C10 Turbo 5.3 "build"

[cruizin01]

Good luck man...the thing I found out about surgery is they fix you back to normal, not what you had before. Normal is good, shoot for what you had but don't be disappointed if you can't do exactly what you did before (i.e flexibility, motion, strength, etc)

 

Understandable. Thanks

 

Glad to know that you are doing well!

 

Thanks Tom!

[mustangman2011]

Good luck with your injury

[cruizin01]

couple updates sans any pictures.

 

Hand is healing surely but slowly. Therapist says Im doing great. Ill be out of this cast in a week or two. Trying to get my flexbility and strength back. The numbness in my thumb sucks. Makes it sorta useless at the moment.

 

My buddy came over last night and helped me get the transmission back in. The truck hasnt moved since the accident. It was very unnerving under the truck again with the trans on the trans jack. But everything went fine with the extra help. I had sent the converter out and had it rebuilt. The guy said it had some "weird" wear. So we'll see if that changes or fixes my vibration at all. I just have a couple small things to finish up and it'll be driveable again. Hoping to maybe swing by the meet at Hoover Saturday.

 

Ill post a couple more updates I have in mind for the truck once I have some pictures to show.

[Otis Nice]

Glad to know all is going well and you're healing.

[cruizin01]

Id been wanting to do something with the exhaust on the truck. Its quiet under normal driving but too quiet under heavy throttle. I've only ever seen issues with the selection of cut outs on the market. I thought why not try a large wastegate to use as a boost activated cutout? So I found a big ole 60mm gate on chinabay. It should be more reliable if it works how Im hoping.

 

Spent memorial day fitting and fabricating it into the downpipe. Well just after the downpipe at the rear of the trans. I made a little rubber isolater as the gate is pretty heavy. We'll see if it holds up. Then I just plumbed it to the compressor outlet. I put the lightest spring in it I could fine. Haven't tested it out yet. Ill update when I do.

 

[cruizin01]

Been putting some miles on the truck the past couple weeks.

 

I upgraded the booster and master cylinder in hopes of getting better pedal feel and maybe overall improved braking. I bought a later model tahoe/truck master cylinder and a S10 reservoir. I had to swap out the booster to an 81-87 to make everything fit. Wow. What a huge difference! Like night and day. Very worthwhile mod.

 

 

I attempted to charge the AC yesterday and realized one of the hoses I made has a leak. Im worried the crimper I borrowed might not be doing the job. Luckily a guy at work recently bought a nice one. So Im gonna attempt to re crimp the hoses.

 

My air to water setup is in need of something. The other day when it was 90* ambient the IAT would go over $135* when in and out of traffic on side streets. I rebleed the system and got out some air and go more water in it. Im gonna see how that does but Im researching where I can fit another tank to add more fluid to the system. Id love to keep it out of the engine bay if possible. Still working out ideas.

 

Ive been messing with the boost control table in the Holley to try and get the truck to spool a bit better. Its a little lazy. I bumped it around and went a little overboard. It spooled instantly and immediately into boost cut. haha. So I adjusted it again and got it pretty close. Pretty happy with that part of it.

 

Still fighting my infamous noise/vibration but whatever. I think Im gonna keep an eye out for a cheap trans to maybe swap this winter to see if that changes anything with the truck. That and maybe another converter.

 

Anyway. Have a good weekend.

 

http://i.imgur.com/dAxnOOCl.jpg

[Mace1647545504]

Very cool

[Ackbar00]

How does it sound with the Chinagate cutout?

[cstmg8]

Truck is looking great, glad you decided to stick with it!

Also wondering how the exhaust is with the wastegate?

 

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[cruizin01]

How does it sound with the Chinagate cutout?

 

Its not quite the "explosive sound" I was expecting, but its definitely louder for sure. I dont think I would actually want it any louder under WOT. If I was to redo it I think I would try and "Y" the pipe instead of the "T" setup I have now. Overall Im happy with the $100 spent. I need to unplug it and do a comparison now that Ive sorta forgotten how it sounded before.

