L31 Extreme Budget Build

[SNCTMPL]

Here is a tease for those that have never been into Summit Arlingtons Bargain Cave Outlet area. That was a GM 502 and a Blueprint SBC behind it. They had a Blueprint 427 SBC also marked down for clearence in the front door of the retail area too. On the other side of the white boxes was a 6L80E or 6L90E. Summit is dumping all their Power Programmers for everything for like 1/5 the normal price. They had stacks of Diablo, Superchip, Hypertech and SCT tuners. Probably EPA related. They had an Edelbrock Eforce SBC Vortec carbureted supercharger kit there too for $2500. I also noticed they had alot of the Holley Sniper and equivalent Fitech EFI systems on the shelf as well in the $600-800 range.

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That whole area is the bargain cave?

That is substantially bigger than our whole showroom here in Sparks. I would have to learn better restraint.

 

[L31MaxExpress]

That whole area is the bargain cave?

That is substantially bigger than our whole showroom here in Sparks. I would have to learn better restraint.

Yes that entire area plus some is the bargain cave or outlet area. There is more stuff too the left and right and the shelves on the right upper are equally spaced to the ones on the left. It really is a huge area for a clearence space.

The show room is huge here too. Not sure of the actual square footage, but probably similar to a football field without the endzones.

This was a video promoting the opening gives a peek inside.

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[Scooterwrench]

Serious candy store!

 

[L31MaxExpress]

Wire wheeling off the old Thorley Tri-Ys. The old chrome coating surface rusted but the headers themselves are near perfect still. Probably a 30 year old set of headers, they were a used set off Ebay when I bought them nearly 20 years ago.

The exhaust tubing kit also just arrived. Very nicely packaged, each piece individually wrapped, nice thick tubing and perfect mandrel bends. The flares are also nicely done, it slips together fairly easily without much of a gap, would be easy to weld up in the future, although I am stainless lap band clamping all the joints for now until my prefered exhaust man can get time to squeeze it in to weld it all up.

 

[SNCTMPL]

Wire wheeling off the old Thorley Tri-Ys. The old chrome coating surface rusted but the headers themselves are near perfect still. Probably a 30 year old set of headers, they were a used set off Ebay when I bought them nearly 20 years ago.

The exhaust tubing kit also just arrived. Very nicely packaged, each piece individually wrapped, nice thick tubing and perfect mandrel bends. The flares are also nicely done, it slips together fairly easily without much of a gap, would be easy to weld up in the future, although I am stainless lap band clamping all the joints for now until my prefered exhaust man can get time to squeeze it in to weld it all up.

Which kit did you end up buying?
I’m looking at them now for my son’s truck.

 

[L31MaxExpress]

Which kit did you end up buying?
I’m looking at them now for my son’s truck.

The headers are old DTE-315Y that have not been in production in years.

The exhaust kit was a DNA Motoring kit off Amazon. $94 for the mild steel kit I bought. Could have gotten 409SS for $4 more but it was not available on my time frame. They have a kit as well that is basically a doubled up kit for about $160. The smaller kit should work for me though. Only a 125" wheelbase, the headers dump at the transmission crossmember and I have cats and a longer magnaflow muffler in the mix too.

 

[L31MaxExpress]

What Thorleys that are probably close to 30 years old still look like. I ran them on my 1983 G20 van for close to 14 years and bought them used. The old chrome they used on them kind of bubbled off and got a little surface rusty but still solid as can be.

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[SNCTMPL]

That’s good to hear that DNA does a good job packing the kits, I’m looking at their 2.5” stainless kit.

Those Thorley’s are a blast from the past, I had a set on an old square body Blazer back in the late 80’s, early 90’s. I’ve had some nice trucks over the years, but that Blazer is still one of my favorites. The one I wished I had kept.

 

[L31MaxExpress]

That’s good to hear that DNA does a good job packing the kits, I’m looking at their 2.5” stainless kit.

Those Thorley’s are a blast from the past, I had a set on an old square body Blazer back in the late 80’s, early 90’s. I’ve had some nice trucks over the years, but that Blazer is still one of my favorites. The one I wished I had kept.

They do not make them like they used to. Vehicles or the Doug Thorleys. Those headers are probably 20-25 lbs a piece, very thick flanges and thick tubing.

I have the headers mostly cleaned up, about to VHT header paint them in aluminum. I wire wheeled them and then poured some cleaning vinegar over them to help de-rust areas I could not get a brush into. Next up is an acetone wipe down and some paint.

The lap band clamps should be here in a bit so that I can start on the exhaust. The headers will literally take me ~30 minutes to install, they slide right in these G-vans without even having to remove the plugs, although I might have to pull the plugs to get the thick Hooker iron manifolds off.

 

[SNCTMPL]

They do not make them like they used to. Vehicles or the Doug Thorleys. Those headers are probably 20-25 lbs a piece, very thick flanges and thick tubing.

I have the headers mostly cleaned up, about to VHT header paint them in aluminum. I wire wheeled them and then poured some cleaning vinegar over them to help de-rust areas I could not get a brush into. Next up is an acetone wipe down and some paint.

The lap band clamps should be here in a bit so that I can start on the exhaust. The headers will literally take me ~30 minutes to install, they slide right in these G-vans.

That’s exactly how I remember them heavy, thick and shiny. I thought the nickel looked so cool when it started turn blue.
The only problem I have with them is that they were the first headers that I bought, been comparing everything else to them since.