My conversion

[THEFERMANATOR]

Well today was a productive day. Got the engine and tranny back in the BURB, installed the front diff, transfer case, and the front driveshaft. Got em all in and tightened down and most of the accesories on it as well and filled the front diff, engine, transfer case, and tranny up with fluids. My next BIG project will be wiring followed by installing my intercooler, then installing a 1/2" feed line from the tank up to where ever I mount the lift pump at, and then swapping out the rear gears to 3.42's. I also called up ALLIGATOR PERFORMANCE and ordered a CORSA muffler, DIAMOND EYE 4" SUBURBAN exhaust, and an AFE stage 1 intake. My EFILIVE came in last FRIDAY as well as a new 1410 series yoke for my 14 bolt. Hopefully my TCM gets back from Brayden here soon as I will need it once the wiring is finished up.

And now for some pictures.

The engine bay with the new sound pad installed.


And later on in the day it all came together.



It's a TIGHT fit, but you can just get to the fill plug to fill her up with fluid. I did have to grind alot of the ribs off of the extension housing though to get clearance on the torsion bar crossmember.


And the 01 front driveshaft dropped right in and fit perfectly. You can see in the pic though that the shift lever for the transfer case is just barely missing the tranny, so I will have to grind part of the transmission mounting boss off to clear it.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Well I started the day by removing the fuel lines from the donor and putting them in the shop to put on tommorrow. Then I decided to tackle the wiring and get started there. Managed to get most all of the old engine wiring out and most of it laid out as to how to put the new back in. I also pulled the cluster out and redid the glow plug circuit as my 95 powered it but the DMAX grounds it.

The cluster is out and wiring getting sorted out.


The cluster before.


And after. You can see the jumper I installed to the power that would have been for the DRL(my 95 doesn't have daytime running lights) to where it used to be grounded. Picking the copper off the plastic is alot more work than you would think to boot.


Midway through cutting out the engine and uneeded connectors.


End of the day. Got almost all of it out and can start taping it back up tommorrow after I fix some of GM's SH!TTY splices. No wonder these trucks have developed so many grounding issues, GM did some HORRIBLE splices inside of the wiring harness's.



I always end up with a few extra pieces after a project like this.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Don't have any pics, but I have been busting my tail on this thing all week. My pins for the fuse block just came in today so I can get back to wiring again soon. While I was waiting on my terminals for the fuse panel, I decided to hook up the transfer case shift linkage and I also got a shift linkage mount bracket fabbed up. the DURAMAX shift cable will not hook up to the early cloumn, so I had to buy a new shift cable(mine wouldn't stay on the shift arm as the nylon in the end that locks it on was worn) and custom fab my bracket as the 95 cable is 2 inches longer than the DMAX cable from the mount point to the shift arm. It is pretty tight under there as the 2" setback put the cable mount RIGHT next to the U-joint for the front shaft. I was able to get a 1/4" of clearance on the crossmember and a 1/2" on the shaft(may ned up bringing it in closer to the shaft if it hits the crossmember). So I can now shift it through it's gears in the trans and transfer case.

I pulled the tank out and removed my 5/16" return line and opened it up and installed a 1/2" feed line and will use my old 3/8" feed for my return and I have the fuel cooler off and am about ready to mount it under the truck as well as my KENNEDY lift pump. I discovered that the DMAX metal lines will not clear the steering linkage on my SUB, so I hooked up my nylon covered diesel line right to the quick connects and was able to get them over the lock portion so I could double clamp em on there. And I will just use nylon covered diesel flexible line for the bulk of the fuel system. The tranny cooler metal lines didn't clear my front axle mount with enough room for mmy liking even after some tweaking, so I got some AN hose and AN fittings and will just plumb the cooler system that way. This really sucks as I had already had the original lines done up with hydraulic line in place of the old rubber line.

While the fuel tank was out I did the rear gears today since that BIG opening made getting to the diff EASY as pie. The GM 14 bolt 10.5" rear axle is actually pretty easy to build compared to the DANAS and CHRYSLER corporates I am used to building up. The tough part was torquing the pinion nut. This required a 4' 3/4" breaker bar and socket to match and locking the pinion yoke down in my vise. This allowed me to stand on the bar as my impact with 600 foot pounds could BARELY budge it(I had it in the press to install the front bearing and bring up the slack to the crush sleeve, even at 6 tons of pressure the crush sleeve didn't compress). It looks like I lucked out as my G80 looked BRAND NEW inside. I went ahead and pulled it apart and inspected the governor, and all the clutches were good and tight and all of the governor teeth were intact. I'm going to pull the rear hubs tommorrow and replace the axle seals since I'm this far into it. And hopefully get the fuel system plumbed as well.

