My conversion

[THEFERMANATOR]

I started my conversion last week, and ordered the conversion manual from JIM on MONDAY. I've gotten many of the details worked out of the conversion, and will be updating this thread with year specific details I have found that are not covered in the manual due to the differences between 93 and 95. I don't know what the policies are regarding links here, so I will copy and past my current posts from another forum and put them into this post. Currently I have found that the DMAX controller looks for a ground signal from the HVAC controller. Jim covered this in his manual, and says that his 93 worked this way. I went to the dealership as I have access to all of the factory manuals there and double checked, but the 95-00 controllers send a 12V+ signal. The 95 powers the A/C relay directly, and the low pressure switch actually carries the A/C clutch load. And 96-00 send a 12V+ signal to the PCM.

I know most people will transfer the DMAX cluster over from the donor to the receiver, but I have decided to go stand-alone. The issues I have found with doing this are with the coolant temp guage, glow plug light and the tach. The tach on the 6.5 is driven off of the alternator, so you could tap into the alternator on the DMAX and run it that way. The earlier 6.5's like my 95 use a seperate sender for the guage and ECM(not sure on the later 6.5's), but the DMAX uses the ECT for the ECM and sends the signal via the bus to the cluster. The oil pressure sending unit on the 01-02 is the same as the 6.5 except it doesn't have the OPS circuit, so that will work fine.

The ECT actually outputs the same resistance as the seperate temp sensor used on my 95, but I don't know if the guiage will cause issues with false temp readings if I tap into it. I plan on using the block drain and tap it to accept the sender for the guage if this is an issue, but I will try teeing in first and see what happens first. The glow plug signal on the DMAX is a grounded signal via the PCM, but my 95 is a powered signal that ties straight into the glow plugs wiring. Later trucks may be different in the wiring, but for mine I will have to do some work on the cluster and make a cut and patch in the cluster printed circuit board.

The ECM does output a seperate speed signal for the ABS and then the speedo in the 01(didn't see one on the 02 wiring diagram). The speedo output does match that of the VSSB for the speedo, but I have yet to hear if the ABS output is the 128,000 per mile like that of the VSSB. The straw that may make me redo my dash wiring and concede defeat and swap to the 01 wiring though may be the tow/haul mode. The tow haul mode works with a momentary switch that feeds into the BCM, and then the BCM sends a signal to the ECM and that relays it to the TCM for tow/haul mode. If no BCM is present the TCM will work in regular mode, and O/D lockout will also function. But tow/haul mode is lost.

You can have it flashed by PPE to put it into tow/haul OR regular mode, but not switcheable. BRAYDEN at FLEECE CAN write a custom ALLISON program though that will give me tow/haul AND OD/lockout. I just don't feel like having the DIC beeping at me because my ABS and airbags won't talk to the cluster, and by going stand-alone the only things I see losing are the oil change reminder and trans temp guage. WIF and low coolant can be wired in to work with the 95 cluster as both of these were on the 6.5.

Stand-alone IS possible, and seems like a viable option for me as I prefer the layout of my 95 dash and cluster. Then again I just like to be different too.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Copies of my other posts from another forum.

Here's my donor after I drove her into the shop. The radiator and intercooler were trashed from it's wreck, but you'd be surprised at how well a heater core can cool an engine.


This was after the first afternoon of about 2 1/2 hours with my nephew helping me. He's trying to learn more about cars than what his playstation has taught him.


Took all of the harness's out without cutting.

On the second afternoon it was just me, so I was able to work without teaching. Took about 3 hours to have her out and the donor rolled out.



It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be to pull the engine and tranny out together. It's one HEAVY SOB, but came out fairly easily. The worst part was realizing while the engine was hanging on the hoist that the front diff had to drop down an inch to slide the engine out in order to clear the oil pan.

