Last few days I've gotten the downpipe made, intercooler mounted and pipes mocked up (their off to be tig welded today), the rear end is out and my buddy is pressing the bearings onto the carrier today as well.

Downpipe tacked together








The intercooler mounting was super simple, held it up there, measured it center, drilled some holes in the lower rad support, used the spacers that came in the intercooler kit and boom, bottom was bolted in. Holes in lower support were 5/16"...for some reason the aluminum spacers that came in the intercooler kit were threaded, so I just drilled those out to 5/16" as well.




Excuse these next few blurry pics...I dunno what's going on with this stupid droid phone, or maybe it's just me lol.


Cut the factory latch support right through the middle of the welds where the latch mounting piece attaches to the square pipes. I then made up some little 3/16" pieces that bolt to the intercooler then to the support. Eventually when I get a tig welder I'll pull this back apart and make some aluminum pieces I can tig to the brace.




I then got to trimming the grille out. Even though the truck is supposed to be a sleeper...I still want some things to stand out haha.

 

wow looking good nice work keep it up

 

Thanks man!

Got the intercooler pipes back Thursday night and got them installed. Ordered the new front bumper, lower valance and bumper cap, those came in earlier today, gotta paint those and the grille tomorrow. Ran some vacuum lines and got my Vibrant boost block/junction in today. Also went and picked up a set of Boss Wheels 20's. Ad said tires were in excellent shape, but for $600 I wasn't expecting much...ad was true! Tires are like new, some 285/60/20 Goodyear Eagle LS's! Gotta plastidip those black tomorrow too.





















I'm really pleased with how everything's coming together! Hopefully I can get it finished up and drive it for a week or two before the heavy snow shows up here

 

I'm amazed and envious at how fast you WORK. And even take time to document the steps... Wish I could just dig in & get 'er done like you are here. This amount of work would take me months....

 

Thank you man! I'm bustin my *** trying to get this thing done so A) I can drive it before it snows and B) we can get our other bay back for customer work haha. It's been some late nights, working on this after work then hitting the gym and getting some Halo 4 in here and there hahaha.

Got the rear end buttoned up earlier today! My good friend Jesse/Junior came over and helped out a ton, he's done a few GM rear ends/gears/whatever before so having the extra bit of knowledge/experience made the process really fun and somewhat simple. Earlier in the week I had another buddy take the carrier and old pinion to his work to press the new carrier bearings on and pull the old pinion bearings off.

Getting started, new 4.88 pinion on the left, stock whatever the hell it was on the right lol. Hopefully that little guy doesn't strip out at some point lol.


I took the old pinion bearings and ground the inside of them down, that way they slid right over the press part of the new pinion so we could test assemble and measure everything before pressing everything together the final time.


Old bearing slid over the new pinion


Measuring some shims. Stock pinion shim was 37 thousandths. After measuring and checking the pattern and all that we ended up with 23 thousandths if my memory serves me...had a lot of numbers going around today haha.


Things installed for the first time, setting up the dial indicator


So here's my favorite part of the day! We got everything set and measured and ready to press the new pinion bearing onto the pinion. My friend with the press that was gonna help us was still about an hour away from being back from a roadtrip and I'm rather impatient so me and Junior started trying to come up with a way to press the new pinion bearing on without destroying it. I looked over and saw our rad new spring compressor on the wall and thought...hmmm....what if I get a level base and use the old bearing (which I'd already ground down so it slide over the pinion nawmsayin!?) to press the new one down.....It worked like a charm!!!!

I got a small plate of scrap 3/16" steel, set it on the bottom clamps, got out this sweet magnetic Blue Point mini level I've got, leveled that "base", had Junior hold the pinion while I cranked the compressor down and BAM, all was well!




R & P in, carrier in and caps torqued


Axle clips, spacer and cover/C-clip installed


TA girdle cover bolted up!


Test fitting the Boss 313 20's...chrome is not my thing, at least not on this rig


Plasti-Dip'ing. First time using this stuff....it's like wizardry...It seems like everything about this stuff is backwards from normal paint hahah






On the truck. Need to get the rear shackles in and maybe drop spindles up front...not sure if the front would clear with the 285/60/20 Goodyear's though.




In the bottom of the last pic you can see the bumper and lower valence I prepped for paint. Gotta get some black plasticoat for the valence tomorrow and spray the bumper. Also cleaned up/smoothed the transition on the downpipe inlet (from the turbo) and welded the wideband bung in. Hopefully I'll have the front end back together tomorrow and the carpet/seats reinstalled and who knows what else lol.

 

do u know how tall those spacers are that u made to raise the stock fuel rail?i have to do the same thing on mine as the taller injectors and want to get it right not guess. thanks

 

99% sure I cut them all right around 5/8"...definitely not exact 'cause I was just using a cut off tool, so as long as you're around there you should be fine. You just want the injectors to seat in fully, these bolts are just to snug them in and keep them from popping out for some reason, not to press/torque the injectors down in ya know.

 

oh ok thanks for the help i will be doing mine shortly

 

Cool project. Where in VT are you? Good to see another guy from New England on here. Can't wait to see it at NED. Although you might be closer to Lebanon Valley depending where you are in VT.

 

this is some good stuff man, really like all the documentation detail you have done so far.