 

I need to update my post. I modified the air intake system slightly and added an a/w reservoir. I also swapped motor mounts. Ill add more pictures soon and explain whats going on.

[Ackbar00]

Video would go a long way in the sound for the rest of us to judge

 

Make a video! We wanna hear it!!

[cruizin01]

Video would go a long way in the sound for the rest of us to judge

 

Make a video! We wanna hear it!!

 

I took a short video on the freeway a couple weeks ago but you can't hear anything. So I need to up my game. Maybe Ill have the wife stand on the side of the road or something and Ill do a drive by .. :grin2:

[Otis Nice]

I took a short video on the freeway a couple weeks ago but you can't hear anything. So I need to up my game. Maybe Ill have the wife stand on the side of the road or something and Ill do a drive by .. :grin2:

 

Pipe her.

 

Also, have her record while you drive by and park/rev.

[cruizin01]

Haven't updated in a while so I figured its time. The truck hasn't been driven a lot just because its been so hot and I haven't really gone anywhere but work lately. Anywho..

 

I finally found a cheap intercooler tank that worked perfect for what I was trying to do. I think its from a supercharged mustang? I just added a L bracket and bolted it up and swapped the hoses around. It definitely has helped with IAT temps by roughly 15-20*. I need to pull it and paint it. I got impatient to install it. Nice tank for like $70 bucks

 

 

 

While looking the truck over driving to find the source of my vibration I found the engine mounts collapsed and the shells sitting on them. I ran to Advance and got some new ones and threw them in. A PIA job with everything I have going on in the truck. After driving the truck my vibration actually got worse. This led me to believe I actually still had a drivetrain angle problem. As the new mounts brought the front end of the truck UP, making my ujoint angles worse.

 

 

I called Troy at Countryside up in Johnstown who's a customer of mine. He agreed to look at the truck. I dropped it off and he called me a couple days later to inform me my angles were way off. I had been using the tremec app with my phone which showed everything was in spec but after talking to him and retesting with a manual angle finder I realized my u-joint angles were really high.

 

The problem is I can't lift the rear of the trans any higher due to the trans sitting against the bottom of the cab and the driveshaft doing the same. My axle sits above trans so the driveshaft angles up toward the rear. So we did everything we could with what I have now and its significantly better but ideally I need to order a 2 piece driveshaft so we can split the angles up to get good operating angles. Ugh sorry for the book. I think that'll be a good winter project.

 

 

In the mean time I decided to build a cold air intake for the truck. The engine bay gets so hot it doesn't make sense to have the turbo sucking in all that hot air. Should help again with IAT's. Im pretty stoked with how it turned out. I started with a flat piece of 22-24 gauge steel.

 

 

Only other major problem with the truck is the A/C. For whatever reason the truck all but stalls out when the clutch engages. I can turn the clutch by hand with the truck off. I adjusted the IAC bump in the holley and it doesn't seem to help at all. I thought maybe my pressures were too high so we pulled some freon out of it and it still doesn't work right. Im not sure what else to do other than swap the compressor. So I have one on order.

If anyone has any other ideas I'm open to suggestions.

 

And yes I know I still need video!

[Otis Nice]

Love everything about this truck. Personally I don't think the tank NEEDS pulled and painted. Looks great as it is. Would also look great black, blue, or whatever, but it's not NECESSARY IMO.

 

As for the a/c I have no clue. I need to add an aftermarket to EllIIot if I keep her. It's a must for the summer months. I wish you luck.

[cstmg8]

Intake looks great. Did you get some numbers for comparison before you installed it?

 

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[cruizin01]

Intake looks great. Did you get some numbers for comparison before you installed it?

