my 1.5 120 wall tubing should be here this week and my K member will not be a weight savings but will make space available

 

questions can we some pic's of the progress I am looking forward to this project i think it is a cool idea. thinking outside of the box is a good idea..

 

I dont have any pics of progress for me just some small parts that I ordered like the 2wd tail for the trans and the remote filter kit for the oil

once the tubing comes in there will be some more mock up for the k member trying to get it rolling again

 

Me too!

 

got my tubing in and some of the other parts this week I have to build a new powder coating oven this weekend but the weather is getting nicer and days are getting longer so some progress is to come

Also building a 99 firebird right now too

 

Pictures, please!

 

should be a fun and interesting build when its done. I know a guy in norcal that has a '70 chevelle with a duramax. The engine is bone stock with a th400 and just with tuning it runs high 10's and gets 25mpg

 

no updates sorry been very busy with a firebird as soon as its done though there will be alot to update and fast

 

yay, i myself have been busy looking for another 2.8 bird, preferably black, because you all may or may not know (I MISS MY FIREBIRD) https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/memb...-firebird.html lol self plug

 

I am trying to decide black on black or keep the same paint job with the pearls in the white and black

the black on black would be gloss black paint black chrome wheels and black with red candy powdercoat for all the parts engine suspension wise

 

on the camaro? or your firebird?

 

the firebird isnt mine its a customers its going from a v6 auto to a LS6 6 speed with a full texas speed top end PRC2.5 heads cam LS6 intake ect and I am building all his front suspension parts K member upper lower A arms tq arm ect

the Camaro is mine and it got back burnered and after the firebird Ive got a full resto mod job on a 1969 fastback mustang getting all new suspension coyote 5.0 supercharged and on and on ....thats buying me a lift for the garage and some other toys and alot of the stuff i need for my duramax swap like harness lift pump and ecu EFI live with tunning

 

ahhhhh now i getcha, i say keep it white, like in the pics in post 1

 

can't wait to see this done, very cool!

 

crazy fab work. i would have brought the tube in all the way to the ball joint cup, but i dont know what thickness plate you are using so you should be ok. a lot of people build them like that, just a different opinion on my end. same for the wheels, i personally dont think they fit the 3rd gen, but you arent building this for me.

going to be nuts when you get her all ironed out.

 

the ball joint area is 1/4 inch plate and im going to cup it up some and back brace it but its coming together work and other projects are taking up alot of my time right now

 

a couple of gussets from the tube to the cup should get you by. if i were going to start over, id want to use 3/8 plate, but youll be fine.
did you put a slit in the tubing and insert the plate, or is it but welded? looks like youve got a slit in one of the pics. hard to tell.

 

they were slit then welded top and bottom thats what I planned on doing was a gusset from the tube to the ball joint sleeve

these were just my first set too I havent had them on the car yet so it might change all together

I am making a complete K member and upper and lowers for a 99 firebird right now along with tq arm panhard and lcas

 

got a good deal on a k member basically free just traded some stuff for it I will have to modify it some and thinking it might need to be alittle beefier but now I can stuff the dmax and tranny in the engine bay and get rolling on some other stuff






stock to the new setup I will also be modifying the K member for rack and pinion steering ...POWER RandP not pinto found a combination of parts that I will try to make work without loosing steering travel and have a better ratio than the iroc quick box

 

I would of bought ball joint cups from racecraft. They're made specially for Camaro ball joints.......

Just a thought figured I would throw it out there.

 

once i get everything together if they are to wide for the wheels i got and affect steering travel then I will rebuild them and use the cups but what I have now will be plenty strong alot stronger than stock

 

cool build, and i like stuff thats outside the norm.
but...

duramax's are great until something breaks or needs replaced. also it is going to get very expensive if you are looking for 900+hp.
many of them break crankshafts for no aparant reason. mine did. with stock tune. ~$1200 for a new stock crank.
new stock injectors are ~$800 each.
head gaskets and oem headbolts are $800.
arp studs are $700
forged pistons $2500
carillo rods $2600
billet crankshaft $$$$$?
stroker kits $13,000
allison trans rebuilds are $2500+ (if you stayed with an allison)converters $1500+

i've been on the diesel sites and those guys swear up and down these things are the wave of the future. i think they are nuts. that stuff is insanely expensive. for the price of just a duramax stroker kit, you could build a fuel injected bbc with a 106mm turbo that would lay down 1700+ at the wheels.

