Project---------------Tahoe

[M Hankel]

granted its not tahoe, my GTO weighs around 4000 with me in it and there is no strain driving it off the line with the stock 346 gears.

i made a video of my driving around town with the clutch for a few guys on the GTO forum and since Steve at Monster is a good buddy of mine he wanted some feedback out there.

warning the video is REALLY boring. its just me driving around town in houston.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVj6PgdHAi4

Yeah Steve at Monster Clutch is great. I had a Monster Level 3 in my Camaro for a few years. It basically was just a drag car and when the original friction disk wore out, I asked him how much a replacement disk was, he just sent me a new one free of charge. The pressure plate still looked new and the flywheel got a fresh surface on it. So yeah, going with Monster again for this project was a no brainer to me. You just don't find customer service like that anymore and I've read numerous horror stories about Spec clutches...

Mike

 

[M Hankel]

A little bit of progress from this weekend before I tweaked my damn back getting up under the dash of this thing. It's super cramped under there.

Still getting the clutch pedal assembly worked out but figured I'd clear out the space where it mounts to on the firewall. I'm fabbing up a custom bracket for the clutch since the stock ones don't seem to be very strong.

The two holes on the right is the only thing holding the clutch pedal assembly to the firewall. Then, right where that red power cable goes through the firewall is exactly where the hole needs to be enlarged for the master cylinder. My friend installed my stereo amp and decided that was a good place for the power cable.... normally this would be true.... now I need to relocate the power cable.



Had to cut back some of the stock plastic covering and sound deadening material.



The stock brake pedal is way too wide and needs to be replaced with a smaller one from a manual trans pickup, or the alternative is cut down the stock pedal and install a new smaller pad. I opted for the latter version...

Taking measurements from the clutch pedal.





Transferring the measurements from to the brake pedal with the stock pad removed.



Cut the extra material off the brake pedal and deburred the edges.



Installed new smaller pad and voila... done.



Mike

 

[skbishop90]

 

[M Hankel]

Just a little update.

Trans swap has not happened yet. I messed up my back so I've been waiting for that to heal up.

In the mean time, that gave me a shit load of time to hunt around the stupid internet looking at interesting things and putting evil thoughts in my head.... So, I purchased one of the cheap Cadillac LSA blowers found all over eBay. Long story short, the engine just might become supercharged! If this happens, I'll have to lower the compression down, which will probably require a different piston. This is a "budget build" so to speak, so as luck would have it, I found some used L92 pistons for cheap that will work with the Gen IV connecting rods I already have. Those pistons should reduce the compression to 9.6 with a LS3/L92 cylinder head. A bit more than an LSA engine, but def doable for a mild SC engine. If you're unfamiliar with the LSA engine, they're making crazy amounts of power with relatively mild mods, 550rwhp is considered pretty tame with these....

What I've collected or purchased already.

Stock L92 Pistons
LSA Supercharger
LSA Stock Upper Lid
LSA stock heat exchanger
LSA Stock heat exchanger water pump
LSA Stock Balancer/Lower Pulley

Still need (short list):
LSA Front accessory drive
LSA Injectors
New SC friendly camshaft
Misc Sensors
LS3/LSA/L92 heads
Re-machine block for L92 pistons
Re-balance rotating assembly

Stupid internet....... that is all....

Mike

 

[_mostcommon]

********, this build is going to be vicious. Good luck on your back recovery my man.

 

[Mikeyjm1]

I'm an Avalanche owner and just joined this forum to follow this build. Keep up the awesome work.

Mike

 

[M Hankel]

So this happened..... spider gears from the Yukon Duragrip limited slip I installed a few months ago.

******* Awesome! Read a bunch of good reviews about this unit. A couple lately have been doing this with the spiders. Product of outsourcing overseas?






Mike

 

[Mikeyjm1]

Yeah, somehow, my G80 is still alive, but I already know it'll get replaced with a Detroit Trutrac. It's just the one unit that holds up for everyone.

 

[M Hankel]

Yeah, somehow, my G80 is still alive, but I already know it'll get replaced with a Detroit Trutrac. It's just the one unit that holds up for everyone.

Welcome btw....

Yeah it seems like the early versions of the Duragrip help up great, even a few making some pretty good power. Lately I've seen a few people having issues with the spider gears. Just wondering if Yukon recently started outsourcing the spider gears overseas. ? I'll put this one back together and limp it along until summer hopefully. But, I'm already looking at other alternatives for the rearend. If I end up going with the supercharger, the 10 bolt will be living on borrowed time IMO, especially with a manual trans. The Hummer H2 uses the 14 bolt semi-floating rearend with disk brakes and nearly a direct bolt-in to a Tahoe/Suburban etc... It has a much larger 9.5" ring gear and is a pretty stout piece. The NNBS Escalades also have one but they are harder to find and more expensive.

---------- Post added at 12:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:19 PM ----------

********, this build is going to be vicious. Good luck on your back recovery my man.

Thanks man. The back is getting better. Just not a young buck anymore so everything seems to take much longer to heal up haha...

 

[tgui]

Sucks man!

I'm saving pennies for a Detroit TrueTrac like the poster up a few ^^