Wild and Free

It is fairly cheap and easy to weight match the piston rod assemblies, check with your machinist you might be surprised. It isn't all about high rpms as it is just smoothing out overall operations and harmonics of the engine as a whole under normal conditions as well.

It also helps with added coolant flow in the rear of the block that is prone to running hotter.

I was wondering about that after looking at things a bit closer, not like my VW where one needs a custom pipe with all the bungs to retain all the sensors in the DPF and emissions system. Just the DPF alone had five sensors mounted directly in it, 2 exhaust temp sensors, 2 pressure differential sensors and an O2 sensor and then the pipe behind the cat had another O2 sensor then there is another egt sensor in the manifold pre-turbo as well.

All have posted for EGR deletes only which is not going to help his issue of wanting / needing a DPF delete, EGR is only the smaller half of the issue at hand. As far as DPF deletes the EGR delete used to be or are included in the delete kits. Even the recent DPF delete on my 2014 Jetta included the low pressure EGR delete as part of the DPF delete kit. The tune was a separate purchase although all was through the same company.

Injection pump would be a lot easier as you have most of it unhooked already pulling the head and everything above it is out of the way already, the front crank seal and timing cover really isn't affected by the head but still would be a little easier access as well not having as much stuff around above it.

Even Smarty claims their tunes run a lot cleaner and require way less regens than stock software.

I like Schumacker as well but whatever you choose make sure it is fully automatic, I know of many who buy the cheaper ones as they are not automatic and they will cook your battery dry, even the small .5 amp ones will fry your battery if on a constant charge when not needed. Look for the fully automatic ones in the description they are more expensive as well because of it.

Pulling and just driving unloaded are totally different venues even with an extra OD runit at 1500 and see what you do for mileage, don't worry about it, if you didn't want to put a load on it sell it and get a 4 cylinder . 5th gear was an issue and it was not from pulling at low rpms it was a piss poor lock nut design from New venture, the engine harmonics didn't help from the Cummins as GM ran this same tranny for many years as well with no issues.

I would pick the one that yields the best mileage, neither is going to overload anything you have without a load on it. Might even try GV OD engaged with main trans od off even.

A Montana Highway Patrol officer stops a Harley for traveling faster than the posted speed limit, so he asks the biker his name. "Fred," he replies. "Fred what?..." the officer asks. "Just Fred," the man responds. The officer is in a good mood and thinks he might just give the biker a break, and write him out a warning instead of a ticket. The officer then presses him for the last name. The man tells him that he used to have a last name but lost it. The officer thinks that he has a nut case on his hands but plays along with it. "Tell me, Fred, how did you lose your last name?" The biker replies, "It's a long story, so stay with me. I was born Fred Johnson, from Missoula, Montana. I studied hard and got good grades. When I got older, I realized that I wanted to be a doctor. I went through college, medical school, internship, residency, and finally got my degree, so I was Fred Johnson, MD. "After a while I got bored being a doctor, so I decided to go back to school. Dentistry was my dream! Got all the way through School, got my degree, so then I was Fred Johnson, MD, DDS. "Got bored doing dentistry, so I started fooling around with my assistant and she gave me VD, so now I was Fred Johnson, MD, DDS, with VD. "Well, the ADA found out about the VD, so they took away my DDS. Then I was Fred Johnson, MD, with VD. Then the AMA found out about the ADA taking away my DDS because of the VD, so they took away my MD leaving me as Fred Johnson with VD. Then the VD took away my 'Johnson', so now, I'm, Just Fred." The officer walked away in tears, laughing.....

I have installed several of these when working at the gear shop, they are virtually indestructible units. Did a couple behind autos but most went behind manual trannies, I know of several guys who even power pull with them with great sucess. Just as a daily driver cruising down the road with 3.55 would be fine but one would need to do as CSM stated and find the ratios and play with different gear combos even with an auto, don't be afraid to manually shift that auto to find the sweet spots.

The 30" resonator only in the system is quieter than anything else I have run but louder end pipe sound than stock, still has a nice cummins tone there and there alone. With the 30" resonator mounted as far forward as possible and that alone in the system my previous comment describes, with the 17" resonator the drone is dead but the full blown exhaust noise is still there from those who run them say.

I prefer cold smoke myself. Used to use a similar setup only the hot plate was next to the fridge under a 55 gallon drum cut in half with a stove pipe from the top of it into the lower side of the fridge and then another small dampened vent pipe out the top of the smoker. Nothing worse than having meat come out of a smoker medium well and dried out by having the heat source inside the smoker itself or even the way commercial smokers do it by way of regulation of need ing to have it @ X temp for X hours minimum. Buy up big blocks of mozerella or other cheeses and smoke them low and slow too............................ Apple wood is one of my favorites for smoking things.

I personally prefer Snapon for torque wrenches, I have 5 of them, from 3/4 to a small inch lb break away screw driver style for very detailed tqs I used to do on the over the road cummins injector timing sets and adjusting jakes and valves too. I like the quick set of the snapon versus the twist up handle. Plus if while in for calibration th higher quality brand name wrenches have better parts availability and can be calibrated easier as well. A lot of the cheaper ones are just throw away if they need internal work or don't meet calibration standards. I use these guys locally.

This one from FTE diesel.

Buying a cheap torque wrench to do detailed engine work is like buying a yard stick to set valve lash.

It wasn't the exhaust noise that hurt my ears it was the in cab drone that pierced my ears. Yes the resonator looks like auger flighting. The cat actually acts as a sort of muffler too but going with the long resonator mounted as far forward as possible all by itself was 2 fold, quieted down the exhaust sound about half of what cat and straight pipe was and killed the in cab drone completely, I actually like driving it again.

When was the last time your torque wrench was calibrated? Never ever trust a torque wrench unless it is calibrated at least once a year at minimum even a brand new one should be sent in to be checked and tuned before use, especially the cheap ones. I have seen many stripped out head bolt holes in blocks and twisted off fasteners due to torque wrench calibration being off or the wrench just plain being bad period. People miss this stuff a lot, we send in every torque wrench in the shop every year and pretty much every shop I have worked at have done the same thing, components are too expensive to take chances on due to mismanaged tooling.

I have the factory 4 inch exhaust with a muff delete pipe and a 30" resonator from FTE diesel in place where the cat was and absolutely love it now, before the cat was replaced with the resonator I didn't even want to drive it anymore as the drone was so bad.

Looks like my fencing post tamper.

I would seriously add some GM seal tabs and just do a re-torque for starters, that is not a bad leak yet. If it keeps leaking after the trial then jump to a new gasket. Ten bucks or so for the tabs and about an hour for the retorque is still a better bet to start with than jumping into a head job. Like I said prior my 02 did this at around 50K miles and I did the tabs and retorque and it never leaked again. Those seal tabs are awesome, I have even seen GM Good wrench reman engines with them in from the rebuild facility. At the truck shop we actually put them in any time we did any engine work or coolant system work.

Studs will always be a better clamping fastener than bolts but it all depends on needs and funds one wants to go with. If at or under 500 hp and 40psi and never going over I would stick to bolts.