99 Denali

[Snowbound]

I did miss a lot of BS in the build. I'll throw out some random pics here with short description that I have on my photobucket account.

Parts as they were coming in. I really enjoyed building this thing in the house. Spent some quality time with GF watching girly movies while blueprinting engine.




Got rid of plastic grille


Few shots while it was sitting at work. The rig was pretty straight when I got it in '10 and only had 123k on the clock. I think I'm at 144k now.

 

[Snowbound]

Somewhere around 2014, it was cold, not quite winter but prob November. I started the truck and noticed some whitish smoke. Seen other vehicles with steam coming from their tail pipe so I didn't think too much about it. Still ran good. Drove to work and parked inside in the heated building. After 12hr shift I started the truck and it was smoking again. White smoke and didn't seem to clear up any. Time to tear back into it and see what happened now.





Pulled valve cover and found this. Both sides.




Next pulled upper intake and found more coolant.






off came lower intake and then heads.







so I found out what the issue was. Using aluminum heads on a cast iron block needs MLS head gaskets. That's multi-layer stainless steel head gaskets. The Felpro gaskets couldn't handle the different rates of expansion and contraction. Went back to speed shop in town and he said they had them, $75. That's not bad, $75 a set? No, $75 each. Ouch!! They come in different thickness' so I had to measure piston quench or piston to head clearance. For a more efficient burn which translates to most effective power you want as little quench as possible. With my Felpro gaskets I was at .046in with gasket crush. With my new MLS head gaskets I got down to .038in. With aluminum rods you want a little looser because the heat on aluminum allows rods to expand and could cause issues. I'm running steel rods so I stayed tight. I brought the heads to machine shop and had them pressure checked and milled. Most aftermarket MLS gaskets can handle surface finishes as rough as 60 to 70 Ra microinches, but some specify a smoother finish of 30 to 50 Ra. Smoother is always better, and if you can get the finish down to the low teens or even single digit, great! But for most applications, a surface finish in the 20 to 30 Ra range is more than smooth enough for a performance MLS gasket. I ended up being right at 20 Ra after they were done.

This was pretty much my only issue with rig. I don't drive it every day but for a back up vehicle it has really served me well.

 

[Snowbound]

I did have to put a AC compressor on to solve my slow leak. Also changed receiver/dryer and orifice tube while I was at it. Worked great all summer of '11 and then in summer of '12 it started acting up on me again. Didn't drive it much that summer. Found out it was the heater control board. Wiggle the board or play with the AC button and it would work. Ordered another one of those and put it in. Expensive little bastards. Hard to find the one with rear defrost on it. Think I got it from Amazon. Now heat and AC kick ass. Even the rear AC works and it'll freeze you out in no time. I'm not sure if the rear seat heaters work any longer. They are run off rocker switches on the rear of the center console and they are usually bumped and left on by the kids. I have to look into that soon, it's getting colder. Also I busted the pull cable to flip up the drivers side rear seat bottom to lay rear seats flat for hauling crap. Part is discontinued but I did find one but they want $70 for it plus shipping. Yeah, I'll be coming up with my own inner cable and soldering on ends.

Also I picked up a 50" curved CREE light bar that I really didn't think I would win the auction on Fleabay. But I did and for $50, I can't beat it. Was originally bidding to put it on my K5 but after I got it I set it on top the Denali and tested it, I really think I might mount it on here. Thing works awesome. Hopefully this video loads.

 

[95escahoe]

Great build I love the first gen Esky/Denali


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[1992rs]

Sub'd. Great build. Love me a hot rod truck [emoji1360]


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[Carpenter2361]

Right now the truck starts and runs. No oil pressure once it warms up but at least I can move it around. So I didn't want to pull engine until I got the new one done. I had a 350 4 bolt main sitting in garage from an old square body dump truck I bought for the axles. Brought that to the machine shop and had it dipped, magna-fluxed, bored, cam bearings replaced, lined bored, decked, boss' drilled and tapped for roller cam, clearanced for stroker crank and freeze plugs replaced.





Next I started ordering parts. **** steel crank, H-beam rods,speed pro Pistons with Teflon coated skirts, all ARP hardware and had the rotating assembly balanced.




And yes, incase your wondering, I did build this engine in my living room.

Sexy parts

 

[Tonyrodz]

With the all those goodies, how does it run?

 

[Snowbound]

With the all those goodies, how does it run?

Runs great. Little sluggish off the line but when it hits 2200 RPM it comes alive and scoots. I have a stall but never done a stalled launch because of this 4L60 trans. It's on borrowed time along with the 10 bolt. That's the reason I have a 4L80/14 bolt on garage floor. Still collecting parts for the swaps. I'm also doing an upgrade to the intake and injection system along with a cam change but I'll get into that here in a little bit. I never dyno'd the engine but I'm guessing it should be about 440 in both hp and tq. The bottom end is built like a brick shit house but I cannot get enough fuel due to injection system and limited by operating system of black box ECM. This is all gonna be changed in near future.

 

[Snowbound]

I was gonna wait to post any of this but since Tonyrodz got me thinking about it again I might as well throw it up here.

I've been looking at what I need to do to get the 4L80E in along with 0411 PCM. I'm gonna need to have this thing dyno tuned and I think if I'm going all in, I need to go ALL in. I located a Mercruiser marine intake. It's a direct bolt on to a L31 truck engine but has true MPFI. These things are hard to find and when you do look at spending close to a G to get it. There's a few things that need to be addressed with the swap. With the upgraded intake I can change out the cam which I'll most likely go to a Edelbrock custom grind roller cam. Issues are gonna be getting it tuned by the right person, I might even buy the software and licensing to do it myself. And torque converter. My flexplate is balanced to the engine, the 4L80 uses 6 bolts on the TC. Looks like I'll have to use a different flexplate and possibly a spacer to get starter engagement correct. The 241 will need a input swap but from what I've read, they are all the same size just different spline count. The rear driveshaft will need to be shortened due to a longer trans and replacing axle with the 14. The front driveshaft will need to be lengthened as well. I'm working on getting things together, this is gonna cost more than I really wanted to spend right now but it should run a lot stronger and not tear things up as much with the added power.

 

[Tonyrodz]

I know me and the other guys on here can't wait to see how you do!! We love this $hit dude!!!