Rocket Man's 02 Denali Build Thread AKA "THE BEAST"

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Rocket Man

Rocket Man

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Glad to see that it’s back on the road, are you going to keep the black Tahoe now that the Denali is back on the road?


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Ooooo, Good question.

I’ll keep it for now, not sure for how long. I need to get The Machines wheels situated so I have a backup.
 
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Rocket Man

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After a week of daily driving I’m feeling pretty damn good about things. I have noticed that when coming to a stop I can feel a definite moderate “thud” when it shifts from second to first. Not obnoxious but very noticeable. If you’ve ever ridden in a vehicle with a Performabuilt trans, you’d know that the 1-2 shift hits pretty hard, especially under heavy throttle. This is about the same from 2-1 only there’s no throttle being applied. I emailed them and this is what they said: “The downshift feeling is now normal its a mod we do now that keeps the overrun clutch on in 3-2-1 gears even when in the overdrive position . This helps to reduce impact to the sprag it is a normal feeling in the unit . In stock configuration the sprag is allowed to freewheel and catch when you reapply throttle .” I’ll tell you what, you can definitely tell this is a built trans and it makes The Beast even more fun to drive.
 
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Today on the way to work the check engine light came on. Truck was running fine so I figured it was the evap issue again. But on the way home, on the highway, it started sputtering and backfiring. So I figured it was plug wires burning through from the headers again. I went with Taylor’s last time, with their heat shields which others with headers have swore by but who knows. It’s The Beast. Got home (barely kind of) and hooked up the Tech 2. It showed P0356, ignition coil 6 control circuit. I have MSD Blaster coils, nice red ones that cost me over $400. I swapped one of the originals in and the DTC went away. I also noticed that the wire on plug 5 was real close to the steering shaft so I used a zip tie to pull it away even though it’s never caused any trouble. Then I went for a test drive. It was running like a Beast again for about a mile, then it started missing badly again. Crap. I got home, hooked up the Tech 2 before I even got out. No DTC’s. Checked misfires...plug 5 was going crazy. Opened the hood and...the wire had pulled completely off the plug. Removed the zip tie, reconnected the wire. Lesson learned. If it ain’t broke...
Ordered a new MSD Blaster coil.
 

Tonyrodz

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Today on the way to work the check engine light came on. Truck was running fine so I figured it was the evap issue again. But on the way home, on the highway, it started sputtering and backfiring. So I figured it was plug wires burning through from the headers again. I went with Taylor’s last time, with their heat shields which others with headers have swore by but who knows. It’s The Beast. Got home (barely kind of) and hooked up the Tech 2. It showed P0356, ignition coil 6 control circuit. I have MSD Blaster coils, nice red ones that cost me over $400. I swapped one of the originals in and the DTC went away. I also noticed that the wire on plug 5 was real close to the steering shaft so I used a zip tie to pull it away even though it’s never caused any trouble. Then I went for a test drive. It was running like a Beast again for about a mile, then it started missing badly again. Crap. I got home, hooked up the Tech 2 before I even got out. No DTC’s. Checked misfires...plug 5 was going crazy. Opened the hood and...the wire had pulled completely off the plug. Removed the zip tie, reconnected the wire. Lesson learned. If it ain’t broke...
Ordered a new MSD Blaster coil.
Those Taylors are pretty good. I haven't had any issues with mine--yet. I had to zip tie mine away from the steering shaft too. Be glad you don't have Accel anything---garbage.
 
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Those Taylors are pretty good. I haven't had any issues with mine--yet. I had to zip tie mine away from the steering shaft too. Be glad you don't have Accel anything---garbage.
Well...I went back out and checked misfires again and noticed #7 was racking up a few, like 14-18 per 100 cycles which isn’t terrible but not great either. Of course that’s the rear driver side. Real fun to get to for me, almost need to pull the wheel and inner fender. I pulled the wire, slid the heat shield back and there’s a place on the wire where the insulator is burned a bit. I put it back on with a lot of grunting, turned a bit so the burned spot is facing away from the header. The wires spec’d for the LQ4 are just too long. So I emailed Taylor to see if there’s a shorter set. They don’t list lengths on their website which is stupid IMO. Looks like Im still chasing the damn burned wire problem and Im pretty damn tired of it.
 

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Well...I went back out and checked misfires again and noticed #7 was racking up a few, like 14-18 per 100 cycles which isn’t terrible but not great either. Of course that’s the rear driver side. Real fun to get to for me, almost need to pull the wheel and inner fender. I pulled the wire, slid the heat shield back and there’s a place on the wire where the insulator is burned a bit. I put it back on with a lot of grunting, turned a bit so the burned spot is facing away from the header. The wires spec’d for the LQ4 are just too long. So I emailed Taylor to see if there’s a shorter set. They don’t list lengths on their website which is stupid IMO. Looks like Im still chasing the damn burned wire problem and Im pretty damn tired of it.
When you say heat shield, do you mean the heat sock? Those kind of suck. I burned through one too. Does Taylor sell kits that you can cut your own length wires? I wonder if there's some way to modify the metal shields on the stock wires to fit the Taylor wire ends. Also--maybe you can get some of those metal zip tie deals and use them to pull the wires away from the headers if they look too close.
 

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