It might have already been said but anything done to the motor on that pre-runner chevy in the vid? That thing looks like it can take a pounding.

 

The dark silver pre-runner has a stock 5.3L.

 

I was able to get a few things accomplished today, all in all it felt like I took two steps forward and one step back but with the help of Lee (SloXcab) and a couple other buddies who are just learning how to turn a wrench, I was able to drop the engine and transmission in the truck.
Turned out to be a bigger headache than it should of been as I decided to drop them in together rather than one at a time. I've seen people do it before so didn't think it would be that big of a deal since I had the whole front end off, but it didn't turn out that way unfortunately.

First off, here's the motor and tranny...



The transmission is the same FLT 4L80-e Lvl-5 that I've been using the last few years.

As far as the motor is concerned, some of you may be familiar with this motor, it's actually Jarrett's (stock48) motor out of his 9 second truck GMC truck. The details of how this came about is a bit complicated but this wasn't the original plan. Unlike most anyone that I've ever dealt with, when some complications arose with the motor he was building for me, instead of running me through the ringer for another couple months until the issues could get ironed out, he offered to sell me his engine as a hold over until my engine is completed and when that motor gets done I have the choice of just keeping his or taking mine. Never really came across anyone who would step up to the plate like that but I'm extremely happy with this turn of events. Stand up guy, no question about it!
Specs on the motor are forged 370, ported 317 heads, custom gas ported forged pistons, comstar rods, isky 215/215 cam and the rest of it I'll just let him explain if necessary. But all in all this motor's reputation kinda speaks for itself!

So, with that being said...IN IT WENT!!



So the problem that arose was with the cross-member that's just aft of the rack and pinion. No matter what kind of finagling we could come up with we couldn't get the oil pan over it without having the heads hit the firewall. We even pulled the valve covers but to no avail. So instead of separating the two we just pulled that cross-member out and hung the motor in place right above the motor mounts and re-installed the cross-member before dropping the motor onto the mounts. I was a bit reluctant to do it because pulling that cross-member because of what it supports and what's connected to it but all-in-all it turned out alright.

So it went in...



However I'm still not in the clear yet as I'm gonna end up having to pull the oil pan off the motor. There is a turbo oil return line that's been tapped into the bottom of the oil pan that is well positioned in a 4x4 configuration but in my 2wd truck it hit's the rack and pinion. So I'm gonna pull the pan, plug that hole and tap another oil return line that will clear everything.

I don't want to move forward until I sort out a few of those issues as well as clean up my wiring. I did pull out the windshield wiper tank, PCM bracket and battery tray and am modifying the stock tray to be able to fit the PCM in place of where the battery used to be.



I have a replacement windshield wiper tank that has a meth pump in it and will install that instead. That's if for today, tomorrow I might be able to work on it for a little bit, so we'll see what I can get accomplished then.

 

Lookin good man, happy to see you're making progress.

 

It was nice to have a DJ and some cheerleaders while working on your rig lol

 

Thank you sir!
PM sent

Yeah we might need to fire "DJ One Ton"! Also the pics he took were terrible. He took like 10 pictures of the same thing, if you look at them really fast they look like those picture motion books from back in the 20's and 30's and half the pics are blurry! He's fired!!

Thanks Matt!! I'm really hoping I don't beat you to the finish because I know this is gonna take me a while gathering all the tiny annoying parts and pieces that I'm gonna need.

btw, Lee mentioned that some shop in Bakersfield already has spacers in stock if you want to try them out for your set-up. Might be cheaper and easier for you to do that
Still stoked about that vid that Bryan made, freaking awesome!! I'm already getting the bike ready for early Jan!

 

good pregress man . i wish i could help . im headed to the dr in a few where im sure im abou tto start physical therapy hopefully my arm get back to normal and i can start torquing bolt down soon.

sounds like a single cab ex cab showdown is in our future.

hopefully ill be ready for some action . you should come by some time man i know we have plans for the track soon you better come

 

DJ 1 ton hahaha

 

This looks like a nice build-up for sure. I'm diggin' the fact that your tearing into this one yourself from the get go. It'll be so much more rewarding, less frustrating and you wont have to do things twice because of "performance" shop employee's ineptitude. I remember what you went through with the crew cab and what a pain that must've been.

A word of caution though...and I don't know if anybody has already said this, but you're going to want to put something in place of the rear most crossmember. That rear crossmember's job isn't just to provide strength for a hitch or rear impact, but it provides stiffness (both torsional and bending) to the frame for the rear leaf spring mount. It looks like you're keeping the leafs, so another crossmember of some type needs to tie things together before you take it out for a shakedown.

 

Must have been quite the circus!!!