1997 Silverado Stepside Project

[lsxponcho]

I finished up all the small little things to a point where I was brave enough to take her for its maiden voyage. For exhaust I ended up going 2.5" dual's, swept over to the pass side with flowmaster super 44's with sort of a side exited 90 / dump. I will take some pictures to show what I mean. Its pretty noisy, though (no interior but dash and drivers seat). I'm would like to put in a v-band clamp split over the trans cross member so everything can unbolt, and come out, and then I can weld in the h-pipe. Fan and fuel pumps are wired up properly now with relays, fan works good, kicks in at 185 and back off at 170.

Anyways on to the test drive...it was mostly a win. Timing was all over the place, as i was running ported vac from the wrong spot...it wasn't charging since I forgot about wiring the signal wire from the alt to a dummy light, and fuel press was getting weird with falling voltage. The M/T valve covers I spent so much time re-doing don't seal at all. The lip on the valve cover at the corners interfere's with the thicker gasket surface of the Edelbrock head, and it pretty much gave everything an oil bath. The headers melted any loom that was close...which isn't even that close lol, but didn't hurt any wiring. The 5 speed is still alive which i'm happy to report, considering I was getting a little grumpy on how it ran until I figured out the timing problem...so I beat on it a little hard. I can probably attribute that to not having posi yet. I'm surprised how the suspension behaves. Most of that is probably due to the how the rear shock arrangement has changed. It squats really hard.