Thread: Dirt cheap mods: my never ending struggle

Thanks Bronco. I completely agree. Every time I start it up now, I love the sound and it makes me glad that I found these.

Yeah. I bet 4t80e isn't fun either...

Wouldn't it be easier to remove both as a unit?

Yeah. That transfer case though....

I did a 99 gm pickup last year. Wasn't horrible except for not having the toolbox where the work was being done. The procedure you listed is essentially the "correct" procedure except you typically take the transfer case out and not hang it.

Originally Posted by BillBooost37

I did a 99 gm pickup last year. Wasn't horrible except for not having the toolbox where the work was being done. The procedure you listed is essentially the "correct" procedure except you typically take the transfer case out and not hang it.

I've done an 04 gm pickup as well and it wasn't bad. That's why I signed on. Unfortunately the 98 yukon's gas tank keeps you from angling it sideways, and the tortion bar is 2" away.

I forgot to mention the front drive shaft was rust welded in because the dust cover was missing.... That's what made it worse.

Didn't have access to acetylene and propane and dead blow hammers didn't work.

Well, my boat has been feeling very sluggish and didn't want to accelerate. I kept going back to what I did on the car, and finally came across the noob mistake I made. When going to short ram air intake, I thought that the throttle body "screen" was just a filter to catch large particulate and removed it *facepalm* I know that some of you are going to argue it doesn't matter, and on your build, maybe it doesn't, however, there was a HUGE improvement in throttle response and my mpg went up as well as stabilized my idle some.

On a second note, I have been dealing with a P0420 since upgrading my catalytic converter to high flow. I tried using a bored out spark plug non-fouler which worked but after less than 1000 miles, I got a code for my o2 sensor heater short. Upon removing the o2 sensor, I found more rust and condensation than I could fathom! I removed my o2 sensor and just dealt with my code.

As you might already know, I just removed my resonator and upgraded my mufflers to dual borlas. Strangely enough, my code disappeared!! I thought maybe I forgot and cleared the code and that it would come back shortly. It's probably too soon to say for sure, but I'm already over 500 miles without a return of the dreaded P0420!

Wondering if anyone has experienced anything like this before. My hypothesis is that the reason it was throwing the code in the first place is that the exhaust was backed up (plugged muffler?) etc. and that by removing the restriction, it could flow correctly. Strangely my mpg has improved up to around 22mpg mostly stop and go city driving and around 30mpg highway! Not sure if the exhaust has something to do with it.

Originally Posted by blueguy91

*hates trans swap in Tahoe*

Go try an LS4 car.

They're a weekend full of ignorance, clips, and no room to do anything.

The 3800 is a breeze.

Or; you can tell anyone with a C5 Corvette to straight **** off; because that's pretty awful as well.

Hell we did a very expensive trans swap on a 3800 while hammered and the wives laughing at us.....but it got done dammit

Originally Posted by selliott

Hell we did a very expensive trans swap on a 3800 while hammered and the wives laughing at us.....but it got done dammit

Haha yeah. Can't say about the LS4 but I'd rather do four 4t65e then that yukon! Took me 30 minutes at the junk yard to pull both the engine, trans, and dissect it for parts!

I bet the ls4 has to come out the bottom via the subframe though so if you don't have a lift, good luck!

I wasn't involved in the ls4 fun lol

I am curious if anyone has actually noticed a difference from higher flow mufflers getting rid of the P0420 code too. I had a plugged catalytic converter a while back, got rid of it, left the resonator in and now i'm wondering if it's plugged from the catalytic converter material.

good choice on putting the maf screen back in. I had a hell of a time tuning my maf when the screen was gone. as soon as it went back in, it was easy to tune.

interesting. Glad to know I wasn't the only one. Maybe the cat had blown. Wouldn't be surprised since the engine self destructed before I bought it so who knows?

Originally Posted by blueguy91

Some people just neglect sh1t and drive it until it doesn't drive anymore and don't give any flying f**ks.

That's why I work with the public because it never ceases to amaze me the garbage people come up with...or fail at.

Haha this is the truth! Mine was meticulously maintained by the original owner, but the upper intake warped and dumped coolant and hydro locked the engine and shattered a connecting rod.

She still had all the receipts from the dealer on everything! Darn you plastic upper bull ****!

Well, since the forum died, here's a few posts from w-body since I've been away:

Since my lower intake is off, decided to hog out the coolant passage.




And here is the best tool I've ever used from harbor freight. $5 and it took maybe 10 minutes to carve this out!



Started smoothing out the turbulence lip between the spacer and neck

Well, I almost didn't check, but I wanted to go with gaskets instead of rtv this time. I'm glad I checked!



So not wanting any "air baffles" I trimmed them down. Fortunately, I blocked off the coolant at the lower intake (see prior posts). Unfortunately, I still want to use the stock pcv inlet adapter so I'm going to have to carefully put in rtv around that hole so I don't have a vacuum leak. The trick will be not putting too much so it won't block the port!

In preparation for adding a catch can, I'm plugging the vacuum intake in the upper intake manifold. Don't worry, I've tested this already. If you noticed the barb installed were the evap solenoid goes on 04+, this will be the new vacuum intake will be. Essentially, I'm re - routing the vacuum intake for the pcv externally through a catch can. I'll post a how to later