Awesome job documenting the build.

 

Back from the dead!

Snow came and I was too busy riding this thing to do anything with the truck haha.




Always tryna catch us ridin' dirty


Anyway, back to the truck, a lot of this is just missed/back logged updates haha.
Frame rails all dry






The snail and clearances and stuff








Trans was a really close to the transmount/subframe and I could hear it rub/hit every now and then so I decided to notch out the subframe and fix that issue before something stupid happened.












Got sick of dealing with mail order tunes and sending efilive logs and **** back and forth so I bought HPTuners and finally installed the Hallman Pro MBC I've had since the beginning of the build. It's still set on the wastegate spring (10psi) but now I've got the ability to crank it up whenever I see fit.


Doing some tweaks on our plow truck hahah


I think this was the second VE table I made for the turbo truck?

 

Ever since the 4.88's were put in the rear end had a slight whine/howl that's been progressively getting worse and worse. Truck has maybe, MAYBE 175 miles on it. Decided to yank the rear and apart and see what the deal was.





The teeth had a gnarly wear pattern on them, the coast side (as seen in this pic) didn't look too bad aside from being worn through the factory hardening lol. The drive side on the other hand was awful and way out on the heel of the teeth. Only thing I can think of was that the stock bearing I used for mockup (did the grind out the inside so it slides on for setting pinion depth, then press new bearing on once shims are set) was a different thickness than the one provided in the USA gear kit.


So not having a new ring and pinion I threw everything back together and ordered a new R&P. I have the new 4.88 R&P here, but I'm not sure if I'm going to stay on 20's or switch to 17's and 4.10's. That'll be decided after the drop goes in.

With the truck being down for a bit, I decided to have my father do some body work on the truck and clean it up a bit.















Annddd, here's some good engine bay pics since I don't think I've uploaded any good ones of just the bay yet.







I've decided to keep this truck for a while and turn into something I can take to grassroots practice events at Clubloose and slide it around a little. So with that decision, I've got new Belltech drop shocks that just came in today. A McGaughy's 4/6 drop (spindles and coils up front, axle flip out back), Belltech shock relocation brackets, a set of Caltracs, and a Hellwig 7800 adjustable rear sway bar are all on order and should be here shortly!

Does anyone know if the following steelies will clear the MCG 17" spindles?? I don't mind trimming the ball joint/nut at all, but I wanna know before I order a bunch of wheels haha.
Cragar Soft 8 Black Wheels 3978960 - SummitRacing.com

I figure a steelie has to be thinner than a cast wheel so they'll probably fit, but I'd like to hear from someone that they've got them or knows for sure it's been done before I order 8 of them haha.

Waiting on tax return money to get here so I can order some bucket seats, and all new brakes plus an extra set of tahoe rear calipers to run the hydro e-brake.

 

Woohoo, good to see you working on it again. Go with 17's, itll be faster. Hell im stickin with 16's on mine. Itll ride better, be less weight to turn, and draw less attention cuz it doesnt have huge rims on it. Just my .02. Keep up the good work!

 

man im really jealous of your build. im going to do a similar build except with a 408 instead of a snail. looks like you do really nice work. i just had my truck on the dyno last night and my trans exploded so now its t56 time. did you have any problems with the drive shaft? mine was torn in half and since i need a new one i figured id make sure the one i get is correct for the new trans.

 

love it, hardly see anyone go with a manual and a turbo in a truck! when do the videos come

 

You having MJ tune your rig? If so I think I saw pics of your d/s on fb the other night haha. I'm still using my stock 4l60e steel driveshaft. Haven't driven the truck enough to go fast with it, and when I have gotten on it it just spins so it's never been under a load of any sort with this setup.
I'm gonna be ordering a custom shaft soonish though, just haven't figured out who to go through yet. I think I might still get a discount at the DSS so I may give them a call.

Hopefully I'll have some sort of burnout video in the next week or so, but I've been telling myself that for the last month so who knows hahah. Really trying to have the truck mostly done before I post up any vids on the fan page and all that.

Hydro e-brake assembly is almost done, should have some "in-progress" pics up of that later tonight.

 

looking forward to the vids, and hopefully a writeup on the ebrake

 

yup, that'd be me. mike did a great job on the tune and very last pull of the damn damn thing let go.

so are you going for a custom shaft for power reasons or does the stocker not fit very well?

edit: this is what we picked up

 

Stock shaft fits fine, slip yoke goes into the trans about 3 out of the 6" with the truck up on the lift, settled on the ground it's about 4.5" out of the 6" into the trans nawmsayin??
I'm going to upgrade because this thing is going to see quite a bit of track abuse if all goes well.

I don't think I can embed vimeo on here, but abuse similar to this haha: https://vimeo.com/48028265