Dad's K2500 minibuild PYO's, cab markers, cam & more

[andyk1500]

I posted this over on GMFS, so some of you guys might have already seen this!
About two years ago, I had been collecting pieces for a little while to do a minibuild on Dad's '95 K2500.
I always have to thank my friend in Philly for finding it for us! In the rust belt, there just aren't any clean 4wd 3/4 ton 5sp trucks!! This one is perfect for Dad, clean body and frame, acceptable but not nice paint and 146,000 miles so you just don't feel bad about using it!
Stats are LO5, NV4500, 3.73's and the 8600GVW package.

Before

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A broken door handle was the reason his truck ended up at my place and I decided it was time to get to work on it.

I started by stripping off the side moldings...

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and repainting the flares. I also added a front valance I had left over from his old '88

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I then thought I scored a set of useable PYO's!
But they were a LOT more beat than I thought....

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I stripped the clear

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I wet sanded them with 400/600/800 and then hit them about 7 times with the power ball and they came out OK from 10ft, which is good enough for a beater truck that gets washed once a year!

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I did have to trim the GMT400 caps to get them to fit. Because this is a budget deal, you've got to use what you have on hand!

I then started working on the cab markers. I found a complete set for under 10 bucks at our local Pick-A-Part! But the earlier wiring harness wouldn't plug into the powerbox under the dash..... I trimmed the plug to fit. Its ugly, but functional!

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Then I started drilling..... The biggest issue I had was the tape I laid to mark my holes! This truck has paint delimitation issues and the tape lifted ALL OF THE PAINT where it was stuck!!! Well it IS just a beater truck! Krylon to the rescue!

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I was at my local exhaust shop for a chunk of pipe and asked "hey, how much for that old tip in the scrap pile?" They told me FREE! I polished it back to useable shape and tucked it in tight to the box at an angle that I liked.

I smartened up and ditched the 4x4 stickers and finally got a chance to stick the PYO's under it.

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The final piece was just a hint of lift. When Dad bought the truck he wanted a more aggressive tire than the street 245's that were on it. It has 3.73 gears and man, no offense to the TBI guys....but even with at good tune up and all the little TBI tricks, this TBI 350 is a SLUG! So I stayed conservative and put 265 BFG's on it, instead of 285's.
I wanted to lift it just a touch but was concerned that the 265's would look small. I ended up using a 1" block (zero rate AAL) and cranked the front an inch. It took 6 turns of the bars to get the inch that I needed for the front and I will say its It is RIGHT at the limit of what I'm comfortable with. There is still an honest inch of down travel....and then an additional 3/4 of an inch. But I think some of that is shock bushing deflection, because you can see the load coming off the tire while the upper A arm is still moving down.
Its a good thing I WANTED an inch of rake to compensate for the cap weight....because another inch of crank would have me almost sitting on the bumpstops. I wouldn't care, but its DAD's truck and I don't want him to have any issues.
It lined up fine, rides OK and its not like he ever wheels it. The most offroad it will see is a dirt road or side field trail...

I think it turned out pretty good. It sort of has a NBS HD flavor.

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[andyk1500]

After a while....I just couldn't stand how underpowered this thing was! I decided to do some engine upgrades.
In the past I had used a small comp cam and with a lot of screwing around, got it to work OK with the TBI.
In case you don't know, GM TBI is a speed density system and is extremely sensitive to engine vacuum...which any aftermarket cam will mess with!

I ended up using the smallest Lunati cam in their voodoo series.
https://www.lunatipower.com/Product.aspx?id=1981&gid=287
This 8600GVW LO5 is supposedly a little different than the the 1/2 ton LO5's in the it has 8.75 or 8.3:1 compression depending on what info source you use. It supposedly uses the old school GM 929 cam instead of the TBI peanut cam.

The install was pretty straight forward. The AC condenser will flip out of the way without disconnecting it and the cam is just too long to come out without removing the entire grill, dang it! And with the big floppy one piece oilpan gasket....I had to trim more of the "lip" edge off the timing chain cover than normal to get it back on.

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I did take the time to swap out the old valve springs and seals. While I was waiting for non-rotator retainers.....I ran the buffer over it and gave the old girl a general clean up plus a set of 2" rear wheel spacers.

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I also scrubbed out the interior and used a silver sharpie to "fill in" some bleached spots in the carpet...

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Since it was a flat tappet cam I had to "run it in". With an oil pan full of Comp Cam break-in oil, we lit it off. Man I hate the pucker factor of firing something up and going straight to 2000/2500rpm for 20 minutes!!! (I saw after I pulled the intake this block was drilled for a roller cam.....I should have stopped what I was doing and found the parts for a conversion)
Like a rookie....I had the timing severely retarded....and the exhaust manifolds were glowing cherry red, but we got through it!

