What did you do to/with your second gen today?

Okiespaniel said:

Dodged a bullet this week. Pun intended.

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what the hell is that? lol

dapepper9 said:

what the hell is that? lol

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harmonic balancer

I always said that I'd never do it but yesterday, I ordered a set of eBay shorties for $160. Yes, I know, cheap headers don't carry much of a rep but **** it. If they last just one year before blowing a weld, I'll be happy. They're supposed to be 14-gauge 304 stainless. Dunno. To help with sealing, I ordered a set of Remflex gaskets. At least there's some "good" stuff there.

Made my usual weekend beer run which consisted of cruising 80 MPH with Metallica cranked the hell up. Within two miles of my turnoff, a semi truck hit the brakes (for whatever reason) forcing me to do the same and we made a pass around a truck towing one of those agricultural fork thingies. Ended up slowing all the way down to 60 and by the time he moved back to the right lane, I was within a mile of my turnoff but didn't feel like muffing along at 60, especially with a small pack of cars behind me (and "The Four Horsemen" playing) so I just dug into the throttle. Accelerated right on up to 80 again and had plenty of room to just gently glide into the off-ramp. Oh, I was in overdrive the whole time too. Thanks, Ryan! Your tune never ceases to impress me.

I will say, I sometimes kind of wish that the kickdown was a little more aggressive. Really shouldn't have to bury the throttle to go from OD back to third. Certainly can't knock the tune for this since the kickdown is basically mechanical in nature. One of these days, I'll get drunk enough to try screwing with the throttle valve cable on the tranny...

Then I got back home and the oil pressure dropped to zero. Having dealt with this before, I popped the hood and listened. Engine sounded just fine. SOB, I paid fifty bucks for that new, genuine OEM pressure sender to replace the cheapy, parts store one which failed on me before and it did resolve the problem. I'm gonna go to O'Reilly's tomorrow and borrow an oil pressure test just to make sure I don't actually have pressure issues.

The county has been working the gravel road that I drive on every day. Looks like they're widening it and they've dumped a fresh batch of gravel. A small mountain of sandy stuff, at least two inches high, was stretched across the entry of my lane, so I did what anyone who doesn't like obstructions on their "driveway" would do...I nailed the throttle while driving through it and kicked up a huge ass plume of the stuff! Between me and the folks, that little mountain line isn't there anymore.

dapepper9 said:

what the hell is that? lol

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Merc225hp said:

harmonic balancer

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I don't know what to say. Every vehicle engine has one of some sort. The 5.9 has the belt pulley pressed on it. P*ss poor idea if you ask me.

I'd recommend checking the balancer on occasion. I'm told this is not uncommon on high mileage engines exposed to high heat. I was lucky to catch this but I had a shake at curb idle that new plugs and a throttle body cleaning couldn't fix.
Just glad I didn't beat the mains out of the engine before the outer ring came off!

Merc225hp said:

She undergoing some changes.

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Okiespaniel said:

Dodged a bullet this week. Pun intended.

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My God.

Two old farts from the DF days.

Yeret said:

I always said that I'd never do it but yesterday, I ordered a set of eBay shorties for $160. Yes, I know, cheap headers don't carry much of a rep but **** it. If they last just one year before blowing a weld, I'll be happy. They're supposed to be 14-gauge 304 stainless. Dunno. To help with sealing, I ordered a set of Remflex gaskets. At least there's some "good" stuff there.

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Pick up 3 sets of ARP 612-1000 bolts or you'll hate the install. I say 3 because they come in packs of 5

Okiespaniel said:

I don't know what to say. Every vehicle engine has one of some sort. The 5.9 has the belt pulley pressed on it. P*ss poor idea if you ask me.

I'd recommend checking the balancer on occasion. I'm told this is not uncommon on high mileage engines exposed to high heat. I was lucky to catch this but I had a shake at curb idle that new plugs and a throttle body cleaning couldn't fix.
Just glad I didn't beat the mains out of the engine before the outer ring came off!

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And just like that I'm worried

Well in the last month I've driven it across the country and back. Went to Knoxville Tennessee for upgrade training for work. Did the gears i mentioned earlier there. Put 2k miles on it and drove it back. Got back Wednesday.

Yesterday was a good day.