I'm still up in the air as to wether or not to transfer the cluster and BCM over. The only things I see that I will lose that really matter is the tranny temp guage and the tow/haul switch. I already have an older QUADZILLA digital guage for the tranny, and BRAYDEN at FLEECE can write me a custom TCM OS that will allow me to use tow/haul without the BCM. The WIF light can simply be tapped into the sensors output as it is just a magnetic on off switch that grounds a circuit. The wait to start light and check engine light already have there own drivers coming out of the ECM, so they can be wired directly to my existing cluster. The 01 ECM appears to have the correct ABS seperate output and a speedo output, so I should be able to elimnate my VSSB.

I'm sure I'll run into many obstacles along the way, but so far it hasn't been that bad. The ALLISON measures just 1" longer than my 4L80E, and the LB7 block has dual bolt patterns that will accept my old engine mounts. I'm going to do a test fit in the next few days to see if the mounts line up or not in the SUBURBAN, but if my measurements are correct the DMAX is actually not as long as the 6.5 I pulled out. And the fact that they moved #1 over to the passenger side on the DMAX should allow ample room for the downpipe to fit in.

It also turns out that there is a converted 99 C2500 SUBURBAN in VALRICO that has a 01 DURAMAX ALLISON in it. His is a 2 wheel drive, but he said it was a pretty easy swap. His was a 6.5 to start with as well, VS the one the dieselpage did where they started with a 88 1500 gasser. I'm probably being overly optimistic, but I don't want to burn myself out early on in this big of a project.

And here is the recipient just before the 6.5 was pulled.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Well I worked on it again today and made a little progress. Here is the SUBURBAN stripped down and ready for some test fits.


Here's trial fit #1.


Here's trial fit #5 after several attempts of finding what had to be dropped and cut. Ended up having to remove the front differential, cutting the corner off of the passenger side engine mount pad on the frame, remove the bumper, and drop the steering linkage down.


Here's #7 where I actually got it somewhat close to where it should sit.


And on the 9th try I got it somewhat mocked in and was able to do some test fitting and clearance checking.


Should be plenty of room to move the radiator back and put the intercooler up there as I have over 4 inches of clearance between the fan and radiator.


Unfortunately it looks like I will either have to lift the body 2 inches, OR hammer out the tranny tunnel a bit, possibly switch over to the electric shift transfer case as the shift linkage is RIGHT against the tranny, cut part of the oil pan out and make a notch in it in the front to clear the steering linkage, hammer part of the oil pan in by the differential mounts, and do some more clearancing on the mount pads as to gain some clearance between the block and mount pads. This is a TIGHT fit, but looks doable. The hood will also be tight down to the engine at the compressor it looks like. I was able to get the transmission crossmember and mount in, but the tranny is touching the trans tunnel as it sits now.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Well I've spent a few more hours on it in the last few days. Progress has been next to nothing really, but I have worked out a few bugs and fitment issues that I was concerned with. I ended up moving the engine forward until the crossmember was bolted into the holes it was for the 4L80E, and putting the trans mount just slightly back from as far forward as it could sit in the crossmember. This unfortunately cut my clearance with the radiator down from 4. 1/2" to about 2". I wanted to move the engine as far back as possible, but it caused clearance issues with the oil pan and steering intermediate shaft. Also it was going to make fabricating engine mounts BEYOND a PITA! I also ordered in Jim Bigleys conversion guide from the page, and I am going to use the foundation of his mount templates for mine. My engine will actually be about a 1/2" furthur forward than his conversion, but at this point many things are revealed.

At this point in time there is NO DOUBT in my mind that the DURAMAX was designed to fit into the older GMT-400 platform. The ALLISON 1000 is another story. With about 5 minutes with a 3lb BFH the transmission now has about a 1/2" of clearance all around, and will have more before I'm done. The indent in the drivers manifold matches the intermediate steering shaft almost dead on. And the oil pan has a clearance spot in it that matches the steering nearly perfectly once you remove the plastic coating from it. Also by sliding the engine forward a 1/2" and lowering it down over the pan notch, it lowered the engine down and the fan shroud lines up almost perfectly center. And by using a 95 mount instead of the 01 on the trans, it brought my pinion and engine angles to within a 1/2 of a degree of each other so shimming shouldn't be required.