After I got everything running well, I added a throttle body spacer so I could use a flat bottom open element air cleaner and remove the "choke collar" under the stock TBI unit. I also set the fuel pressure to 13.75psi.

Because I had been under and around the truck a bunch....I found a bunch of little things that needed attention. Basically a bunch of fuel and brake lines were just more crusty than I could accept!

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With that done....I noticed a cold tick.....that wasn't there before? I knew there was a broken manifold bolt...did I warp the manifold during run in and create a little leak until it warms up?
So with the help of Harbor Freight I set about fixing it!

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Of course it is the bolt ALLLLL the way in the back and tight to the firewall! By using the 90 degree drill, bit wrapped in tape and a prybar against the steering shaft, I got it almost dead nuts!!!

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But....again, a rookie mistake foiled my perfect fix! I couldn't use a tap handle and had to use a ratchet....leaned way over the fender...you guys know where this is going....I got the tap started crooked!! I should have taped the tap like the bits and used the manifold to center it AND stopped to check my work several times....Oh well! I did get it far enough to securely get a bolt back in it.

But it still ticks!! WTH?!?!? But not every cold start? Turns out ONE lifter, if it is on the cam, will bleed down overnight. If its on the base, no issue. I will have to fix that this spring!

The last part of the story is....tuning! As I mentioned earlier, this speed density TBI will not tolerate ANY changes in manifold vacuum. The cam I use was listed as TBI compatible. It should be listed as TBI compatible WITH TUNING! It ran just fine without tuning, but there was no power increase over stock.

I stumbled on to http://www.gearhead-efi.com/ and got busy learning about TBI tuning! For a relatively small amount of money, you can datalog GM TBI with TunerPro RT and get A LOT of useful data! http://www.tunerpro.net/
This process isn't exactly plug and play.... You have to do some leg work. Silly things can foul you up. You need to get a ALDL cable, get the correct drivers for the cable then set the com port in your lap top for the cable. Its not as hard as it sounds and there is a ton of info on how to do it.
Next you're going to need to find your "BIN." file by reading the code of the chip in your ECM/PCM

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This is where I ran into a snag.... The truck I was working on is an oddball because of the stick so there was no BIN. listed in any database I could find.
Enter Old School EFi. If you look around http://www.gearhead-efi.com/ you will find a user DaveW that answers a TON of questions. David runs Old School EFi and took on my tuning project.
I sent my chip to him so he could read the bin and then I could start the datalogging process.

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David required about 100 miles of clean error code free datalogging to start the tuning process. (through my initial datalogging I discovered the O2 sensor was failing even though it wasn't setting a code)
David had the chip dialed in on the second try and the truck runs GREAT!! It is a night and day difference from the stock chip. It now pretty easily pulls 4th gear to 4K redline! Now, it not a rocket by any means, hell its still slower than a stock 5.3, but it feels soooo much better than before!
I will go out on a limb and say that 70% of the performance increase was from tuning alone. I really wish I had tried tuning it stock first to see what it felt like.
By looking at the stock BIN in tunerpro, the stock tuning had VERY limited timing advance. David fixed all that. And unlike off the shelf chips, the timing is only added where needed and not across the board.
I was really impressed with his customer service!

Dad is very pleased with the new found performance! Although....Its not just all for him....this is now a nice tow vehicle for me....to take the Shelby the drags

 

[andyk1500]

I kept track of most of the costs....I think I ate a couple hundred in little stupid things just because the bill was getting a little ridiculous for a simple cam swap! Man stuff gets expensive quick!!

summit; cam/oil/fuel pressure gauge/flat base air cleaner 300.73
rock auto; gaskets/tchain/balancer sleeve/tbi gaskets/head gaskets 187
daves American muffler; cat converter 237
summit; valve springs & small block rebuild book 56.87
summit; retainers/locks & zddp additive 116.88
Moates; ALDL cable 80
rockauto; fuel lines/filler neck & shipping 162.42
jegs; TBI spacer 49
Car quest; waterpump 37.09
Autozone; o2 sensor 18.99
Napa; ignition module 43.99
Napa; ignition coil 36.49
gas 107
Advance Auto; brake line 6.99
pcv elbow 8.99
tbi fuel line 16.79
rubber cooler line 1.99
brake line 5/16 51" 7.49
brake line 1/4 12" 4.99
brake line 1/4 72" 7.99
brake line 1/4 60" 7.99
hose clamps 5/16 2.99
hose clamps 1/4 2.99
hose clamps 3/8 2.99
union 1/4" 3.09
fuel filter 7.49
Tunerpro RT; datalogging software $40
Old School EFI; tuning $175
Total 1731.23

 

[andyk1500]

