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You are right in that the preload on the coilovers are not meant to be adjusted for height. The idea is to preload the shock what is needed to get the shock in the middle of its travel. If you are cranking the springs to add height, then it sounds like you need a longer shock. The ride can be tuned both with spring rate and with the shock settings. If its bouncy, you need to increase the shock settings. If its too low for wanting to raise it back up you need to remeasure between the lower shock bolt and the top of the frame shock mount and I can help recommend a stiffer and taller combo.
The engine moves quite a bit under load with the factory motor mounts, even if they are fine. This is by design. The downpipe probably moves a good inch or two.
3psi isnt anything to see any temp increase with.
I appreciate the concise info. I'll report back in a few days when I reinstall the stock spindles. I want to have the local mandrel exhaust shop make me a new downpipe as there's a ton of room to work with.
Ok so I had a chance on Saturday night to throw the stock spindles on. I am lucky I had my original a-arms as I got the truck tore apart only to realize I had cut the balljoint studs on my replacement a-arms when I put the Belltech spindles on, in order to clear my stock 17's. The original arms have loose balljoints, I'll get to that at some point. Anyhow, the ride quality is really good now that the front is raised up 2"!!! Everything seems in harmony. I trimmed 2 layers off the Prothane bumpstops. The CV axles are pointed ever so slightly upwards, and I think I am at the same ride height as Atomic. I actually thought about keeping my Belltech spindles and getting a longer shock and different spring, but this thing is already a money pit as it is.
I need to wire up my Aeroforce for the electric fuel pressure sensor, for the time being I am just setting base fuel pressure with vacuum off, so I actually don't know what fuel pressure is doing at 3psi... my AFR's are ALL over the map. Idle sometimes shows in the 16's, but under 2psi boost they are in the high 12s to mid 13s. I think I may have damaged my wideband sensor, as I mistakenly had it installed in the bung closest to the turbo. I never ran the sensor without power (I know that will quickly ruin it) but I did run it super close to the exhaust housing. I have recalibrated it several times but I have no real way of knowing if it's ruined or not. Either way, I think I will replace the sensor and chalk that up to newb error, so I can start logging. I realized it would be stupid to go to the dyno until I can self tune the truck at least at WOT, otherwise who knows what stupid issue would send me home at that point. Plus it sounds like a real hassle changing gate springs at the dyno? All in all I'm kinda turbo newb glitching a bit about the tuning process, I realized if I can bolt a top end together and get a turbo running I should be able to at least watch a youtube video and do some basic logging
Anyhow I've put about 1000 miles on the truck, and solved quite a few bugs in the process, sorted out the suspension, etc. The closest mandrel exhaust shop is about 100 miles away in Bakersfield, so I took a chance and had the local muffler shop make me a 3" crimp system. Needless to say the 3" crimp system looked like ****, choked the motor, and I couldn't even hear the exhaust period or the turbo it was so quiet. I promptly drove to the mandrel shop the next day and had them make me a 4" system with a Magnaflow 30" long 12772 muffler that I brought along. For $200, I am pretty stoked. Complete back woods mandrel muffler shop that's been there forever, but they do really good work and everything is T409. I have some drone but seems like the more I drive it (maybe some of the fiberglass packing burned off), the drone reduces a bit. Either way I plan to do a j-tube here pretty shortly. I can't say I'm thrilled with the tone of the exhaust. It's decently quiet but it's also bassy and almost sounds like a turbo Supra under load. Kinda strange.
Anyways, a few pics. Had the chance to wash the truck and wipe down the engine bay finally. I need to clean up my vacuum lines, I'm still undecided where I want to mount the splitter.
That exhaust looks really good! I wish someone around here could do mandrel bends on 4" stuff but I thought you needed a $50,000 piece of equipment to do that, or cut up premade bends.
That exhaust looks really good! I wish someone around here could do mandrel bends on 4" stuff but I thought you needed a $50,000 piece of equipment to do that, or cut up premade bends.
