Mopar1973Man

Nearly 270k miles on my head gasket with the use of an exhaust brake. They will apply around 60 PSI of drive pressure on the exhaust brake. There is no fuel applied during the exhaust braking so the pressure are much lower than say high timing and big injectors with high boost.

Yes optimally studs would be good idea. That is why my current tune is limited on the max fuel to bring max boost back to 40 PSI. Then again I'm focused more on MPG than HP/TQ so majority of my run time is 2 to 10 PSI of boost. Hardly doubt head gasket will fail there. Nice to have the passing power back.

Yea, yea, yea, when my pockets become deep I'll buy another truck to build. Reality says I've got to keep MoparMom well and travel 4,000 a month, I'm currently not working and working with a limited budget. You say denial... LOL!

I love how people think I've got the bug. Being with the Quadzilla with my old 50s was easy to the control. So jumping up another 25 is not what I call going nuts. I've got to work with the idea of MPG, my exhaust brake, and stock head gasket.

First long run. I like the power increase but still got to tune out a bit more of the smoke. It's not bad but I'm looking for bit cleaner run. City from light to light trying to launch its a bit lopey launching from 2nd. 1st gear is fine. Still got a bit of mopey idle randomly which doesn't bother me. I know I've got to calibrate my OBD Link on the next fill. So far I'm likimy the Injectors, smooth running accepting the 19 to 20 timing good.

Then I come along and just finished my sport headlight relay mod. I need to get photos at night time of the lighting. Not as good as @hex0rz or @jlbayes but at least there is more light than stock headlights with fogged up lens. Yes, I did figure out a way to reduce the previous 4 relay and 4 fuse kits to 2 relays and 1 fuse kit. This will make them much cheaper to produce. High beams with my fog lights. Of course, the fog light overwhelm the headlights.

You could trade in the Chevy for a 4th Gen Cummins...

Tappet cover most likely. I just bought a new gasket for my truck and will be doing it very soon. It will leak fairly well from the tappet cover. Like mine is ar the rear of the engine. Also double check the gear case like mine is weeping between the block and the gear case so you'll have to remove the cover and tighten the bolts. If that doesn't work then you have pull the gear case which requires pulling the cam out. My last leak is on the wrong side which is my turbo return hose is weeping.

Hmmm... 15 years old and closing the gap on 300k miles and my stock OEM exhaust manifold still looks likes it new out of the box. Cracks? what cracks?

I got lucky and found a set of steel wheels at a friend's place in Parma, ID They are 16x7 steel wheel and 8 lug wheels. They are a match for the same wheels I've got on the 1996 just in 8 lug not 5 lug.

Not always. Just depends on which device is weakest to the frequency and voltage levels. Typically the VP44 is the weakest between the ECM and VP44. Being you are a manual transmission you may or may not get surging cruise control issues.

Have you tested for AC noise from the alternator? Most likely the PSG on the VP44 has taken on damage from AC noise. I think the PCM part is a typo. I think it's suppose to be PSG.

Timing wise you have to base it off of either MPG logs which is kind of difficult being it never going to be the exact repeatable trip day in and out. The other way I'm trying to figure out is by ear. Just being able to listen to the timing rattle. What @Me78569 is suggesting is ~19* at 55 MPH and ~20* at 65 MPH is a good starting point. Your injection pump and injector health is key to making this work too. Like myself with injectors getting flaky was creating a timing issue in it own way. This is why I was battle the start of this thread attempting to gain a foothold of this. Now with fresh injectors, I should be able to get back in the high numbers now. The end of winterized fuel is coming to a close is going to help a bunch then with the warming weather and warmer air I should start gaining back my high placement again. Time will tell.

I normally grab the probe with channel locks and lightly twist it back and forth keep pulling upwards.

...or live where those signal don't exist. Like myself I could try calling my cell phone and will never ring. No cell tower near by.

Should idle smoothly. The VP44 electronics have enough there to make it idle normally or high idle without a ECM even hooked up. If its idling rough then its either injectors or something up with the VP44. I do know that bad injectors can produce high idle and random misfire issues. My previous +50HP injectors were rather high idling and randomly misfire with a rough idle when it did misfire.

Heck, @Me78569 was born in a freezer. What did you expect from him?

I'm not fond of that relay setup that most are selling. I'm going to get back to the relay mod I'm going to build for my truck tomorrow. I'm going to do it with 2 relays and one fuse possibly. Still doing my beta test work on my design.

Something is wonky... It's still idling high so I'm going to wonder if possibly the VP44 key is sheared? I'm wondering if the timing of the shaft is bumped advanced and kicking the idle up from that. Being the ECM and all sensors is out of the picture with the hot wire setup. I'm also wondering about the 6 new injectors it could be part of the issue. What kind of injectors did you get? Were they pop tested before shipping to you?

Welcome to the Family here... That's a fine looking truck there. Might help to add your truck information to your signature and fill out your profile information.

Lot of the old timers up here take their post and soak the ends in waste engine oil. Like most ranchers will cut down small diameter green trees, peel the bark off, then soak the post ends in waste engine oil for several weeks. Once the wood is darked well then they will use the post.

I've had some friends that ran both pre and post pyrometers. The post is not worth much being it can be 500*F colder or more. Best to be pre turbo like @TFaoro said above.

Time to post March fuel logs again. I covered more ground this last month. Now take notice I was getting a nice gain till March 11 then went down hill. This is the point at which I pulled the +50HP injectors and install the stock injectors. March 27 was my trip down to Parma, ID with the RV. Nearly 15 MPG towing 8,000 pound, 31 foot RV. Not too shabby. Best was 18.5 MPG on stock injectors pretty weak in my book. I'm not going to bother post March's OBDLink logs bein they are train wreck since I never bother to re-calibrate for the stock injectors. So now that I install the 7x0.0085 SAC Injectors we'll see where this goes now. I will mention there is clues of injector issues coming. Idle speeds will be higher than normal. Like the end of the +50HP they were idling almost 900 RPM's at times. Typically floated around 870 RPM's. Then the random miss fire at idle on hot engine. Light blue haze on morning start ups. All clues the injectors where going. Even my Stock injectors are idling lower as well like 820-830 RPM's. Not to hijack my MPG thread but injector performance is key to how the MPG's are going to be. I'll post my tune as soon as I get this all sorted out...

No. I did trip into town test the tune I created and go play with my new injectors. Funny part is I've now got just a small hint of loppy idle now when the A/C cycles in it might lope for a few revolutions then quit. Power is quite impressive. I'm going to be working on my tune to filter out the smoke and bring the MPG's up. As for the previous post about studs I'm not worry about it because now that I've cut my wiretap back quite a bit to clean up smoke the boot is stopping right about 40 PSI. My priority right now is the MPG's to cut my travel expense so drag racing or high boost runs are going to be rather rare.

Basically wide use of timing is now allowed. 19-20* is really smooth and quiet now. Economy tune I've started from 90% and worked up from there. Performance tune is starting from 100% and up from there. Wiretap had to be reduced quite a bit to control upper end smoke. Still trying to weed out some of the smoke yet. Boost wise old tune and the new injectors it would bounce a easy 45 PSI. EGT's are still bit hot and going to weed some of that out too. I'm not going to post it quite yet till I get it cleaned up more.