Picked up Mag-Hytec Dana 60 and 70 diff covers as well as 47re trans pan. $840 in pans....i paid $150. Brand new in their bags still. I also picked up some Texas Speed Parts stainless steel longtubes and a Flowmaster 10 series side exit cat back kit. These were both for 99-06 Chevy 5.3 trucks. Longtubes are going to my little bros 06 chevy and side exit pipes got cut off the chokemaster to be robbed for my truck. This weekend I'm cutting off my hollow cat and tailpipe, welding a universal Y onto the flowmaster side exits and welding that to my CarvenTR muffler then welding that in place of the hollow cat. Currently with full tailpipe and hollow cat it crackles kinda like straight pipe at certain points. Never did that before when it was a side exit so I'm going back to that

Changed the oil. Finally went Castrol Edge Full Synthetic. Normally I would run Valvoline but I decided to take a chance at a friend's advice and run Castrol Edge. He said his truck loved that oil over others. I have to admit she does seem to run smoother than she did with Valvoline.

A side note: I refuse to run Pennzoil in anything anymore. It ran great in my 92 Jeep back in the day but my Mazda B2500/Ranger 2.5L and my F150 5.4L it kept leaving a yellow film under the oil cap. Switching to Valvoline eliminated that though.

Shadow_Death said:

Changed the oil. Finally went Castrol Edge Full Synthetic. Normally I would run Valvoline but I decided to take a chance at a friend's advice and run Castrol Edge. He said his truck loved that oil over others. I have to admit she does seem to run smoother than she did with Valvoline.

A side note: I refuse to run Pennzoil in anything anymore. It ran great in my 92 Jeep back in the day but my Mazda B2500/Ranger 2.5L and my F150 5.4L it kept leaving a yellow film under the oil cap. Switching to Valvoline eliminated that though.

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That's like people who say their car runs better when is washed.

Shadow_Death said:

Changed the oil. Finally went Castrol Edge Full Synthetic. Normally I would run Valvoline but I decided to take a chance at a friend's advice and run Castrol Edge. He said his truck loved that oil over others. I have to admit she does seem to run smoother than she did with Valvoline.

A side note: I refuse to run Pennzoil in anything anymore. It ran great in my 92 Jeep back in the day but my Mazda B2500/Ranger 2.5L and my F150 5.4L it kept leaving a yellow film under the oil cap. Switching to Valvoline eliminated that though.

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While I do agree that not all oils are made the same. There are definitely crappy oils out there. However, in this case the American petroleum institute sets the minimum standards for oil in order to use their stamp. Both Valvoline and Castrol meet those requirements. There is also the GM Dexos rating, both make oils that meet that rating, but not all of their oils do, similarly to the European ACEA standards as well as the European MST standards. Both companies make oils that meet one or all standards throughout their range. Some oil manufacturers only choose to meet some of these standards as they don't plan on operating in certain markets or they choose not to cater to dealers or licensed repair shops which must use the specified oil.

As far as a side by side comparison, between Castrol and Valvoline, if you take Dexos approved full syn from both, you won't be able to tell the difference unless you do an oil analysis and compare it to known samples. The same goes for their MST and ACEA oils. However, if you've been using Valvoline SynPower Dexos and switch to Castrol MST rated FullSyn oil, you MIGHT be able to tell the difference in a modern smooth engine, but not in our teeth rattlers. Anything you notice is going to be attributed to the placebo effect that you used a different brand oil so it must feel different. If you have been using a conventional or synthetic blend (such as maxlife high mileage) yes, you probably will feel a difference, but its going to be so slight you have to look for it.

Just an aside, not all synthetic blend oils are the same, there is quite a range actually. Valvoline's maxlife synthetic blend contains anywhere from 40-60% synthetic oil, whereas other manufactures have been tested to have as little as 10%. That alone will tell you what is the better blended oil, however it will never list that on the bottle and you will never see those numbers anywhere on the internet posted by the manufacturers themselves or independent labs. The only places you will see those numbers posted is on forums like this. Some of them are accurate, some are blowing smoke. The only reason I know what Valvoline's maxlife blend contains is because I was talking with a valvoline quality engineer when we were switching over to MST oil for European cars at work. Shot the price per barrel from $700 to $1200 for MST oil.

Yup, that's my general idea too. That's why I said "seem". Lol

I don't put stake into one over the other. If anything the difference would have been from me switching from Synthetic Blend to Full Synthetic. I doubt that makes any difference either.

I did forget to mention that I ran some Engine Flush through it prior to changing the oil. I think this next time instead of doing that I'll drop the pan and see how that looks. I'm reading correct oil pressure with the almost never accurate gauge but a quick peak never hurts.

