I totally forgot to post this over here when all this happened and so for the people on here that dont venture over to tds i will recap what happened, which parts i decided to go with and why.
My problems started back in mid october with tranny issues and have been drug out since. Jon Faubion couldnt figure out why his tranny wouldnt hold after rebuilding my unit a second time and a new tc it was still slipping. He came to the conclusion that a single disk tc just wasnt enough to hold the beast
. So he ordered a tc from BTS and installed it, problem solved
.
Jon had my truck for a long time troubleshooting and testing but finally to my excitement in early feb he called me and said it was done. Needless to say after 4 months i was ready to drive my baby so i begged my parents (for a ride) to make the trip down asap. We made the 4.5hr trip down and man was i impressed with the tranny! It just had a completely different feel than my junk build, i couldnt beleive the difference. We got headed northbound and while getting on to hwy i decided to lay into it hard and ended up breaking the tires loose at 40-45mph and about shat myself
. After a few miles i came across a 3rd gen dodge that wanted some, so from a roll (70mph or so) we went and boy did he get suprised. He got a little jump but when the turbo lit we were off, he and his passenger both looked over at me like WTF when things finally got lit . I proceeded to put about 7-8 links on him (3.55 gears, 265 tires and 3200rpm maxanyone know how to figure mph? ) and shut it down. He pulled back next to me and gave , well i set the cruise again and he took off with smoke! I just pummeled a chipped 3rd gen! It was obvious that he must have been stock turboed if i whooped him that bad.
I get to closer to Wildmans house and notice somehting just isnt right. I have a bad vibration/ miss. At Tony's we run the scantool, check all sensor connections, etc... and onlything we get was bunch of injectors not passing cyl cont test. Great 300 miles from home to get tuning and something else breaks-mad . At this point im about to hit the nearest chevy dealer and go home with a new dmax. Tony reburnt my chip with some new burns but nothing felt right, turbo was hard to light and well truck just ran like crap. So i did what anyone with a temper would do, i drove it 300 miles home and most of the tiem was well above speed limit. When i finally arrived home the whole underside and rear of truck was covered in fuel/ oil mixture, now i was really lost. If an injector(s) arent firing why do i have fuel everywhere? After a couple days pouting i decided to pull injectors to have bean check them out and stumbled across my real problem. 2 broke rocker arms and 2 really bent pushrods....Dohhhh (homer simpson voice) If i woulda caught the problem in OK i might have saved the engine, but due to runnign it 300+ miles with NO valves in #4 opening the rings were toast and so was the connecting rod due to hydralocking numerous times.
I started the official "5k redneck budget build" thread and with lots of input i decided to go with: .010 lower comp mahle pistons, new heads from IH, hardened connecting rods from WipeOut enterprises, chromoly pushrods from WOE, mainstuds from WOE, comp cams "rev kit", fully balance and what ever machine work needed (~$3800 parts). I finally got all the parts so i took stuff to machine shop (3/18) so they could do there thing and assemble the rotating assembly for me. A few days later (3/28) they call me and tell me the connecting rods had been machined wrong so they were no good, nice. Sooo im thinking now what? After a few calls i decide to send rods back(duh ) and since WOE were such stand up people i decided to stick with them but this time with a set of billet rods . With the hardened stock rods i was kinda worried abou them holding the power, but now with billets it should be able to hold anything i want ot throw at it. I ordered them 3/28 and they should be here late next week or early week after. My original goal was to have entire build at 5k or under, but since i cant seem to control myself when it comes to power I feel comfortable spending a little more money to help hold the power better. Right now its looking like build should be 6k range even with billet rods.
Luke
ps- if you actually read all this you must be bored
My problems started back in mid october with tranny issues and have been drug out since. Jon Faubion couldnt figure out why his tranny wouldnt hold after rebuilding my unit a second time and a new tc it was still slipping. He came to the conclusion that a single disk tc just wasnt enough to hold the beast
. So he ordered a tc from BTS and installed it, problem solved .Jon had my truck for a long time troubleshooting and testing but finally to my excitement in early feb he called me and said it was done. Needless to say after 4 months i was ready to drive my baby so i begged my parents (for a ride) to make the trip down asap. We made the 4.5hr trip down and man was i impressed with the tranny! It just had a completely different feel than my junk build, i couldnt beleive the difference. We got headed northbound and while getting on to hwy i decided to lay into it hard and ended up breaking the tires loose at 40-45mph and about shat myself
. After a few miles i came across a 3rd gen dodge that wanted some, so from a roll (70mph or so) we went and boy did he get suprised. He got a little jump but when the turbo lit we were off, he and his passenger both looked over at me like WTF when things finally got lit . I proceeded to put about 7-8 links on him (3.55 gears, 265 tires and 3200rpm maxanyone know how to figure mph? ) and shut it down. He pulled back next to me and gave , well i set the cruise again and he took off with smoke! I just pummeled a chipped 3rd gen! It was obvious that he must have been stock turboed if i whooped him that bad. I get to closer to Wildmans house and notice somehting just isnt right. I have a bad vibration/ miss. At Tony's we run the scantool, check all sensor connections, etc... and onlything we get was bunch of injectors not passing cyl cont test. Great 300 miles from home to get tuning and something else breaks-mad . At this point im about to hit the nearest chevy dealer and go home with a new dmax
. Tony reburnt my chip with some new burns but nothing felt right, turbo was hard to light and well truck just ran like crap. So i did what anyone with a temper would do, i drove it 300 miles home and most of the tiem was well above speed limit. When i finally arrived home the whole underside and rear of truck was covered in fuel/ oil mixture, now i was really lost. If an injector(s) arent firing why do i have fuel everywhere? After a couple days pouting i decided to pull injectors to have bean check them out and stumbled across my real problem. 2 broke rocker arms and 2 really bent pushrods....Dohhhh (homer simpson voice) If i woulda caught the problem in OK i might have saved the engine, but due to runnign it 300+ miles with NO valves in #4 opening the rings were toast and so was the connecting rod due to hydralocking numerous times.I started the official "5k redneck budget build" thread and with lots of input i decided to go with: .010 lower comp mahle pistons, new heads from IH, hardened connecting rods from WipeOut enterprises, chromoly pushrods from WOE, mainstuds from WOE, comp cams "rev kit", fully balance and what ever machine work needed (~$3800 parts). I finally got all the parts so i took stuff to machine shop (3/18) so they could do there thing and assemble the rotating assembly for me. A few days later (3/28) they call me and tell me the connecting rods had been machined wrong so they were no good, nice. Sooo im thinking now what? After a few calls i decide to send rods back(duh
) and since WOE were such stand up people i decided to stick with them but this time with a set of billet rods . With the hardened stock rods i was kinda worried abou them holding the power, but now with billets it should be able to hold anything i want ot throw at it. I ordered them 3/28 and they should be here late next week or early week after. My original goal was to have entire build at 5k or under, but since i cant seem to control myself when it comes to power I feel comfortable spending a little more money to help hold the power better. Right now its looking like build should be 6k range even with billet rods.Luke
ps- if you actually read all this you must be bored
Last edited:
Great story. Keep us posted.
. 