 

I dont plan on 900 plus but if it came to it yeah a complete rebuild but the prices are not to far off find anyone pushing well over 1000 hp and ask how much they have into it and it will be the same or more

Im using a 4l80 not allison too 2500 for a complete built up for over 1000 ho tq trans

LB7s have great pistons and crank the rods are the weak point and the head bolts like you mentioned but where can you get 650 hp and around 1200 t lb of tq for less than 2500 dollars for me its just a lift pump and tune to get me there and some other parts that I will fab like exhaust up pipes down pipes ect

 

when i found my broke crank in my LBZ i looked for a used complete motor. about the cheapest i could find was around $3500 for a high mileage one. then i found that it was pretty common for all the duramax engines to break cranks.
http://www.duramaxdiesels.com/forum/...ad.php?t=23186

rods are better on the LBZ, but pistons are better on the LB7. i had another LBZ donor shortblock that had a wristpin bushing walk out of the piston and the snapring/wristpin made a deep scratch in the bore. i got the crank out of that one to repair my truck's engine. since i had everything torn down, i had to buy all the seals, bolts, bearings, gaskets, etc. i have alot tied up in just putting it back together. i didnt even have to do machine work on it.

my dad has a '03 LB7 that has eaten 3 ficm's at ~$1500 a pop. they replaced a full set of injectors (under warranty), a couple of harnesses, and hopefully its ok now. it also had a transfer case replaced under warranty. at around 90k miles they have a tendency to wear through the case and start leaking. he found oil all over the front of their camper on a trip. truck has around 115k miles on it now and its always been bone stock with all the fuel additives everyone on the duramax forums said to use.

i hope you have good luck with it, but i will not be playing with diesels anytime soon. they are just too expensive.

 

Don’t mean to derail this too much, but…

Did GM have a defective run on 6.6 cranks? I’ve put 100k miles on mine with a 600 HP tune and oversized rubber. I have seen no issues. The only thing that I can think of is that people are letting them rev a bit too high (Duramax’s love the revs, like any V8 diesel).

600 HP is easy with an LBZ, and as long as you’re not pushing the tach too high, I think you’ll be fine. If memory serves me correctly, the stock limiter is 4,300 RPM. With a tuner, it’s easy to disable that and let it rev to 5,500. For a gasser, that’s not a big deal, but there is a lot of rotating mass on a 6.6 crank and it is accelerating pretty quickly at 5,500 RPM.

My suspicion is, just like all the warped heads, that people were running tunes that they didn’t understand. Of course they aren’t going to come out and say, “Hey, I dialed my rev limiter to 6 grand and my boost to 60 psi, then it broke. Whoops.” They’re going to say, “Well, Mr. GM, I was just on my way to church, obeying all of the posted traffic regulations, and it just broke. I don’t know what happened. This is covered under warranty, right?”

Just my two cents. Build it for 600 HP, but understand what’s going on in there.

 

nobody really knows for sure why they break, but im sure rpms do play a part. they ALL break at the #2 main. 99.9% of them. my truck was pulling a car down the hwy when it started knocking and the driver pulled over. they hauled the truck to a shop where it was diagnosed as a bottom end noise... wrist pin or something.
some make 900hp with the stock crank, some break with no tune at all, like my truck. click on the link i posted above. its a thread on a diesel site im on. they made a poll for broken cranks, and i think there was like 38 broken crankshafts just out of the guys that post over there on that site. so imagine how many other broke cranks there has been!

 

not to call you out but like abadv8 said most might have been tweeking and if its a forum most likely if they are on a forum they are gearheads and tweek away I head the LBZ has the best crank LB7 the best pistons and buy some rods and you will have a bad *** setup but for what I want I will be ok

also think to about engine Load with my 3500 lb car it wont put half the load on the engine as say a 8500 lb truck

less stress

 

:agree: cant wait to see the finished project! I'm curious to how it will turn out.

 

I doubt this car will be hauling other peoples' cars, either.

 

it could though lol, also if you lighten the car further (cut out crash bars, lighter seats, fiberglass hood ect ect) the weight will go down further and be even less stress on the engine

 

nah necessarily, since a duramx can push a monster of a truck weight wise, this will be nothing. itll do just fine with 3500 lbs

 

Blah blah blah!!!! This is a bad a$$ build. Who cares how you work your pulling truck. Remember this is going in a gen 3 camaro. All the rules have changed once you take this step. No load, no lagg, no strain ect.... Thus you have a powerfully gen 3 that can to your broke a$$ tow rig when you overload it!!!

 

was going to get the motor in this weekend but work decided it was more important but I will be mounting the motor and trans this week/ coming weekend I got the K member in and A arms in now I need to get some coilovers to get rolling again

Ill get some pics up once the motor is in

 

My Ecotec is resting in my engine-bay.

Does this mean I'm winning?

 

thats how it looks and I have about a 3 thousand dollar road block for the tuner fuel pumps intercooler and misc stuff

 

OUCH!

I kind of feel bad about my previous comment, now.

Waiting SUCKS...

 

nah ill be making real good money off my next job im putting a coyote 5.0 in a 69 fastback mustang and doign a full resto the owner is putting alot of money into it and Ill be making a good bit

 

Good Luck with the build. I own an 05 GMC 2500HD With a Duramax and couldn't ask for more torque and power.

