broke down Blazer into a blueprint for an even better idea and setup.
“I didn’t want to abandon the old bus, but for the money I couldn’t build mine for what it had in it,” Baker continued. “When I first started building the new bus, I ended up not liking the placement of the Single Borg Warner S480 so I sold it for a pair of S360’s. I then also sold the T56 for an RPM built 4l80e with a Rossler transbrake. All in all the current setup is much lighter and safer. With the new twin turbo 6.0 setup I’m hoping to see 1000 to 1100rwhp this year. I’ve always been a street tuner so I have never known the actual power, I have only put as much in it as I could get to the ground. This year I’ll hopefully have all of the bugs worked out and I’m going to attend every event possible. I absolutely love the Street Car Takeover events, and LS Fest was a blast. Planning on hitting the Friday night street car events in Muncie, Indiana, as well.”
As far as driving and racing, Baker loves to do it all. You’ll catch him driving the ‘Spool Bus’ to events – rarely, if ever, on a trailer.
“Like I said I’m not afraid to drive it anywhere,” says Baker. “As far as racing, though, street digs are my favorite for sure. It’s just more exciting on the street and a small town guy like me can compete with some of the bigger money cars. You never know what’s going to happen. I’m not one to turn down a race, win or lose it’s all in good fun.”
Baker is quick to admit that the completion of his project Blazer wasn’t entirely a singular effort, leaning on the support of his girlfriend, children and friends along the way.
“Man, I can’t thank enough people for the support I’ve had on this deal. The actual build was about 99-percent myself out in my garage with the help of my amazing girlfriend Alex and my boys Ezra and little Alex. There are a bunch of companies that helped me out with parts and questions that I’d like to recognize, though, including Justin and David at Rightfootdown, Inc., Jeremy and Jason at RPM Transmissions, Bob at RPM performance, Jamez and Ethan at Hubbard/Halo Racing, Klint and Zach at Eccentric Motorsports, John at Viking Suspension, Jeremy, Cam and Willey at Exclusive Auto design, Joey at Rockstar Window Tint, Alec at Ark Hot Rods, and all the DIYAutoTune guys with the MS3 Pro.”
Having gone through the ups-and-downs of a unique and massively powerful street/strip project build, Baker advises those considering the same thing to never give up.
“I’ve been beat down by the ‘Spool Bus’ for years,” he concludes, with a laugh. “I have put thousands of hours into it just to drop more money when it breaks – sometimes almost immediately. It’s all worth it as soon as you hear the turbos spool and you’re out racing people again.”
Follow Dustin Baker and his awesome street/race ‘Spool Bus 2.0’, as well as the original version (now outfitted with a set of 37” tires and a soon-to-be-installed 4BT Cummins), on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/spoolbus1/?fref=ts
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