I'll have to rework the radiator core support a bit to work with the DMAX intercooler and retain an external trans cooler. The pages truck uses the radiator only in there conversion, and modified the condenser to slide it forward. I plan on cutting the fan shroud and sliding the radiator back an inch and gutting the center of the core support and sliding the intercooler in there.

The electrical appears to be pretty straigght forward as the 6.5 and DMAX use almost the same engine fuses and amperages. I will have to add an IGNITION 1 relay and the ECMPRV 15A and INJ B 25A for the FICM, as well as a 15 A fuse for the fuel heater. The rest are already there, and most of the wiring colors are the same between the 2. I will also have to add in another A/C relay as the 01 ECM looks for a ground from the HVAC controller, but the 95-00 controller in a 6.5 truck sends a 12V+ to engage the A/C. The APPS out of the 01 will not fit into my 95, but my 95 WILL interchange to the 01 ECM as they are both wired and work the same(just a different base with a stronger spring in it).

Now for some pictures.
Steering after grinding the coating off the front of the pan and smoothing the ribs down a bit. Provided an extra 3/8" clearance by cleaning it up, and a total of almost an inch after moving it forward with this cleaning.



Heres the steering shaft.


Lots of room between the turbo and firewall for the insulating mat.



And a few shots of the ALLISON nestled down in there nice and snuggly. I need to get a pic showing how close the shift rod is the case, it misses it by about a 1/4".

[THEFERMANATOR]

Next updates.

I'm making a little progress, BUT THIS THING IS KICKING MY but!! I have spent the past 2 days fabbing the motor mounts and welding em up. The passenger side one is done, but the drivers side warped some from welding. So I have to straighten it some in the press, and weld the last brace into it. Next I'm going to re-inforce the trans crossmember and fix it where I modified it in the past for a GEAR VENDOR install that I took out. That ALLISON is quite a bit heavier than my 4L80E was and the crossmember seems to flex more than I would like with the weight on it. I also am going to have to modify the lower oil pan on the passenger side. GM changed the front diff mount on the later trucks so they could put the kick-out on the side of the oil pan for extra capacity. That kick-out hits the lower mount for the front diff on mine, so I'm going to cut and weld a plate in like Bigley did on his rather than change out the mount for the diff. I dropped the pan earlier before making the mounts and installed the diff to make sure it all would clear, and I had good clearance on it.

I also installed some limiters inside of my factory rubber mounts so the engine can't move as far since it is so tight in there. I'm hoping to finish the drivers mount, trans crossmember, and get the oil pan cut-out made tommorrow. I may take it to a local welder and have him tig it so that I don't have to worry about any leaks in the pan instead of migging it myself. If I can get that done then I'm going to go run some more parts down MONDAY and take a break from it for the day. Then start on the engine and tranny with what I'm going to do to them. I know it needs a FPR on the CP3 as it loped like a cammed big block at idle before, and I found a FORD relay for $13 to fix the glow plug controller with already. I will probably also do head gaskets as I see some signs of leakage around the passenger rear side of the head in between the block and head, and do the injector cups while I'm there.

I'm still up in the air though on the injectors. They currently have roughly 130K on em, but it had ZERO smoking before. The balance rates were less than .5 on 6 and 2 were at 2.5(one positive and one negative). I also plan on a KENNEDY lift pump, EFILIVE(found out the new AUTOCAL will only be for one ECM/TCM combo with no expansion to a second ECM or TCM incase one fails), and an adjusteable boost valve. Also I found a pre bent 4" exhaust that will fit my SUBURBAN so I don't have to modify a truck exhaust to fit. And swap out my 4.10's for some 3.42's, and replace my CV boots.

No pics tonight, been working and getting so greasy I didn't want to mess up my camera.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Got the motor mounts done today, finished up my tranny crossmember and modified the oil pan. Got the engine sitting in there and with it's weight on the mounts.

