New Air Cleaner Housing

[yevgenievich]

I just dropped off a hood for testing to cut holes around air box to see if it can help with air box heat soaking. Taking a seal out on the back did not seem to be that much difference.

 

[Moofus02]

I love those vans. Expedited with a 98 1 ton 5.7 4l80 bare bones work van no air no cruise no tilt. Had 420k miles when I quite using it. They pull a trailer nice and ride great

I lived in that thing like a big truck lol. Had a cot behind the seats with a curtain behind it. I could get 2 45x48 pallets strait in or fold the cot and get 3 in sideways. Most weight i had in it was 6500 lbs. With 1500 lb over the axle you could steer it with the throttle. I had 4500 in it and left a Mercedes-Benz van at a light like he was setting still. Got to the shipper i was dropping at and he came in empty impressed with how fast it was, he was on the floor i was just driving normal. I love the torque the l31 has. Was going to buy an 8.1 powered one with air but the dealer Merkel me around and I went back to the big trucks

 

[L31MaxExpress]

I just dropped off a hood for testing to cut holes around air box to see if it can help with air box heat soaking. Taking a seal out on the back did not seem to be that much difference.

I have a K&N Kodiak box, my plan is to actually cut into the cowl or put a Subaru WRX hood scoop on it. Its just not a huge priority at the moment, especially since it is cooling off here now.

 

[L31MaxExpress]

I lived in that thing like a big truck lol. Had a cot behind the seats with a curtain behind it. I could get 2 45x48 pallets strait in or fold the cot and get 3 in sideways. Most weight i had in it was 6500 lbs. With 1500 lb over the axle you could steer it with the throttle. I had 4500 in it and left a Mercedes-Benz van at a light like he was setting still. Got to the shipper i was dropping at and he came in empty impressed with how fast it was, he was on the floor i was just driving normal. I love the torque the l31 has. Was going to buy an 8.1 powered one with air but the dealer Merkel me around and I went back to the big trucks

I love the torque my 383 has. 6.0L was the worst mistake GM made on the vans. It took the 6L90E upgrade along with VVT to make the 6.0L into a halfway decent powerplant in the Express. Its ashame they built so few of them with the 6.6L diesel or gas engines or 8.1L and probably 95% have the 4.3L now.

 

[Moofus02]

Biggest problem i had was 3 computers. Got wet corroded and case swelled and split and water got on the board. Broke 1 spider hose that drove me crazy until I figured out what it was lol

 

[L31MaxExpress]

Biggest problem i had was 3 computers. Got wet corroded and case swelled and split and water got on the board. Broke 1 spider hose that drove me crazy until I figured out what it was lol

I have thankfully not had PCM issues. There is a water shield GM added at some point that is fairly critical to keeping water off the PCM and fusebox. GM dealer added it to my 97 at some point when it still visited the dealer back in the day.

 

[L31MaxExpress]

The only factory recall I have ever seen that made a vehicle worse, was the Dodge Magnum death flash. Rather than fix the valley pan vacuum leak, Dodge elected to recall the vehicles and reflash the PCM with less ignition timing to cure spark knock that occured with the engine sucking oil into the manifold from the vacuum leak in the crankcase. Needless to say power and mileage tanked, oil consumption was high and so was carbon buildup on the pistons. The oil also ate the catalytic converters.

 

[Road Trip]

The adjustment I made to my hood latch and rubber bump stops for the hood seems to have helped my IATs considerably as well and the slight misalignment of hood and fenders is barely noticeable. The gap between the hood and grille help get cooler air to the airbox. The IATs drop to near ambient very quickly after I start to move now and they are basically ambient cruising 30+ mph. Such a small, quick tweek that seems to have a great benifit. I may yank the hood seal and see if that helps as well.

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The adjustment I made to my hood latch and rubber bump stops for the hood seems to have helped my IATs considerably as well and the slight misalignment of hood and fenders is barely noticeable. The gap between the hood and grille help get cooler air to the airbox. The IATs drop to near ambient very quickly after I start to move now and they are basically ambient cruising 30+ mph. Such a small, quick tweek that seems to have a great benifit. I may yank the hood seal and see if that helps as well.

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You sound like an ideal candidate for adding louvers to your hood. Given the power that you are
making + DFW ambient temps, I figured that the temps in your dog house must get close to that of a
commercial pizza oven!

On a lot of vehicles adding louvers to the hood would be pure style, but on your van I think that it would be a
functional thermal upgrade. (I remember when we stuffed the LT-1 style 355" SBC into a Chevy Monza --
after a hard run we'd open the hood and get hit with an overwhelming wave of intense heat. The engine was so
tight in the engine bay that there just wasn't much room to get rid of all the heat between the
radiator output, the exhaust manifolds, etc.)

For what it's worth, here's a link to a google search showing a few examples. I realize that functional
hood louvers tends to kill the sleeper look, but if spacing your hood like that makes a discernable
difference, the maybe you should take it to the next level?

EDIT/PS: On several of the Roadkill videos, they would solve an overheat problem by removing the
hood in order to manage the heat in the engine bay in order to make it from point A to point B.

Strange but true.

 

[L31MaxExpress]

You sound like an ideal candidate for adding louvers to your hood. Given the power that you are
making + DFW ambient temps, I figured that the temps in your dog house must get close to that of a
commercial pizza oven!

On a lot of vehicles adding louvers would be pure style, but on your van I think that it would be a
functional thermal upgrade. (I remember when we stuffed the LT-1 style 355" SBC into a Chevy Monza --
after a hard run we'd open the hood and get hit with an overwhelming heat wave. There just wasn't
much room to get rid of all the heat between the radiator output, the exhaust manifolds, etc.)

For what it's worth, here's a link to a google search showing a few examples. I realize that functional
hood louvers tends to kill the sleeper look, but if spacing your hood like that makes a discernable
difference, the maybe you should take it to the next level?

Yea I have seen 200°F IATs in summer time. The 383 really does not run any hotter than the 350 did. It has always baked in there especially with headers.

 

[HotWheelsBurban]

Yea I have seen 200°F IATs in summer time. The 383 really does not run any hotter than the 350 did. It has always baked in there especially with headers.

I would be surprised if the vans didn't run a bit hotter than the pickup and SUV, because they have so little airspace around the engine.