Dustin Baker’s ‘Spool Bus’
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 fr cars and hot rodding
was something he developed on his own, spend-
ing 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 transmis-
sion. 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.”
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.
Baker spent most of his high school career
working a minimum wage job so he could as-
semble his first car. “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.”
“My goal was to be able to drive it by my senior
year,” Baker explains. “I spent a lot of time during On top serving his country, Baker likes to pick up
the occasional side job that’s car related – wrench-
22
STREETRACE
ing, 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 instruc-
tors 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