Yes, usually a Hines machine and then the different fixtures for pipe sizes. These guys use a different machine for every pipe diameter, not sure if that's normal or what. These guys are a complete anomaly...deeeeep in the ghetto, the original owner Bob passed away 8 years ago and now his son runs it and it's a real filthy place, they have 5 drive-on lifts and a crew of guys building exhausts, replacing cats etc all day long. There are two skilled builders that I ask for when I go in there.
Ok guys I'm headed to the dyno March 24th. I've put 1200 miles on the truck so far at 4psi and it feels great. I'm hoping to make 500-550whp or so, nothing crazy, and my tuner and I plan to do a flex fuel tune so I can E85 most of the time, and 91 when necessary. I'm lucky to have an E85 station about a mile from work, but it'll be neat to be able to fill up on 91 if I go out of town without worrying about loading another tune. I preemptively bought a yellow ethanol gas cap from a flex fuel truck to compliment my existing flex fuel badge on the tailgate. I don't only want to run E85 for power/octane reasons, I also think it's neat that it's a cleaner burning fuel, it smells cool, and since it's readily available I started the build with the goal of using E85 99% of the time.
I am super stoked on how the craigslist trans is shifting, it has not skipped a single beat (fingers crossed) and the converter feels great. Even if the trans starts slipping when the truck sees real power, it has done its job and then some. At that point it will be a basic r&r with a jake's unit or whichever. The truck does feel a tad soggy off idle but hopefully the tune will help with that. Otherwise it's a fact of life with the converter and 80e ratios, 3.42 gears and 31" tires.
As far as the exhaust, I want to change muffler and add a j-tube. I can definitely cruise around town without fear of the law, it's not significantly louder than your average lifted chebby with a flowmaster. It's fairly quiet at idle, just bassy. Sounds pretty mean at wot though that's for sure. I'm trying to decide which muffler to go with next. I've found only one youtube video of a Corsa muffler when used on a turbo Silverado, and it sounds pretty loud at idle to me, almost like your standard longtube/ no cats kinda truck. Who knows how loud it would be at wot or cruising. Anyone have any muffler suggestions? MBRP? Flo-Pro? The Corsa is $500, that's an expensive experiment considering the Magnaflow was $130. But, the Magnaflow I have (30" long) does neck down to 3.5" inside, not sure how much that is restricting me.
I also had a chance to fix my diff leak. The Moser preload studs were leaking pretty good. Lesson learned, use thread sealant on the preload studs as well as the fill/ drain plugs.
I did install some eBay 1" lift blocks to bring the *** end up just a bit. Next up I need to get tires for the 18" Centerlines I found on Craigslist. Wheels are an individual preference, although I know most on the site will not like the wheels I chose. I like the old man look: 18" Centerlines with nice big sidewalls. Going to go with 275/60/18, 285/55/18, or 285/60/18 when the wheels come back from polishing. I have not decided. The pic below is the fronts just bolted on so I could cruise around and make sure 285's clear (wheels came with junk 285/60/18 tires, 1 of which doesn't even hold air so I only bolted the fronts on). They clear perfect with not an ounce of rubbing, but I do have Atomic's coilovers so no more torsion bars. Btw - on my truck I found the perfect QA1 shock setting to be 12. Here is the truck as of this morning.
Looking over your pics very clean install.
I noticed a couple of things might motion to you.
The AC line can not touch the hot pipes even with wrap / sleeve. The silver sleeve is a reflective thermal barrier more then a contact thermal area.
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The down pipe being wrapped that low will push it over towards the frame.
This will change its the rotation of the fownpipe at the turbo.
also pushes your waste gate vent tube over. To compensate for the fit the down pipe at the turbo will usually be down and towards the engine side slightly. Or there's a bind at the gate connection.
That also drops the down pipe a little in relation to the vband.
If you keep the wrap I would market the inside edge where it's close/touching crossover.
And flatten that area. Or dent that area to push the down pipe back over away from the frame.
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Feb 14, 2016 | 08:10 PM