Heres my finished motor mounts.


Passenger side installed in the truck.


Drivers side installed.


Before installing the mounts I had to take my BFH and flatten out part of the mount clamshell where the motor mount bolt was close and also added in some 1/4" plate to act as limiters to reduce engine movement. The red circle is where I had to flatten the edge off. The blue arrow shows where I added my limiters(theres one in the bottom as well).


Oil pan clearance with it all together.


No turning back now. You can see I had to take a good bit out of the passenger side of the lower pan to clear the diff mount.


And the finished pan after welding, grinding, pressure testing, and paint.

[More Power]

Looks like you're making progress.

The upper motor mounts as drawn in the guide have worked in Lil Red now for nearly 5 years, and have done what they need to do (no engine contact with the frame or body) even when the Dmax is producing up to 632 horsepower. No mount movement limiters are necessary when using the fabricated upper mounts as drawn in the guide along with new 6.5 lower mounts (the part with the rubber), in my humble estimation....

Jim

[THEFERMANATOR]

I got a chance to go look at GORDON's SUBURBAN today, and it looks like my engine is sitting almost identical to his. A cowl induction hood may be in my future as I seen how tight his is in there and where his hits the hood. I did see though that his fan is almost dead center, so I should be good to go there as well. I'm going to try and fit a DMAX intercooler in there instead of the DODGE though. I have a good DMAX cooler, so I may as well use it. Still on the look-out for a transfer case though. I already have a floor shifter, so no reason to convert to pushbutton. There is enough room for the shifter, but it is TIGHT! It also appears as though the stock shifter cable will line up pretty good as I had that in position as well already

[Burning Oil]

Looking good!

[THEFERMANATOR]

Few more updates on my project.

Been a slow couple of days lately. I had to go run errands MONDAY, so I only got the oil pan back on it after putting JB weld over the seems for insurance. Went out today and built a stand for the engine and an adapter to put the tranny on my engine stand to make it easier to work on. Unfortunately I had a mishap today and broke my wiper motor cover and housing when the studs for the glow plug controller caught it when the engine swung sideways on me coming out. Fortunately I priced out an aftermarket one for $68, so at least it wasn't TOO expensive.

Here's the oil pan epoxied over at the seems and everywhere that I had taken the paint off.


The engine sitting on it's stand.


And the ALLISON on the engine stand.


And my mishap.


Sure is empty looking without the powerplant.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Progress had to slow down unfortunately this weekend as I had honey dos on Saturday and my asthma flared up yesterday. I did get to work on it for about 4 1/2 hours on Friday and was able to get the top half of the engine tore down. This engine is nowhere near as hard to work on as I thought it would be, or maybe the fact mine is on a stand makes a difference. The passenger side head gasket at the rear most coolant passage was just beginning to leak as I had the nice white chalk line on the back of the block below the gasket, and you can see the rust line in the pics on the gasket and the block. Also found that cylinder #2 was showing signs of washing down from fuel and the injector tip on that cylinder was pretty rough. 1 glow plug is burned out and 2 others look rough as well. I pulled the injectors apart and cleaned them with some spray cleaner to see what makes em tick inside, and they are actually pretty simple internally.

Here's the engine with the heads off.


The heads on the bench with the injector cups out.


right side gasket at the rear.


And the block in that spot.


This picture shows how #2 showed signs of a leaking injector as the bottom of the piston is very clean.


This may explain part of GM's troubles. This is the turbo intake horn gasket, that big ole MOPAR box for that little gasket.


And the innards of the infamous LB7 injectors.