I got my shipment from ALLIGATOR today, and will hopefully get my TCM tommorrow. That CORSA muffler is one BIG SOB now, espescially compared to the diamond eye that came in my exhaust kit. So I will have a 6.5 3" downpipe and a 4" straight through muffler for sale soon. Little by little I'm getting this thing tackled, but it's the little details that will KILL you in a project like this. I spent almost 2 hours trying to bend and fit the fuel lines in only to find they wouldn't clear the steering linkage after doing ALOT of bending and cutting on em. And you don't realize how much time you can spend bending and fitting a 1/2" feee tube and soldering and epoxying it in. The best way to describe it is an old saying we used in drag racing, "OEM = A complete list of all items that MUST be replaced or modified when building a performance vehicle."

[THEFERMANATOR]

I don't have many pics tonight, but I did make some headway with it. I got impatient today so I got the harness mostly finished up and decided to do a test fire to make sure it was all working properly. Well the first 3 attempts it just wheeled over and wouldn't fire a lick. It was building rail pressure and such, and I had disabled the theft system with EFILIVE. So after about an hour of head scratching it dawned on me, I had disconnected the FICM because I was doing some welding on the downpipe hanger on the engine. Hooked up the FICM and after about 3 seconds of cranking she came to life. After about 20 seconds of running it must have learned the new balance rates a bit and started smoothing out it's idle and sounded pretty good. SO hopefully this will give me a second wind and I can get this thing wrapped up soon and on the road.

Now for a few pics.
Heres the harness mostly together and ready for a test fire.



Heres the new location for the glow plug/intake heater fuse. It is right underneath and in front of the ABS pump and right behind where the drivers side battery will go. This also helped in the problem that the DMAX battery cables has too short of a lead to reach to my PDC for my 95, so I used the fuse block as a junction block and hooked on the 6 guage cable from the old harness on the battery side of the fuse block and this got me a good power cable to the PDC.


And heres the PDC almost finished up. I ran out of tape so I couldn't put the flex covering over it tonight. Didn't come out to bad for a spliced together mess.(And don't ask me how many solders and splices I had to make in that one little area, it's a good thing that I like electrical)


And a special treat, the audio sucks but you get the idea.
http://s162.photobucket.com/albums/t...t=HPIM0984.flv

[THEFERMANATOR]

I had a shorter day today as I have to go down tommorrow and get one of the new exhaust pipes expanded so it will fit onto my CORSA muffler. I got MOST all of the wiring in and done today as well as the driveshafts. Since I needed to have the pipe done I decided to take my time and make the wiring as neat as possible. After finishing up the wiring and putting the shafts in I started her up and put it in gear to see if it would go in and it dropped into forward and reverse right away. I also did 3 starts on it with no check engine light so I may be OK in the MIL department. The tachometer works fine since I am driving it off the alternator just like a 6.5 did. I still need to check my speed outputs as I decided to try and use the ECM's and bypas the VSSB(if they don't work I left the wires there so I can hook it back up).

Heres a shot of the engine with the harness's in place(ECM and TCM will be mounted last after everything is together).





Heres the PDC all finished up.


And I spent some time and made an updated insert to go in my PDC for correct fuses and relays.


My toggle switches in and my QUDZILLA guage.

[THEFERMANATOR]

The fuel cooler and you can also see the driveshaft.


And a few underside shots to show how tight the fit is.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Well I got the exhaust finished up yesterday, and I spent today cutting away at the radiator support to fit the DMAX intercooler and radiator in. It is a TIGHT fit between the radiator and fan clutch, but after about 4 hours of cutting and modifying I was able to get enough room to put the fan clutch on with the radiator in place which leaves me an inch of clearance between the clutch and core and 2 1/4" from the fan blade tips to the core. I decided to make it a close fit and severely modify the radiator support to accomadate a stock cooler and radiator rather than modifying the radiator, intercooler, and support. Once I get it boxed back together it will be plenty stout as I can sit on it now without it buckling and I am no where near done reinforcing it.

Here's a few shots of the exhaust. That 4" pipe looks HUGE compared to my old 3" pipe I had before.



And the CORSA muffler is a MONSTER compared to the 4" DIAMOND EYE that came in the kit. I ended up having to relocate the front hanger forward so I could move the muffler forward and I had to modify the middle hanger some to allow this as well.


Not a job for the timid.



Removed just a little bit bit of metal from it so far.

[THEFERMANATOR]

I guess I've been slacking on updating this one. I got to driver today and feel her out a bit and the power of the DMAX is SWEET in this SUB. It has more power with 3.42's in it than my 6.5 EVER had with the 4.10's. I have run into a few bugs that have to be ironed out though. I'm leaving on my honeymoon on WEDNESDAY, so thankfully I have a back-up vehicle for my trip.

First off the heater return pipe from the heater cores to the lower radiator hose developed a leak in it right at the weld for the retaining arm.


So I'll have to get a new tube for when I get back. Also I have 2 codes that won't go away that I can find no reason for, P0748 and P0778. Also I have very little power in 1st gear and lots of blue smoke if I giver her more than about 20% throttle. This only seems to happen in 1st as 2nd and 3rd pulled VERY strongly. Also my tow/haul mode isn't functioning properly as it gives me VERY hard shifts when engaged and holds them out ridicuously long and provides NO grade braking what so ever. I wasn't able to get her up fast enough where I was driving to test out the OD/LO function.

