97 chevy rcsb sleeper

[polar]

I don't think I could ever sell it for what I have in it


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[1997k1500Calvin]

You can buy those rings they're for motor cycle wheels , if you want to try it before you take the time to paint it..sticker is a hell of a lot easier to change

Live action!!

 

[bluedevil]

Hit a milestone yesterday...got two projects completed in one day, haha. Me and the boy finished up some work on his buggy, and went burning around in the snow. It used to be a Jeep Hurricane Power Wheels. Now it sits on a Polaris Mojave quad chassis with a 5hp Kohler and a rock crawler looking exo cage. It needs more gear/less tire yet.

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Then I got the engine/tranny into the truck. Here she is switched over from the running stand, ready to mate up.

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First I had to finish up a few things on the 700r4; I got the wiring done for single wire 4rth gear lockup, and tossed in a new filter, and the 4.3L convertor, and mated it to the 350. I've never wired up an overdrive like this, but after doing some searching it seems pretty simple. The way its wired requires just a single 12v feed to port "A" of the harness plug. That wire runs to a normally open pressure switch in the 4rth gear pressure port, then from there over to the tcc solenoid. It needs a couple other things on the truck besides the positive feed to operate, and I will elaborate once I get to that point. Hopefully it works, although I'm positive the 700r4 won't survive behind the motor. I've got a th400 that may go in afterwards.

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I finally got it in at the end of the night. I've got some small issues to tend to, like the engine side mounts I had laying around won't line up to the frame side mounts...not sure whats up there just yet. ***EDIT*** the rubber inserts of the frame side mounts just needed to slide up inside the shell, and the engine dropped down and bolted up. I've never ran into that before. I guess I'm lucky that this is only the first time installing new mounts that I have not encountered this before.

Also I need to get a new tranny mount (single bolt mount vs double). The Lokar dip stick I've got isn't really going to work either(stick is pretty low and will be hard to get at behind #8 header tube). Lastly I need to get a new T.C. cable. I can't wait to get the headers on, finish working on the accessories, and get this puppy wired up and started! Lots of work to do now.

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[bluedevil]

Catching up from parts pickup up late last year, I slid these headman headers in the other night. I picked them up used (and in need of a good clean and paint) but they were a really good deal. The other hooker super comp headers I had from from my last project A-body were nice, but there was no way they were going to work so I sold them off. I was pretty surprised that they just went in from the top with no fighting or anything. Usually with long tubes, one goes in from the top, and one from the bottom, or something ends up being a major pain in the ass. Ground clearance is great too, and they are tucked up above the frame. The only thing I don't like about them is the socket type collector flange. If money permits later, I would like to cut the ends off, and replace them with v-band clamps, and have the coated.

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At least now I can work on getting the high flow y-pipe, and the rest of the exhaust back on the truck. I would have tried to do duals, but since it was all nice magnaflow stuff, and it y's into 3" nicely, I was thinking its a good start for a single remote mount turbo. The engine doesn't have that much compression, and the holley is set up for blow thru already!! Very wishful thinking at this point haha They sure are fun though. Here is the last forced induction build I did...don't make too much fun of me for the blue oval thing.

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Also a little while ago I finished trimming up the dash, and get the gauge panel to sit as it should to see how it looks with the bezel back on. The gauge panel really needs some black paint or something to tame down the glare, and make it a little more subtle.

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[SixSpeedSS]

-Add hangers to the back, and drop springs up front for a 3/4 drop. Parts arrive in a couple weeks. Possibly ditch the overloads, and build or buy some caltrac's for it. I will have to mod the drop hangers for those bars, and may fab them up with another inch of drop

First I saw this thread. Nice build.

I am going to suggest not taking the overload springs out of the stock springs. I run Cal Tracs and my overload leaves were rubbing against one of them, to the point that it broke a cal trac bar (about 8-10 years ago). I removed the overload leaves and the truck actually sat higher. That wasn't my biggest issue - I have been fighting a driveline vibration ever since. I have tries shims, cal trac adjustment, rear 2" shackles, etc. The back end has always been really soft since I took them out too.

The original reason I removed them was to get the overload leaf away from the cal trac bar, but now the spring pack is actually touching the cal trac bar. I think the springs have 'sprung' and with it being rather soft, the pinion angle is changing while I drive. I think I am going back to a stock set of springs (buddy has a set from his 454SS that he put a 4 link in) with 1" blocks and stock rear hangers.

