Ol2Stroker

My new truck finally came in the mail on Friday and I got to spend the long weekend with it. Has been sitting around not run since 2000, 800k original on the truck. Really a pretty solid old truck although nowhere near as nice as my last one (I was really spoiled with that truck). Someone had previously tried to get it running with no success so the first step is to dig in and make that happen. Motor turns, and I've never had a Detroit that would turn but wouldn't run. Here's the first pictures of delivery and initial assessment.First things first with a Detroit and that's freeing up the injectors. Since I always get questions on how to do this I made a video.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJA4tK3B4Og After I got the injectors unstuck I hooked up some batteries and hit the button.... nothing. Cleaned every connection on the series parallel and still nothing. Series Parallel clicks, but no starter rotation. Began looking at other connections, noticed all battery terminals were cleaned by whoever previously tried so this problem is not new. While cleaning connections on the starter I found a broken wire which is what sends 24v back to the series parallel on the small side of it to actuate the starter solenoid. Now we've got crank!and crank, and crank and crank and ether and it'll crank faster with ether but no fire. Just some smoke. Obvious no fuel is obvious. Notice during cranking turbo doesn't want to spin freely. Upon closer inspection I find this:ENTIRE exhaust housing full of mouse nest. I've got a remedy for that too.Remove feed line to pump and attach to an elevated funnel filled with fuel. Results:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssmK31113qQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2teG2qCZOOQ Not too shabby. Entire passenger bank is cold, fuel's pissing out somewhere. I've been down this road. No fun at all. Notice no coolant in engine at all and oil cooler drain wide open. I figure lets get coolant in it before we go any further. Fill with water, immediately discover why it was drained.incoherent cursing. rinse and repeat for 5 minutes.drain system, and loop cooling system at the pump bypassing both heater cores.refill with water. Time to take care of that mouse nest. Button up turbo up-pipes start truck and rev to 2100. turbo's clear. Now we can move on to tackling the worst job on a Detroit. Fuel lines.Found the culprit:Also noticed the fuel lines on the engine side of the junction all use the cheaper thinner braided hose. At some point this must've changed because my last truck was all premium grade. This is a problem becuase the fittings don't interchange and all the line I have in stock is premium. UGH. Ran around for an entire day chasing my tail. Finally $162 and 8 fittings later:Well worth the effort, runs MUCH better, all cylinders within 10 degrees of each other and no smoke and no slobber. Next step is to get it to run off it's own tank. See how that goes tonight. Then it's on to the oh so much fun job of getting the rest of the electrics to work other than the one clearance light that currently works.

Here's one I just finished tuning.... that symphony is 3500rpm.

HA. try that with any other motor and let me know if you can just reinstall the airbox cover and keep running. I doubt anything else would last even half that long.

where is this located?

This little old 5.3 had no trouble destroying the front Dana44 had to swap to 1 tons, wasn't even an option. lol It's got long tube headers going into 3" stainless hand fabricated dual exhaust coming out the sides with 2 of the smallest race mufflers magnaflow makes. It's ear piercing I should've went out the back. Sounds like NHRA when you open it up, I want to put bigger mufflers on it but my crazy wife loves it. lol This picture everything was just tacked, it's all tig welded now.

Thanks! Does pretty good so far. I need to swap gears again I thought the 4.56 would do it but it needs 5.38s. stupid tires.

Any updates? I've managed to get both 1 ton axles totally rebuilt with chromoly stubs in the front and chromoly yukon lockouts. Also installed crossover steering and hydraulic assist with a larger reservoir and big pump. I think the steering upgrades made more difference to driveability than the LS did. I also did rear disc conversion and a shackle flip in the rear to get rid of the lift block. As for the LS I fixed a lot of little bugs (one of which was a bum fuel pump even though it was new) and I did fab that shift linkage works mint now. I've been spending some time updating the tune now. Here's a couple updated pics. Hope you are having better luck with yours!

I think you're comparing apples and oranges.

Being that the emissions regulations are complete bullsh*t, I fully support any company that finds a way to skirt them. More so if they get away with it.

Also my new truck finally got picked up and will be home soon.

After I did the engine over I noticed the turbo was leaking oil into the compressor housing, surging really bad, and wasn't making boost. I knew exactly what to do to fix it. While I was upgrading the boost levels with a fresh coat of Alpine green I found an issue. Muuuuuuuch better.

Aluminum air tank is sweet I could really use one of those!!!

Sure is I'm hoping a nice dose of my favorite color will keep that pile together. Currently back in the truck and running great knock on wood.

I adore this thing and I agree on the auto

fridge always full of beer. bring er round. No updates on this been busy working on this junk powerstroke. Hopefully the new color keeps it together and adds 50hp. LOL #alpinegreentheworld I named this powerstroke the choochooexpress due to this video. I bought it from a customer who didn't wanna fix it. Found a couple of used motors built 1 good one from 3. Here's a few pics. Powerstroke shop explosion. Engine on the stand is an early 99 that I wasn't planning on using, the other engine in the picture with the heads off is the one I was going to use but the kid lied to me and every single cylinder had a cracked piston. The complete engine is the out of the choochooexpress. Cylinder 6 piston out of the choochooexpress. This one didn't even show on the scan tool as bad but the second compression ring was all busted up and in the pan as well as the oil rings and this part of the skirt here. Cylinder #8 from the choochooexpress. No bueno. This is the engine that was on the stand in the first pics after I took heads from the one with cracked pistons (looked like new) and put new injector cups etc. It's now fully built out minus exhaust manifolds and after a compression test tonight (sanity check) will be ready to drop back in the choochooexpress.

probably losing about 200lbs off the front end.

yes we're definitely keeping 4wd. It was killing ujoints because all the old mounts were terrible and everything was moving around, also the largest joint i could get for the 4 spd was a 1310..... v6 was just because i can.

I shouldn't have taken it apart. It was 453t powered with a 4 and a 3 but i couldn't keep ujoints in it. This all started as a simple 10 speed swap. Oops.

frame is toast.

UGH.

You've made a whole bunch more progress on yours than I have on mine since I was last here!!!! After doing the brakes over front and rear and the entire front end of ours I finally found a deal on the set of axles I wanted. Scored a set of 4.56 gear m1028 1 ton axles with Detroit lockers front and rear for a song. Currently half wire wheeled and drained waiting for me to have time and ambition for that project. Also need to figure out why it basically stops running when warm and fabricate a shift linkage from scratch (GOD DAMN SWAP HEADERS. Never again). Right now I'm in the middle of re-swapping my pickup truck and 10,000 customer projects. Looking like nothings going to get done this year for me, I'm envious.

Badass.

Here are the actual ratios.... not seeing any overlap 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14.38, 11.26, 8.78, <--Low 6.90, 5.41, 4.22, 3.29, 2.64, <-- Intermediate 2.10, 1.64, 1.28, 1.00, .80 <--- High 15,28/7.34/2.23 <-- Reverse

They have a write up on the guy that bought my old v12 cabover Pete too!