You have the nozzle, a needle valve that rides inside of the nozzle, then the plunger that rides against the needle valve and the return spring and the spring seat that sits inside of the injector body. Inside of the injector body is a metal tab that protrudes through the spring and this is what pulls the plunger back to let the needle valve open and allow fuel through. And the 2 little pins are the locating pins that hold the nozzle in place to prevent it from turning. My camera couldn't focus on the insides or else I would have put up a pic of that as well. When I pulled it apart the needle valve was just about frozen into the injector nozzle body and required soaking to come apart. Once apart it cleans easily with spray cleaner and I re-assembled with marvel mystery oil. Debating on wether or not to replace them or have these tested and run them.

[todh]

Hi newbie here
I have been following for a while. I have been in contact with Bigley and Gordon Marks recently. I have 95 K3500 crew cab 6.5td awaiting 04 lb7.

According to alldata, the oem 04 hvac controlls sends "class 2 serial data" to the ecm which sends a ground to ac control relay to send 12v signal to engage the ac clutch.

Questions on your project:
1. Did you or do you plan to bypass ecm regarding ac request wire?
2. How did you or plan to wire your ac controlls with respect to ac high and low pressure switches?(I read your post on relay since 95 request wire is 12v+ and duramax oem request is a ground)
thanks th

[More Power]

Yes, you are correct in that the vehicle ECM communicates with the HVAC system control panel. It does this to manage the engine when the AC is requested and to provide additional diagnostics for any sort of HVAC problem.

My conversion works fine without any interaction between the HVAC and the vehicle ECM. The only negative that I am aware of is that when using an aftermarket programmer, like a Predator, the Predator looks at all of the ECM controlled/interfaced systems (including the HVAC) and expects to see it. When it doesn't see the HVAC, the Predator hangs in its diagnostics. This is easily cleared with an ignition key cycle during a Predator program upload. Otherwise, the Predator works normally.

The HVAC works great in Lil Red. The truck's 1989 HVAC controller outputs a ground when the AC request button is pressed. This ground is connected to the 2001 electrical center "AC request" relay, which then activates the AC compressor. The 2001 AC hi/low pressure switches are retained and are in the loop for the AC compressor clutch power circuit.

It all works great....

Jim

[THEFERMANATOR]

Also keep in mind that 01-02 and 03+ use different systems to control the A/C. 01-02 uses a ground to trigger the A/C on whereas your 04 looks for a signal from the BCM over the vehicle serial bus. I chose to go with an 01 for mine for 2 reasons, first is that it was available and the second was that 01 works as closely to the 94-99 style 6.5 system as any of the DMAX's. 02-04 uses a different ECM as 01 was the only year that had the seperate output for the ABS controller. Also 02 uses a different code for it's bus, and 03+ is another.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Time to post up my updates. Been getting quite a bit done on it here lately.

Things still going slowly as my money will be tied up until the middle of MAY. I've got my gasket sets coming along with head bolts, glow plugs(3 were bad), water pump, and will order my injectors when my money gets freed up again. I also got my trans kit and ordered my ALTO clutches and TRANSGO parts, and will get my precision converter next month as well. Found out you can piece a SC3 together on your own for under $700 VS suncoasts $965. I'l also be ordering my EFILIVE as soon as money is available as well. Also picked up my manual shift transfer case on TUESDAY from ORANGE CITY while I was out picking up my left side head gasket(GM is on backorder for left side grade B's, but a dealer in OCALA had one in stock). And my ring and pinion sets should hopefully be off backorder the first of the month as well.

Now I have to go back to working on other peoples stuff so I can afford mine again. Hopefully the end of MAY and the drivetrain will be done.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Things unfortunately have had to slow down as my finances ran out, but I have that back in order now and am getting back on to this project as much as I can. I'm getting married the end of this month, so progress will be sporadic. The engine is most of the way back together, and the PENSACOLA remans are in it. MOST of my parts are in or will be in this week. I still have to iron out my air intake set-up as a standard DMAX one will run the hood, and the fatermarkets sit even higher. And I will most likely be calling DIAMOND EYE for my exhaust as they are the only ones selling a true 4" exhaust for a SUBURBAN for a reasoneable price, and will probably go with a CORSA muffler as exhaust drone will be a concern. My front and rear gear sets are finally in after waiting 3 weeks for them to get off backorder from AAM, and PRECISION will be shipping my converter out tommorrow. DACCO in TAMPA got me all of the ALTO powerpacks, converter flow valve, TRANSGO shift kit, and an ATSG manual for $721 after taxes and freight. I also got in my KENNEDY wear plate for the T-case, and a KENNEDY lift pump as I liked his design better than the TTS.