 

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

 

Its tough to get exact comparisons with IAT's as the environment always changes with driving, etc. But, before the intercooler tank I would often see IAT's near 140* with in town driving. With the intercooler tank it was more often to see temps around 125*. Im hoping with the intake to get them closer to ambient under normal conditions. Every little bit helps. The colder the air going in the colder itll be at the intake. The a/w seems to work really well under boost regardless as I barely see any rise in temps if I make a pull say in 3rd gear.

 

Im hoping to drive it the next couple days so Ill get an idea how its working. Even though its not quite as hot as its been I should be able to see where they average.

[brent1976]

If an air to water intercooler on a turbo is anything like one on a supercharger you need as much water as possible and as big of a heat exchanger as possible. Once the water gets hot it never cools down unless you’re on the highway. Water wetter helps a little bit too.

[cruizin01]

If an air to water intercooler on a turbo is anything like one on a supercharger you need as much water as possible and as big of a heat exchanger as possible. Once the water gets hot it never cools down unless you’re on the highway. Water wetter helps a little bit too.

 

Yeah for sure. My heat exchanger is absolutely as large as I can go unless I want to start cutting stuff. I dont think adding more coolant capacity beyond what I have will do too much unless everything else gets bigger as well.

 

My temps yesterday while driving around were pretty good with the new intake. I noticed that the temps seemed to come down more quickly after heat soaking say at a light or after a short stop than previously. My IAT's ranged around 110-115 around town. So still quite a bit above ambient but I think the a/w setup is naturally gonna keep them higher than an a/a setup once everything gets hot. But under heavy load its able to keep things nearly at the same temp. I was beating on it a bit and rarely saw IAT's above 120*. So Im happy with the setup for now. Regardless I never did the a/w for efficiency anyway, it was always for packaging limitations.

[cruizin01]

Went to Hocking on a cruise Saturday with some friends from P3. I think the idea was to take the TT since its obviously a better twisty road car but that seemed to easy. So I decided to take the truck and see what it would do. I figure driving a truck at 7 or 8/10ths is more fun than a capable car at 3/10ths.

 

It did surprisingly well with the limit being the front tires. It only scared me in 2 spots while taking a downhill corner with a mid-corner bump and the tire feeling like it wanted to roll under itself. It really makes me want to maybe go to a square 18" setup that could utilize a "real" tire. Reasonably priced wheels in the correct sizes are VERY limited.

 

The truck definitely was a magnet for dudes at all of our stops down that way. Everyone was coming up with stories about their trucks they have or have had, etc.

 

 

The truck is running pretty well all around. The a/c isn't functional again. I put a new compressor on it and worked around the stalling issue but then a bolt backed out on one of the lines and I lost freon again. Im over it for this year. Ill recharge it in the spring.

 

I had a chance to do a ~60-120 pull against my buddies ZL1. His car made 570whp on a mustang dyno so I knew I was about to get the L but knew it would be fun regardless. He gave me the hit so I went up a car length but then he probably put 2-3 cars on me when I let off. I didn't feel too bad about that. After reviewing some logs the truck was only making about 11psi at peak and dropping to 9psi at redline along with soft timing and wet AFR's. So I guess its time to turn the wick up a little bit. Id like to get it to nice 12psi on pump gas. That should be a good gain. Hopefully Ill get another shot at him soon.

[Otis Nice]

Your truck stands out among that line up of great cars.

[Not Brian]

Needs more T56

[cruizin01]

Needs more T56

 

While I appreciate the idea that you would think it would make the truck better, the last thing I want to do to it is a manual swap. The 4L80E works really well with my setup. Shifts are normal under normal driving conditions but quick and hard during heavy throttle. Itll bark the tires when requested. The paddles make driving it more enjoyable as well compared to using the column shifter.

 

Call me old and soft but Im glad this particular setup in an automatic. Its a lot of truck to handle at speed and Im not sure it being a manual would make it more "fun".

[Aaron]

You have a TT?

 

Yes, a manual would make it better you old, soft turd.

[Not Brian]