No, didnt bother since its been documented so many times. If you have a specific question i can probably amswer it though...

 

Progress is all we ask for! I'm still excited to see all of this unfold.

 

Im still trying to sell my seats if you want to buy them and speed this up

 

About time I updated this...

I finished reassembling the transmission and getting it installed and am pretty happy with how it came out. I give it roughly a 95% chance of working at all, and about an 80% chance of working well

Finally made a good bit of progress towards getting the blower done, but first, here are my plugs after the last run with the turbo. They are B8EFS plugs.

Passenger side (#8 at right):


Driver side (#7 at left):


Looking a little toasty! My radiator is also leaking, so I think I was right in figuring I was at the limit of the 4bolt block. Engine probably would not have lasted much longer at that level.

So onto the blower build. I had to make an exhaust so I decided to do this myself. I got some of the speed engineering headers and their Y pipe. Unfortunately the y pipe will not fit an 80e with an aftermarket pan so I had to make my own. I got a 4' pipe from summit, a flowmaster dual 3" to single 4" merge and some vbands from ebay. I wanted to keep my 5" cutout but there was just not any room. This was my first time making a real exhaust. I think it came out pretty well considering. Only had to do 1 pie cut to make a hard turn.





You can see where I added some bungs to be able to monitor exhaust pressure and egt, since I already had the gauges I figured I would use them.

I also had to block off the turbo feed and rerun the oil cooler lines since the exhaust would now be right there. This is a better spot to run them anyway.



My plan is to put the AC stuff back in and that means making room for the condensor. I worked on making some brackets today to be able to mount the trans cooler, oil cooler, and heat exchanger all in the front of the condensor. There is just not a room in these years but I think I came up with something that will work.




I started it for the first time since October and it idled fine and sounded good, so I think the engine is ok. The headers did turn a nice shade of gold as well. Dont know how long it will last.



And here is the little ****


Installing the blower should be relatively easy except for the fuel rails and regulator. Still debating on that one.

 

What size whipple?

 

Getting there! About time man! Placing the blower on top is easy... but it definitely helps to have another set of hands on deck. They arent light and its a bit of a reach with that weight.

I assume you got a different cam for the blower as opposed to the turbo?

This is a 2.3 whipple BTW

 

Would those 2 rear spark plugs looking hot have anything to do with the rear coolant ports on the heads being plugged by gm? Cant wait to see what you do with the whipple.

 

Ive had a tvs1900 before so im pretty confident of installing, ill just need to do something custom with the fuel rails.

I have all the coolant ports open, they arent closed any more. Its more to do with the block design and the fact those rear cylinders dont have as much cooling to them.

Same cam, kinda curious how it does with the blower. Dont really feel like changing it. Not ideal of course.

 

So maybe i missed it. Did you just get bored of the turbo? Going from 1000hp to 600ish, i wonder how you will like it.

 

Ah, well, a little, but mainly my options were to either upgrade the turbo to go faster and probably break the engine soon after. It was already pushing the heads a little. Or go back to a blower and enjoy the truck. I really didnt want to spend $25k on a 6bolt engine and large turbo, so I straight up traded for a blower. The engine should last a long happy life at this level. I plan to max out the blower, it should make 15psi or so. Who knows, maybe ill upgrade to the 4.0 whipple at some point...