Unfortunately though I have to get the engine, trans, and front diff done before I can get the engine bolted back in as the puzzle will be tight and dizzying to get them all in there. Still hoping that I can have it running by the first of next month though, wish me luck.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Well the engine is back together, and the transfer case has the wear plate installed in it. Unfortunately the input and rear output shaft seals that the aftermarket carries don't fit the XHD case, so I have to go to the dealer in the morning to get those(the front output fit perfect though). My PRECISION converter will be in tommorrow, and I have the rest of the trans parts already. My new radiator came in today as well from CARQUEST(my discount got it down to about $430 vs AZ's $500), but the UPS people looked like they played football with it. The box had several holes in it, and the fins on the engine side of it were almost all flattened out. Not to mention it had 2 BAD spots where it had stuff sat on it and flattened out the tubes(one spot had cracked the tubes). So I'm waiting on another radiator as I wouldn't take this one. I also got m yEFILIVE ordered today from FLEECE, and they are supposed to be flashing my TCM tommorrow so I can get it back next week.

If I had it to do over again though, I would just have bought an 01 2500HD pick-up and put a topper on it. MAN this is ALOT of work to work out the details.

Not many pics as I keep forgetting the camera in the house while I'm in the shop. I walked out and snapped a few though.
Heres the engine back together.


And the parts are beggining to take over my shop. This is about half of what I still have left for parts to go in it.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Transfer case is done now, and the front diff has 3.42's in it now as well. I decided to pull the front axle shafts out and do the CV boots while I was this far into it since they are 14 years old, and I also packed some grease into the front hub bearings while I was at it.

My other half is busting my chops over this though.

My new PI converter came in and she said my SUBURBAN is now gay since I am putting something in it that is yurple.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Problem #999 or 1000 on the list. I got my tranny all apart and cleaned up for the most part and began re-assembly. Ran into some problems with my ALTO powerpacks. The C1 pack is roughly .041 thicker than my old pack, the C2 is .031 thicker, the C3 is only .005 thicker, and the C4 is .027 thicker. The problem is that C2-C4 aren't adjustable, they just have a range that they have to fall into. The C3 and C4 shouldn't be a major issue I don't think, but C2 is. The clearance range on the C2 is .070-.085 according to ALTO, and I have .023 now. I can get a new plate for the C1 to correct it, and I still need to try the C3's and C4's to see how they fit in yet. I'm going to re-use the C5's as all of the old clutches still looked brand new after 162K miles, but all of the sealings rings and apply pistons were hard as a rock. So it looks like my money saving build will actually cost in the end, so much for trying to save $300 by piecing it together myself.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Well MIKE L saved me again. Called him up and talked it over with him and he advised me on how to re-stack the C2's using 7(he said that 8 would be overkill anyways) and I've got another C1 backing plate coming to correct the C1 clearance. Unfortunately it will be MONDAY before I can get back to work on it, I've got to get hitched tommorrow so I'm going to be busy this weekend.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Trans is done now. Got it all back together and everything measured out within speck except my C1's were a little tight(I have .082" and MIKE reccomended .090-.105, the next plate thinner would have given me .125 though). Still waiting on my connectors for the trans lines though, the GM parts book lists the wrong ones for an 01 so I hope he got me the right ones comin now. I'm hoping tommorrow I can get it close to going back in the BURB.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Got some more done today.

Here's the trans all finished up with my yurple converter in it.



And the two mated back together just about ready to go in the BURB.



I got the new firewall sound pad installed today and hopefully tommorrow I can get a little welding done and slide her in for the final time.