 

Sweet action...

 

I assume that your $3k roadblock includes replacing the CP3 with something else. What are you planning to run in its place?

For the tune, I recommend EFI Live. There is lots of support from the Durabux crowd on that platform. You might even consider contacting EFI Live, and see if they would be willing to work with you on the cost if you give them a plug (as I am sure this will wind up in a magazine or two).

As for the intercooler, meh, I think anything that will fit will work. The import crowd must have something big enough. I could measure my intercooler and see if a stocker might work for you if you canted it behind the bumper cover. If you want dimensions, let me know and I can measure our Duramax and Cummins intercoolers.

I may have glazed over this, but what are your plans for the charger? Are you going to try to run a variable vane turbo, a big single, or twins?

I think your 4 speed would treat you alright with a big single, since you won't have to defuel for a total of 5 gear changes as with the Allison. I've always liked the sound of a big single over twins. It reminds me of a jet taking off. As a benefit, with a big single, you won't have to worry about burning things up in the trans because of low line pressures at low RPM's with moderate boost.

Anyway, sorry to segue again, I'm super curious to see how this shakes out. Send me a PM if you get stuck (diesels are kind of my thing, and I'd be glad to help if I can).

 

CP3 will stay stock for now the limit for the LB7 is Air long before fuel being an issue

I am getting EFI live V2 with tuning by Idaho Rob

I had a stock intercooler and there is no way it will work its about the size of the front end for the camaro so I will build a custom setup and your right there are alot out there just might have to go over the welds if its a cheapo

Right now im sticking with the stock turbo and if anything I will go to a compound setup because with my car only weighing 3500 or less and with 1000 FT TQ or more on tap I will have a problem loading the turbo to get it up to full operating speed with a smaller and a compund I can load it faster and I wont do a variable vane because the LB7 doesnt have the supporting electronics and I rather not deal with them

COST
EFI Live with tunes 1000
AirdogII lift pump 700
Intercooler and pipes 500
and I may send off the wiring to have it done 750
Misc stuff coil overs mini tubs and tires 2500

 

ill agree with adam on the intercooler being huge. i got one from a buddy at a dealer that had a pinhole leak from the factory. scrapped that bad boy for some $$$. they are HUGE.

 

I've never been a fan, but would an air-water intercooler be a better solution in this case? You are going to have a pretty big thermal load, and I wonder what an undersized intercooler is going to do for your injection timing.

Just like spark timing, the hotter the incoming air, the more you have to retard your timing to prevent detonation. With elevated IAT's, compression ignition due to the latent heat of compression is compounded and the kindling temperature of the fuel will occur a little sooner in the compression stroke, so you won't be able to load the cylinder with fuel as soon.

I could throw the scanner on mine and take it for a lap around the block to get you a baseline for IAT's. Off the top of my head, I want to say 128-138*F IAT @ 70*F ambient. That would be with the monstrous air-air intercooler and moderate engine loading.

This may all be a moot point, but I'd hate to see you throw an intercooler in there and have it become a choke point.

 

the stock one is huge but only a inch thick maybe so with a comparable size like a 36 by 18 by 3 inch I think it will work better and with electric fans working it constantly

im not a fan of water to air they work great for a few but then that water will get hot

 

not anything for the car but finished building my powdercoating oven I took a old flamables locker deskined it insulated it and got all the electronics hooked up just need to put the ducting in to direct the heater into the box and its good to go


This is my second oven I sold my last one that was 8'x5'x5' and I used the torpedo heater with it and it worked amazing fast time to temp and very steady once at temp

 

I wish I had the room for this kind of project.

 

you still serving adam or doing cars full time? if you are enlisted, you probably dont get much sleep. haha. busy man.

 

yeah still in I work for a commander now so I got a desk job so I have to get my wrenching in somewhere

and yes little to no sleep just setting myself up for retirement to open a shop in 8 years

 

so i got my new powder coating oven done and it works perfect 15 min to 400 degrees and I can tighten it up alittle more too because there are some air leaks where I am loosing some heat So i moved it to is new home and did some garage rearranging and came to the conclusion that I can make some more space if I start putting motors in cars ....


Lesson one the duramax and 4l80e will not go in together just to dam big so back out and came apart

lesson two I need a engine leveler for my hoist

Lesson 3 If I want steering I will have to make this Dmax a twin turbo and remote mount the turbos

lesson 4 if I want to keep the oil pan I will have to make it about 2 inches shorter maybe more so I will cut the bottom and wing it out to save volume and make it more low profile


I took pics and will put some up tonight

 

So does this man you will be putting then in from the bottom together, or from the top separate?

Engine leveler for sure!

Twin turbos are fun

Who needs an oil pan? Do a dry sump?