Unfortunately....there has been a huge DISASTER!!!!!
I ran out of time to change the oil cooler lines on Dad’s K2500 that I just swapped the cam in and tuned, so I told him to have the shop do it while it was there for inspection.
On the way home from the shop, he lost oil pressure, didn’t know it and locked up the motor.
Dad got to drive his “cammed” truck for 18 miles. UnF'INGbelievable.
Dad had it towed back to the shop and sure enough, one of the oil cooler lines popped out... The shop owner Walt showed Dad the old parts and that he used ALL new parts! Like me, he couldn't get the old lines out of the fittings screwed into the filter housing, so he cut the lines and unscrewed the fittings, installed new fittings (even in the vise he couldn't get the old line ends out of the fittings) and installed new hoses. He did say that their was a little wiggle in the new hoses? But all the parts were new and went together well.... He took the one old fitting that he could get the line end out of, thinking the fitting was bad, reinstalled it on the line that popped and fired the truck up. I guess it ran with no issues?!?!?!? Walt said he reved it 3K and everything seemed OK? He said it clattered some when he started it, but quieted down.
He had it running in the shop for 30 mins, no problem. So Dad drove it home with Mom following him. (shop is one mile from the house) He was trying to keep the revs down and was 1/2 way home, shifted into 5th AND IT DIES!!! He dropped it back into 4th let out the clutch and it fired back up! He looks down NO OIL PRESSURE! He shuts it off and pulls it to the side of the road...
He goes back to the shop tells Walt and Walt is just beside himself!! They go back to the truck. Long story short, the line popped out again!!! Walt sticks it back together, adds three quarts and it FIRES RIGHT BACK UP! Dad drives it to the top of the hill and coasts it in to the driveway. Walt wants to shoot the about how sorry he is. It must be a defective line? They left it running the whole 15 min until Dad realizes he better get in back into the barn before the line pops again!
I stopped at the junkyard and grabbed a housing off a half ton without the cooler!! I just don't think we can EVER trust one now...

Interesting...even though it was brutally ran out of oil...to the point where it quit TWICE...still runs!!! At idle you can't tell anything is wrong! 20psi of oil pressure warm, revs free, sounds OK! I swapped on the noncooler filter adapter and did an oil change, but the oil was shiny...and just 100 feet of driving on the road, no bueno. Nasty bottom end noises, lack of power...it just sounds bad under any kind of load. She is toast.

Dad wants a NEW gm crate motor and I'm looking at this L31 Vortec long block from Jegs...
http://www.jegs.com/i/Chevrolet+Performance/809/12530283/10002/-1

I think all that is needed for the TBI vortec swap is a stamped timing chain cover, (to replace the plastic one with cam sensor hole, or can I just plug the hole?) a carb TBI intake & tbi adapter or vortec TBI intake and a tune.

Is there anybody on here that has done a Vortec TBI swap? I'd love to hear your thoughts!! I'd be disgusted if we just threw a stock LO5 motor back in there....

This sucks, big time.

 

[94Cheyenne]

Great post. Dad should real happy.

Great looking truck, nice clean, Refreshed and simple... crate motor is my vote.. or ls swap? idk

 

[great white]

Bummer about the oil cooler lines.

The GM swagged end ones suck. Unfortunately, our story about a ruined engine because of them is not the first one.

The 6.5 diesel crowd swaps 'em out to fittings and teflon braided steel lines to do away with that weak spot.

Diesels need the oil cooler for heavy towing and for the oil squirter/piston cooling engines.

 

[MYT HI]

That's one nice looking work truck! Bummer about the engine. Can't wait to see what else you're going to do


Sent from my 350 TBI powered iPhone

 

[andyk1500]

Thanks guys!! I've love to do an LS swap or build him a stout motor...but I just don't have enough time.... Honestly, the vortec swap is just on the edge of adding to much complexity to bother with when another LO5 is a direct plug and play.

You have no idea how heart broken I am over this deal... It ran really well tuned with that cam! And Dad never got to enjoy it at all...

If he could wait until the end of the summer....I'd have more time. But I'm in the middle of a house renovation, my car needs a clutch & rear plus I'm supposed to do another "mini-build" on a friends '94 K1500 stepside....(I'll have to grab some pics before and after of that)
The timing for this to happen just SUCKS!!!

Here are a couple pics of Dad's old 88 6 lug K2500. This '95 was a BIG step up!!

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And a couple more of his '95 right after he bought it and I put the BFG's on it.

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And what the heck, a couple pics of my old cammed '95 K1500 with LO5, NV3500 &3.73's...

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[eric.s.t]

Nice truck man, i remember when i was a kid, my neighbour had a truck like this, identicle... i loved it! This is real nice

 

[MYT HI]

looks like long boxes run in the family! I really like how those rims look on the 88! where do you like that you get snow but no rust, i never realized how clean those trucks are! My neighbor has a 94 RCLB white just like this one, except it got "totaled" a woman rear ended him and diamonded the frame. bummer.