Your breakdown reminds me of something. Working at a local gas station chain I got to talk to a few of the drivers for a while. The drivers were outsourced and would deliver to various gas stations. As it turns out the gas from companies to various stations is all the same from your local processing plants. The only time you would get bad gas from one gas station and not another is if they have actual issues with their pumps such as water in the tank. These stations have alarms and checks in place these days to prevent the sale of gas with water in it as well. Now I have learned that the additive that you get at Walmarts and H-E-B gas stations is from the same place. Chevron also uses this stuff but they call it Tachron. Shell uses it as well but calls it V-Power. It's basically Additech. How do I know this piece of info? My bro-in-law used to go around refilling the Additech tanks at gas stations when they ran out.

Also a lot of gas stations get their mid-grade gas by mixing their premium and their regular unleaded together.

I don't agree at all with the statement that you won't notice a difference between oils unless you're switching from conventional to synthetic.

There really is a difference in some oils vs others. Amsoil and Schaeffers for example both feature a much better shear resistance and film strength than Valvoline and Pennzoil for example. They are very top quality oils and being as such they are quite a bit more expensive. They're also better at keeping the engine free of varnish and sludge. Any oil you choose, as long as regular scheduled services are done, will protect your engine well enough for what most need. However, if you really want to run a vehicle hard and get a good wear longevity out of it, a high quality oil is the best place to start. It'll stay between the bearings and better resist shearing from say a 5w40 to a 5w30. If you compare UOAs of different oils and look at high mileage teardowns you can get a ton of information.

I like scheaffers myself. I can get it locally pretty cheap compared to amsoil and it's one of the best all around synthetics out there. Meant haven't heard of it because they pretty much cater to fleets. Semis go millions of miles on the stuff. But it's much more than most people need too. A good T6 or Mobil Delvac are also great oils and can be had stupid cheap for how good they are.

I wouldn't use Pennzoil in anything i own personally. They use paraffin in their formulations, have for years. When you look at teardowns, Pennzoil engines are the nastiest there are even when you compare em to a cheap cheap oreillys conventional

I switched from Rotella T6 to Valvoline MaxLife 10W40 this last oil change for cost reasons.
Truck ran great, still runs great, but I noticed my consumption went up. More than a quart per 5,000mi. Going to switch back to T6 this next change because winter, and we shall see if my consumption goes back down. If it does, I won't bother changing brands again.
MaxLife stays in the rice burner tho (Hyundai Elantra). That car seems to like it just fine and I feel far more comfortable with my ML and Wix XP combo than I did the Quaker State/Fram combo I had been running.


Dicked around with the alignment today. Didn't set the toe because I didn't wanna **** it up and run out of time on lunch, so I just set the caster.
Cam bolts are maxed out with the driver side sitting at 2.5+ degrees caster and the passenger at 3.0+ degrees with a cross caster of -0.6 degrees.
Truck definitely tracks straighter and I notice now how bad off my steering wheel is.

Going to realign tomorrow to get my toe in and my wheel straight. Going to get my boss to help me with the toe adjustments so I don't jack it up too bad.

I knew the alignment was off but not as bad as it is, tires are toed out BAD. Which would explain the chopping on the inside of my tires.

Did a little playing tonight. Got my 4.56s done while i was in Tennessee and now that I'm back home in Iowa where open roads are everywhere i decided to finally satisfy my curiosity. Little bit of random junk inside so maybe 5800-5900lbs.
All these are done with TorquePro App so idk how accurate it is. Tires all at 42psi.
1st run was 4x4 launch, loaded to 1900-2000. Currently fastest 0-60, 4x4 disengaged while still in 1st, did this on all the 4x4 launches

2nd run was 2wd no loading. Fastest 1/8th

3rd run i copied the 1st but loaded to 2200. First time it's registered believable power numbers

Final run copied 3rd but manually shifted. Highest tq number I've seen from it.

This is just screwing around like i said. Not a racer by ANY means lol. But it is a fun 4x4 rust pulls like a freight train. Trying to get into some sled pulls. 1st time i pulled 192ft with tb, 2bbl, shorties and factoryY pipe, older frp canned m1 tune, open 3.55s and 265/75/16 MTs that weigh 10lbs more than current. 1st gear, 4Low never never broke 3000rpm. Hoping to get another pull next year to compare to current setup with more rpm and wheel speed.
[yt]IGo284aaGRI[/yt]

I hate to impose but I will.[emoji53] I want to be able to put Detroit trutrac diffs in the front and rear of my 98 1500. The problem is that because of my various health problems and recent trip out to Mayo clinic we don't have desposible income. So I started a crowd funding page in an attempt to raise the money needed to get the diffs and potentially tires. I would be installing the diffs myself.

