Rebirth of Dustbull-with 408ci, efi, t56, dana 60

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Well, its been a while since I posted here, but I got my truck done, so Ive been turning my attention to the Demon again. I finally got the fuel injection on the engine and running, words cannot describe the feeling of hearing it idle on its own and start up in a fraction of a second without having to finesse the gas pedal...



[ame="http://youtu.be/Bw08yU8QC2A"]Bw08yU8QC2A[/ame]
I just need to remember how I adapted the throttle cable to the throttle body. then cruise around and tune it some!
 
I just read all the way through your build (rebuild) thread. I about crapped when I came to the post about the second accident. Talk about Deja vu! Did you kick little puppy dogs when you were young? There seems to be some bad karma going on! LOL. - Glad to see the second incident wasn't as serious as the first. - Nice work on the car.
 
Hey guys, as I said in my last post, my attention has turned to my car now ( I purchased a house since the last post and have been moving since then). I'm trying to take the demon to work and around town more. It cruises really well, but I need to map out the top half of my VE tables, and the streets aren't the place for this (repeated 1/2+ throttle pulls, 60mph+ runs). I just tweaked the accel enrichment table so the throttle response is better than the carb ever had been.

I removed my hydroboost because it was leaking and I don't think power brakes are necessary on this big of a car. I want to put the car on jack stands to pull the sagging Hotchkis springs out and fab a 4 link/mini tub December-ish. I also want to pull the trans which has a bad 2nd gear synchro and a dying 5/6 gear. I have all the johnny joints, coil overs... priced im just waiting for next months paycheck to order them, I have all the trans parts ready to go, including a viper/aston martin mainshaft.


I posted it in the suspension section months ago, but here is my hotchkis spring-sagging drive (before efi), a couple 1st, 2nd pulls, not hard 1-2 shifts b/c my synchro was already shot back then:

[ame]http://youtu.be/hMtr1ZsSXFs[/ame]
 
The Demons finally off the road with the efi running great and the leaf springs scaring me that they'll snap (because of this it became my backup ride). I finally got around to redoing the rear suspension. I have all the heim joints ordered, I'll be modeling my suspension off of Mad Dart's write up. I'm also going to mini tub the rear before starting on the suspension. Directly after the suspension I'll be removing the transmission to rebuild with viper mainshaft. After all that I'd finally like to get the efi tuned and go to a track.
From what I've seen on here 335's should be able to fit when done.

 
Wheel wells are all cut out, I need to get some sheet metal before I make anymore progress; I thought it'd take me longer to get here. I also got the heim joints in the mail.


 
Thanks! The truck has been great to me, lots of fun, 20+mpg on the highway. All 96 ram 1 ton chassis, drivetrain (Dana 80 rear, Dana 60 front, 6spd manual, cummins 6bt)

 
Thanks! It's funny you say that, a few weeks ago I made the decision to sell my truck when I'm finished revamping the demon. I'll be looking for a 4x4 cummins ram 4dr short bed 6spd manual to replace it. I don't want to, but I feel like my work and personal life needs a 4dr truck and I just don't have the space for another spare vehicle right now.
 

After 10hrs this weekend I got the wheel wells tacked in, except for a couple patches on the passenger side.


I cut the outer fender wells out too, there was a decent lip (~1") that I thought I'd kick myself if I didn't clear out of the way for the future. It's not the most seamless patch-up but its out of the way.


I should have the metal for the suspension this week
 
Not too much visual progress, the inner fenders are done and ready for paint. I finally got the upper link's crossmember cut and tacked in, I cut the mounting tabs but realized I need to stop relying on MadDarts pictures and start to do some of my own thinking. If I have a 3.5" tall mount (5" from axle CL) on the differential It'll be at 100% anti squat. I think this looks like MadDarts, but wanted to get concrete numbers to verify on my end. Hopefully I can get the upper links tacked in this week.



 
It's hard to get decent pictures underneath but I have the upper links tacked to the crossmember. And should be symmetrical to within 1/4" and at the same angle. I originally tried to 'freehand' the templates for the links-that didn't work well. These I drew the radius out in CAD and assured the links will be the right distance from the crossbar. If all goes well maybe I can start working on the lower links by next weekend.



 
The diff mounts are tacked in place, and I've moved onto the lower links, starting with removing the leaf spring and cutting the frame rail. Hopefully tomorrow I can cut the new frame rail section, tack it into place and move onto the other side. Hoping that by the weekend I might have everything tacked and I can start pulling things out to weld completely.


 
Damn I just read this whole thing.... I have had a similar issue (Gal tboned my 67 dart going 65-70 if it weren't for the cage work I would be dead and so would my brother) and I am glad to see that you got another a-body and fixed it up. only thing to complain about is the Kaiser in that you took apart a nice 96 Ram (Another personal obsession other then darts) but it did turn out nice keep us posted
 
Sorry to hear about your accident, glad youre ok, but hopefully you can or were made whole from that accident. Don't worry about the Ram, the frame I used for the kaiser was leftover from my friends ex cab short bed conversion on his 97. My friend also had a spare 80k mile 6bt/nv4500, so the 'donor' I bought was rebuilt and given to his cousin in Ohio which was subsequently sold (in a way out from under me and my friend) for 4x what I bought it for as an auto-but that's neither here nor there.

I got everything mocked up finally, my only concern is how low the coilovers hang, and how little compression I have left at this position; the bracket hangs 8" from the centerline of the axle at ride height (if this is where they'll rest with springs)-what do you guys think about this? I'm half considering relocating the springs to behind the axle because of this...The tubes for the links are cut and are within 1/8"-1/16" of their partner-I'm very happy that things ended up this symmetrical with my relatively crude measurement/locating techniques for the brackets.

I pulled the axle out to finish welding everything. I'm going to cut the old pinion snubber out and a few other things before welding the crossmember in for good...I had a few 'casualties' as in pulled the axle since I just tacked the brackets on, but i can easily relocate what got knocked around.





 
We'll take two: tonight I got the new coulover crossmember welded in for good and the coilovers located (at least according to my measurements). Tomorrows goals are to gusset and finish weld everything and clean the underbody of any unnecessary tabs.


 
Got everything welded in and my dad helped me paint the underbody. I'm hoping that I can get the differential mounts gusseted and the links welded together this week, maybe get it on the ground in a week or so if there are no hang ups (still need to press in/out new axle bearings and seals too)

 
Doesn't look like much of an update, but I'm 95% done wit gusseting, if all goes well everything will be in black and on the car over the weekend.



 
Hate to say this in this thread but you should have made a crew cab jeep using a Wagoneer.
 
dglearn said:
Hate to say this in this thread but you should have made a crew cab jeep using a Wagoneer.
Click to expand...

Absolutely no question, I've regretted that the last year or so. But when I bought the body almost 5 years ago I liked the shortbed regular cab look and didn't like the proportions of long beds or extended cabs. Being a bit more practical now I know I need a rear seat for passengers or just dry storage for things that can't fit in my toolbox. We'll see what the future holds for it and my next truck/project
 
Well I made good progress this week, it's almost all bolted up, I just need to set the pinion angle and center the axle under the car. I also need to run a couple new brake lines and put in new bearing and seals on the axle.



 
would you be interested in making the mounting tabs and selling them? the more i read about everyone doing there own swaps the more i want to do it and be done with the leaf spring set up
 
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