The A/C doesn't engage for some reason so I'll have to do some digging tommorrow with EFILIVE and see if I can figure out why the ECM isn't commanding the A/C relay(A/C works when I jumpered it).

Heres a pic showing the TCM and you can see the ECM as well tucked in by the drivers side battery tray.


I haven't finished up the airbox yet, so for now the filter is just laying in there.


Another engine bay pic.


And a pic of the front end with my projector headlights. I did have the grill and such on it, but had to take it back off to get to the bolts that hold the drivers battery tray in place.


Hopefully I can get ahold of Brayden before I leave and get his opinion on what to check for the 2 codes and also about low power in 1st as I think it is a torque management issue, but this TCM is locked to the extent that I can't even scan it with EFILIVE for the scanner portion(can only pull codes out of it).

[DmaxMaverick]

Both codes are TCM related, and likely the reason the T/H doesn't work properly. Some tranny features are disabled when specific DTC's are present.

P0748 sets when the transmission control module (TCM) detects one of the following conditions:
A short to power.
A short to ground.
High or low resistance in PC solenoid A.
High or low resistance in PC solenoid A wiring.

P0778 sets when the transmission control module (TCM) detects one of the following conditions:
A short to power.
A short to ground.
A high or low resistance in PC solenoid B
A high or low resistance in PC solenoid B wiring.

Both will also inhibit TCC function. During this, compression braking will not be effective (grade braking).

If this was a one-time error, the codes will remain for several start cycles, and as long as the DTC is stored in history, the performance/function of the tranny will be effected. You need to find out if these are real time, or stored in history (read TCM codes). If in history, clearing of the TCM codes or several warm up cycles will be necessary to return to normal.

[THEFERMANATOR]

The 2 codes trip everytime I turn the engine over. I can clear them and turn the key on and they won't come back until I turn it over again to start it. I checked both solonoids and have 5.8 ohms on A and 6.0 ohms on B both at the solonoids and at the connector for the TCM. Neither circuit showed any resistance to ground or power and I could find no pinched wires. Also these 2 codes are not turning on the check engine light even though they say they should. I'm thinking this is a problem with my TCM as it is a one off and I'm having some other issues with the engine that I think are TCM related. In 1st gear I have very little power, and if I give it more throttle it blows out blue smoke. Let off the throttle and let it shift into second and it immediately clears up and takes off like a scalded dog. And on a 2-1 downshift it will actually lose power when it goes into 1st and start rolling out blue smoke again. I'm trying to get ahold of the programmer before I leave on my trip to see what he thinks about it.

[THEFERMANATOR]

Got one more bug figured out this morning. WONDERFUL ALLDATA got me again. I charged the A/C but the compressor wouldn't turn on. I dug up everything I could from ALLDATA about the A/C trigger and it clearly said that it looks for a ground from the A/C control head to trigger the compressor, THIS IS FALSE! It looks for a 12V+ signal to trigger the compressor to come on. So now I have to go back into my PDC and remove the A/C request relay and hook the A/C sense wire up to my A/C request wire from the 95 head since it powers the circuit on.

[THEFERMANATOR]

The latest update to my saga after some time off for my honeymoon.

After fighting with the PENSACOLA DIESEL remans for almost 2 months of not running right I broke down and bought a set of GM injectors and now she lives. Here's a copy of my latest update from another forum.

Since it's about 95% done now I took some pics for the insurance company today and figured I would put em here as well. I still have to finish up the air filter mount, put yet another shift shaft seal in the tranny(can't figure out why it is fine for a few eeks then starts leaking, this will be the 3rd seal) and get the windshield leak fixed. Most of the front end is back on and it's in mostly driveable condition as well though and waiting for insurance and a tag so I can go break her in a bit.

[THEFERMANATOR]

[THEFERMANATOR]

[More Power]

Congrats! Looking good!

Jim

[THEFERMANATOR]

Made a few videos today of it, still working on the tuning some but all in all pretty stout.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6Taop8xnBo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFtvXp3dIws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrM_prRfqpY

[93GMCSierra]

Very Nice, and Congrats on finishing a great project.

[THEFERMANATOR]

I finished the last of it up today and got my airbox done and replaced my throttle pedal assembly(origanal 95 and was getting a ghost peddle to it that was scary with the DMAX), so I decided to try out a tune I built with EFILIVE last night. I know the 3.42's are holding me back a bunch, but a little less defueling from the MAF and this is what I got.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6atnUMuwuE

[jbplock]

AWESOME Dmax Burb!! Congrats

[THEFERMANATOR]

I had to run in to TAMPA today for some parts and I got to do roughly 60% highway and 40% stop and go driving today and it averaged 19.5MPG. The highway driving was running 62-65, and I also got on it 3 times pretty good to pull out into traffic. Not too bad for milage considering my DAKOTA would be lucky to get 15-16 doing the same run, and it weighs in over a ton less.