So if I could humbly ask anyone who reads this to at least check out my fund raising page and consider donating a few bucks and sharing this with others that you know.

https://gogetfunding.com/prepare-my-truck-for-a-montana-winter/

I really appreciate you taking the time to read this whole thing and even going to my crowd funding page if indeed you did so.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I ordered some eBay headers last week and as a bit of insurance, I opted to buy a set of Remflex gaskets because the gaskets anyone sends you with headers are kinda meh. Anyway, they arrived in the mail today and upon withdrawing them from the package, one phrase popped into my mind...

Oh my ****ing god!

Man, these things must be at least three times thicker than the ones that came with the headers. Jesus Christ, I certainly see why people like 'em so much. If these buggers don't seal the headers, I don't think anything will, LOL.

If Photobucket weren't a bunch of ******bags, I'd post a side by side comparison. The difference truly is amazing.

I ordered a Davis Unified Ignition cap, rotor and those nifty 10mm wires yesterday. Should arrive on Monday. I'm hoping to see a similar difference in quality between them and the usual off-the-shelf stuff.

dapepper9 said:

I don't agree at all with the statement that you won't notice a difference between oils unless you're switching from conventional to synthetic.

There really is a difference in some oils vs others. Amsoil and Schaeffers for example both feature a much better shear resistance and film strength than Valvoline and Pennzoil for example. They are very top quality oils and being as such they are quite a bit more expensive. They're also better at keeping the engine free of varnish and sludge. Any oil you choose, as long as regular scheduled services are done, will protect your engine well enough for what most need. However, if you really want to run a vehicle hard and get a good wear longevity out of it, a high quality oil is the best place to start. It'll stay between the bearings and better resist shearing from say a 5w40 to a 5w30. If you compare UOAs of different oils and look at high mileage teardowns you can get a ton of information.

I like scheaffers myself. I can get it locally pretty cheap compared to amsoil and it's one of the best all around synthetics out there. Meant haven't heard of it because they pretty much cater to fleets. Semis go millions of miles on the stuff. But it's much more than most people need too. A good T6 or Mobil Delvac are also great oils and can be had stupid cheap for how good they are.

I wouldn't use Pennzoil in anything i own personally. They use paraffin in their formulations, have for years. When you look at teardowns, Pennzoil engines are the nastiest there are even when you compare em to a cheap cheap oreillys conventional

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Ok, I should've been more specific. Yes you are correct, you can measure a significant difference between two brand of the same weight of full syn oil. But I was referring directly to short term driving and perception. If you run two identical engines on a dyno for the equivalent of 70K miles, amsoil valvoline, etc will be leagues better than say, Pennzoil or Quaker state. But, the difference between say mobile 1, valvoline, royal purple, and Castrol (to name all of the synthetic oils i've used in my old 5.2L) I couldn't tell a difference at all in driveability or smoothness.

dapepper9 said:

Did a little playing tonight. Got my 4.56s done while i was in Tennessee and now that I'm back home in Iowa where open roads are everywhere i decided to finally satisfy my curiosity. Little bit of random junk inside so maybe 5800-5900lbs.
All these are done with TorquePro App so idk how accurate it is. Tires all at 42psi.
1st run was 4x4 launch, loaded to 1900-2000. Currently fastest 0-60, 4x4 disengaged while still in 1st, did this on all the 4x4 launches
View attachment 91202
2nd run was 2wd no loading. Fastest 1/8th
View attachment 91203
3rd run i copied the 1st but loaded to 2200. First time it's registered believable power numbers
View attachment 91204
Final run copied 3rd but manually shifted. Highest tq number I've seen from it.
View attachment 91205
This is just screwing around like i said. Not a racer by ANY means lol. But it is a fun 4x4 rust pulls like a freight train. Trying to get into some sled pulls. 1st time i pulled 192ft with tb, 2bbl, shorties and factoryY pipe, older frp canned m1 tune, open 3.55s and 265/75/16 MTs that weigh 10lbs more than current. 1st gear, 4Low never never broke 3000rpm. Hoping to get another pull next year to compare to current setup with more rpm and wheel speed.
[yt]IGo284aaGRI[/yt]

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That Carven DOES sound pretty good.
Reminds me a little of the 5.0 Mustangs around town.

When are you gonna get that Viper in?

Yeret said:

If Photobucket weren't a bunch of ******bags, I'd post a side by side comparison.

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I lost ALL of my pictures when Photobucket went to a pay service. Been using Google Photos to back up my pictures off my phone. If I need a 3rd party service then I use Imgur.