Doubt it, my frame's been modified too much. Don't forget I cut a few cross-members out, re-located the fuel tank, stripped the frame and painted it, Notched the rear, cut up the front bumper brackets for the HD conversion, Ladder bar set-up, etc...
Not to mention all the front suspension and rear suspension parts that are on it.
I think if ever I blow my tranny, I'll ask FLT to change the tailhousing to that of the 4wd version's and buy a transfer case and go from there. There's lots of room on the driver's side since there's no exhaust or manifolds dropping down that way.

 

Made a little progress the past few days, finished up the new engine, got the old trusty 5.3 out.


Old vs. new


Swapped the turbo and manifolds over before setting it in the truck, a little easier than when its already in the engine bay.


Smile for the camera.. Girlfriend is like the paparazzi!


Setting the powerplant into its new home.


And this is where I left off for the night. Getting pretty anxious to drive this thing!

 

Looking good man love the blue block and valve covers

 

Just depends on what you want out of it. If you ever want the truck to be fast on the street, or drag strip most that stuff needs to go. If you just want a cool truck thats good on a road corse then it's set up good. That truck would weigh over 5000lbs 4x4 with those wheels, and brakes and stuff. Also a 4x4 is no good too low because the cv's will be neg. Much neg and they rob power, and are weak.

 

Looking good! That blue isn't half bad!

 

Looks awesome man!


Curious if you are running the stock manifold bolts or studs with the log? Just wondering how well they can withstand the weight of the log and turbo without a brace.

 

Thanks, if I didn't get side tracked with all the cleaning and painting little stuff, I would probably be done by now. As far as the bolts, I am just using some heat treated bolts that we use at work for turbo exhaust manifolds. That's the beauty of working at a cummins plant, unlimited hardware and misc. little parts!

 

haha nice! Not that I wish to have my old job back but sure would be nice to have full access to lifts, air, hardware and all that (Chevy dealer).

 

Well I got everything finished up today. I got a new 34" radiator and a used set of 34" fans for it since it was apart anyways. Truck fired up perfect, 60lb oil pressure at cold idle, drops to about 45 when it gets hot. Going to have to get used to these noisy stiff valve springs again, the ls6 springs I had before were quiet as a could be, but that was with a stock cam also. Could tell I was generous with the oil when I assembled the engine, smoked the neighbors out pretty good for the first minute, then it cleared up completely. The Isky 218/218/112 I am running sounds pretty healthy, Jarrett (Stock48) spec'd it out for me, he also is going to run this same cam in his LS turbo Nova he's building, and judging how well his stuff runs, I have faith it will perform how I want. He has spec'd cams for me in the past which have worked out perfectly. Put about 50 miles on it today, I left the intercooler piping off and just put the air filter on the throttle body so I could break it in the way I like. My method is to let it get up to temp, drive it a mile or so to verify there are no issues, then get on the throttle progressively harder. I did 3-4 pulls each at about 25%, 50%, 75% and then a few quick 100% pulls to about 5k rpm, then I drove it how I would normally drive an N/A engine, not like a high school kid, but not like a grandpa. Hooked the charge piping back up afterwards, going to start tuning in boost starting out very low for a bit, then going to turn it up a bit. Here are some pics of the finished product.

 

looks awesome man! cant wait to see how it runs.



Just curious, when you first test drove it, did you have a filter on the turbo as well? Im thinking to save on doing a mail order base tune that Ill drive my truck to the shop without the intercooler hooked up like you did on your test drive.