Mad Customs

[Erik the Awful]

I'm talking about when I took scrap metal across the scales and I looked at the weight on the way out.

 

[stutaeng]

More driving. It spins the tires on the 1-2 shift. Not just a chirp/scratch either. We drove it about 15 miles with some highway. It drives fine other than the spongy brakes. Oil pressure is good, water temp never got over 195 and that's using the OBS V6 radiator and the 5.3 mechanical fan.

I let the boy drive it in the neighborhood. He's scared of it, which is good. He's all in favor of tuning it down, not that it would matter.

BTW, what rear axle ratio do you have? I went through the pages before I started following along, and didn't see it... maybe I missed it?

Huge Congratulations! Your son will forever love that truck!

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

BTW, what rear axle ratio do you have? I went through the pages before I started following along, and didn't see it... maybe I missed it?

Huge Congratulations! Your son will forever love that truck!

Thank you. It's a 3.42. Seems like the perfect ratio for street truck actually, has plenty of acceleration but at 65 it's only turning ~1500 rpm.

I don't think we'll ever be truly done, but you can drive it. This summer I'm sure we'll want to get AC working.

 

[HeavyAsAChevy]

65mph??? You should be judging it at 75mph as that’s the minimum speed that anyone drives in Texas. We drove from San Antonio to Tampa and did a minimum of 60due to stupid drivers.

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

65mph??? You should be judging it at 75mph as that’s the minimum speed that anyone drives in Texas. We drove from San Antonio to Tampa and did a minimum of 60due to stupid drivers.

Haven't got on any big highways yet. I've had it to 70 but didn't look at the tach. I'd guess 75 is around 2000 rpms.

 

[frito-bandito]

Wow, this is an awesome build! I just now read through the whole thing.

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

I drove it 45 miles yesterday to pick up a new motor for the other project. It drove fine, but some stuff needs tweaking.

First thing I noticed on the 45-50 mph speed limit roads is that it will be going around in OD with the TC locked and it just lugs and chugs. It has plenty of torque to stay there but it's not optimal IMO. Turns out the speedo is off at least 5 mph based on the radar speed advertisements I passed. I think correcting that will help a lot.

I have the in gear idle set too high. It's at 800 rpms, and it's a bit annoying in stop/go traffic and unneeded.

The 1-2 shift is just super firm. I have not done any trans tuning or torque management removal.

It sounds wonderful and is the perfect volume. It's a bit flowmastery but without the drone and a little more mellow. I'm pretty impressed with that Summit exhaust. If I had an NBS truck I would buy it immediately.

Brakes are still soft but do work well enough once you get through the long travel.

I think I am going to change the oil next and see if any glitter is in it.

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

For the first time, the boy took it upon himself to work on his truck by himself. No coaxing from me at all.

He installed the radio, dash, and ac controls from the parts truck. He also got the indicator lights on the cluster for both turn signals to work.

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

Kinda bummed, we changed the oil and a significant amount of fine debris was noted on the drain plug. Also a tiny bit of glitter found in the oil. I don't think they resized the journals like I told them to because of the ARP bolts.

Not like we can do anything about it though, other than send it. I hope it stops wearing in soon and doesn't eat into the bearing material too far.

 

[stutaeng]

Kinda bummed, we changed the oil and a significant amount of fine debris was noted on the drain plug. Also a tiny bit of glitter found in the oil. I don't think they resized the journals like I told them to because of the ARP bolts.

Not like we can do anything about it though, other than send it. I hope it stops wearing in soon and doesn't eat into the bearing material too far.

Isn't that normal for the first oil change?