I refuse to do a 4 link in my truck as it never really was about being a drag truck. What I can't deal with is the vibration (which really got worse when I put 4.56 gears in the 14 bolt).

 

[polar]

4 link doesn't necessarily mean drag racing. There is a difference between a 4 link and 4 bar. 4 bar is for more street oriented stuff due to longer hard than a 4 link. A standard 4 bar is like the kp components kit for bagged trucks


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[bluedevil]

First I saw this thread. Nice build.

I am going to suggest not taking the overload springs out of the stock springs. I run Cal Tracs and my overload leaves were rubbing against one of them, to the point that it broke a cal trac bar (about 8-10 years ago). I removed the overload leaves and the truck actually sat higher. That wasn't my biggest issue - I have been fighting a driveline vibration ever since. I have tries shims, cal trac adjustment, rear 2" shackles, etc. The back end has always been really soft since I took them out too.

The original reason I removed them was to get the overload leaf away from the cal trac bar, but now the spring pack is actually touching the cal trac bar. I think the springs have 'sprung' and with it being rather soft, the pinion angle is changing while I drive. I think I am going back to a stock set of springs (buddy has a set from his 454SS that he put a 4 link in) with 1" blocks and stock rear hangers.

I refuse to do a 4 link in my truck as it never really was about being a drag truck. What I can't deal with is the vibration (which really got worse when I put 4.56 gears in the 14 bolt).

Thanks for the complement, and the feedback. I have since decided to not run the drop hangers, and just go straight to axle flip, so the overloads will stay intact. I have not had the chance to get real world feedback from someone running caltrac's on an obs. If you don't mind I would like to pick your brain!

From your sig, it looks like your flipped as well...but whats your rear drop, 6,7,8"? Truck looks bitchen by the way. Do you have the axle flipped version of the caltrac's or just regular axle under leaf. Do you think there is not enough rear drop in the axle bar mount bracket? How do you like them otherwise? Does the truck hook nice? Where do you have pinion angle set? How has it been as far as wear and tear...have you had to replace heim joints, or anything else besides the failure with the leaf spring?

I share the same thought's on 4 linking my truck. Not that I have anything against it...it would probably be pretty cool, but I don't see the benefit in over-complicating my set up. It seems like there are lots of stock suspension leaf spring cars/trucks out there getting it done with caltrac bar's, or slide-a-links.

 

[SixSpeedSS]

4 link doesn't necessarily mean drag racing. There is a difference between a 4 link and 4 bar. 4 bar is for more street oriented stuff due to longer hard than a 4 link. A standard 4 bar is like the kp components kit for bagged trucks


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Not sure what you are trying to say here. A 4 link is a 4 link, regardless of how it is mounted. There are parallel 4 links, triangulated 4 links, rear mounted 4 links, etc. They are still FOUR attachment points to the frame or rear diff.

What I meant is I refuse to cut up the rear of my truck to put a 4 link in it. If I were to put a 4 link in it, I would do a triangulated 4 link with coil overs. Too much modification to the truck (need fuel cell, new crossmembers, etc). I get plenty of traction with the leaf springs, M/T ET Street Radials, and Cal Tracs.

 

[SixSpeedSS]

Thanks for the complement, and the feedback. I have since decided to not run the drop hangers, and just go straight to axle flip, so the overloads will stay intact. I have not had the chance to get real world feedback from someone running caltrac's on an obs. If you don't mind I would like to pick your brain!

From your sig, it looks like your flipped as well...but whats your rear drop, 6,7,8"? Truck looks bitchen by the way. Do you have the axle flipped version of the caltrac's or just regular axle under leaf. Do you think there is not enough rear drop in the axle bar mount bracket? How do you like them otherwise? Does the truck hook nice? Where do you have pinion angle set? How has it been as far as wear and tear...have you had to replace heim joints, or anything else besides the failure with the leaf spring?

I share the same thought's on 4 linking my truck. Not that I have anything against it...it would probably be pretty cool, but I don't see the benefit in over-complicating my set up. It seems like there are lots of stock suspension leaf spring cars/trucks out there getting it done with caltrac bar's, or slide-a-links.

I have owned my 454SS for 24 years as of today. Bought it Valentines Day 1991.

The drop is technically a 6" drop (Bell Tech flip kit) with 2" rear hangers (total was about 7" from stock height - I run 275/50-17 Nitto NT450s that are exactly the same total height as the original 275/60-15s). The Cal Tracs are the lowered version for flipped axles. With the 'lowered' version you have limited adjustment up front because they only have one set of holes on the front plates. I run stock Bilstein shocks (original to the truck) and M/T 275/60-15 ET Street Radials (OEM tire size on the 454SS trucks). I have 4.56 rear gears and run a stick. I can launch at 5500 rpm and not break the tires loose at the track (if the ET Streets are plenty heated). Problem is there is always a weak point in any combination - mine is the clutch. I have run 4 different clutches in this truck and the best one yet was the stock 25k mile 1995 Camaro clutch that came with the T56 trans. I swapped this truck in 1999 to the T56 and love it on the street, but hate it at the track.

As for wear with the Cal Tracs, once you set them there is very little you need to do with them. I did replace all the heim joints once, but that was because I hadn't turned them in a long time and the threads got seized in the shafts. A friend had the proper tap to rethread the shafts/bars, so I decided to put better quality heim joints in (with his suggestion - he & his father have a race car fab shop). Other than that and the aforementioned broken bar, they have been trouble free. If I were to do it again, I would maybe try the othe Cal Trac brackets to be able to get the bar away from the overload leaf. I may even order a set of plates and do just that when I put another set of stock springs in. I was originally worried about them being too low for speed bumps and such.

I have since decided that I don't need to take my truck to the track to have fun with it. I originally built it to run 12.50s on street tires and be fully streetable/dependable. That was a lofty goal back in the mid 90s for a 4500lb truck. Now it is fairly slow in the world of street machines. I have run a best of 12.67 @ 109mph on the ET Streets. It'll run 13.0 all day long on the 'vette wheels as you see it in the pic below. I could be driving down any road in America and see a drag strip and pull in, run 13.0 several times and drive it home. It was a lot of B.S. to get 4 more tenths out of it (change the wheels, adjust the bars, raise the front tire pressure, remove the 70-80lb bed mat, etc, etc) as well as fight the clutch and hope/pray I don't shatter a pressure plate with 5500 rpm launches. I can launch it just off idle and still run 13.0 with a little tire spin. I have trapped at 112 mph with the Nittos.

If I really wanted to continue to drag race this truck, I would put an automatic back in it, and that aint happenin' anytime soon. This truck has done 2 Hot Rod Power Tours (Long Hauler in 2007 - 2800 miles in 8 days), has been dead reliable on the street and will pretty much beat or hang with anything on the street, short of some of this NEW real fast stuff or Turbo LSx vehicles.

 

[bluedevil]

More small updates;

I finally finished up the front accessories. It feels like its taking forever to get these little things done lately...none the less its moving ahead. The alt bracket is basically unaltered, save for removing the idler pulley. I was going to switch it with a ribbed pulley because I was woried that if I ran the belt straight from the alt to the power steering pump that it would be too close to the water pump. After everything was mocked up, it turns out there is plenty of clearance, so I ditched the idler. One other small thing to note: if I would have ran the idler, there would not have been much alternator engagement, and might have caused slipping. Now that Im certain its not needed, I may trim off the mounting boss from the bracket to clean it up just a little more.

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The power steering bracket turned out well. I did oops on one spot while cutting the top portion of the bracket for the a/c pump (you can see the partial cut mark on the lower mounting hole by the water pump where I cut in a little more than I intended too). Other than that I rounded some corners and roughly polished it up a little. Now it doesn't seem like the accessories block the view from the engine so much.

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After its all said and done I cut the stock belt down and with some handy dandy zip ties, I ended up with an 85" belt. I orded a new one today, so there's another thing to cross off the list.

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On a side note, don't you hate when your working in sort of a mess of stuff, but you are in too much of a hurry to make sure you don't knock things over while your working. I was trying to multi task while doing the accessories, and decided to land the distributor for some reason. So I set the cap on the rad support right next to me, and sure enough while rolling the engine over to tdc, I kocked the cap off, and it broke on the ground Guess I will need another new cap...dammit!

Anyways another small but satisfying update on the gauges. I prepped the gauge panel, and sprayed it in semi gloss black and it looks way better now. I also picked up some pilot lights for turn signals and one for high beams and put them in. Just need to get that last volts gauge now, and then I can start wiring things up and get the dash back in.

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