This was the toughest problem to figure out. Since the motor has moved forward the shift linkage doesn’t line up anymore. I got some ideas from another swapper and ended up with my own solution again. This took a while to figure out / end up with and once again it’s not the prettiest work but seems to be working well. I wanted to keep the column shifter if I could and ordered a GM cable shifter for a LS swap since the column size is similar.
I had to flatten out the kink in the gear selector lever on the trucks column for it to align correctly. This is the orientation I ended up with.
Camera makes the column look bent but it’s not.You can see a couple holes drilled in the selector lever - at first I tried using the piece that comes with the kit as it can add adjustment but ended up not using it.
At first I had the cable routed to the rear pulling into the gears so to speak but found that flipping it to head to the front pushing into the gears from park worked better. This also helped with the alignment on the other end in the engine bay. Had to use a piece of metal to add support at the back where the kits bracket hangs way over. This bracket was originally designed to have 2 spaced oil pan bolts along the side holding it in line. The cable is routed kinda funky since it’s so long and it loops forward then back up and through the gap by the modified bracket. One test drive when I hadnt secured it properly it actually dropped down and scraped against the road for a bit. It didn’t get through the cables metal sheath so I’m still running it. Would be nice if I could find a shorter cable but have seen any.
So now I have the alignment of the shifter throw matching the trans gear throw there is still a difference in the ends. The solution was to drop a bolt down to the cable ends level and weld that end piece to it. Ended up cutting the end of a long bolt and used a coupe of washers/nuts so removal is a lot easier since the cable end screws onto the welded end. I have since added another nut on top to lock it down. Yup the trans is leaking out of that gear selector bushing too 🤦🏻♂️ looks like the rear seal as well - probably should have tried another rebuild shop.
Top cable is the TV pressure cable and below is the drop down shifter linkage.
This pic you can see the damage on the cable and how it’s routed forward looping back up through the brackets up above the exhaust to the column. The shift on the column inside the truck feels a little different but has been working good. Feels pretty smooth shifting but goes into OD almost instantly when hitting 3rd and I’m not sure about my trans wiring since it’s not working right.
I may have jumped a head with the last post. Obviously to be driving I would have had to put the front end back on and sorted a few things. The hemi’s thermostat housing has an extra nipple of it that wasn’t needed so picked up one that eliminates it. You can see the motor already has 2 provisions for the heater hoses.
Old thermostat housing and fan clearance. New thermostat housing. Hose and connector piece.
The hemis truck hoses were the best fit but the upper was too long so this piece from Amazon enables me to cut it and shorten it. Shame it has to have a break in the hose right in front but I will try to hide it. Fan shroud trimming.
Fans didn’t fit anymore so trimmed them down and rerouted some of the wiring. Making more room. Fan part number.
These are still the same fans I had from the mag swap off an early 2000 caravan and have been a great fit with no issues with the magnum motor. Tight fit.
Trans lines ended up getting cut and flared so new hoses could be hooked back up to the radiator. All the wiring in the front was stripped and re loomed with new Tesa tape.
Now the front end is on you can see how much room there is from the throttle body (still taped up in blue)to the hood line. Gonna have to get creative again for an air intake.
So now the front ends on I’d like to get the hood on so I’m able to move it out of the garage. The factory intake tube was never going to work so I cobbled one together starting with this piece
Ended up trimming it down still and added a 3.5” (diameter)piece of aluminum tube with a spectre cone intake. Went to connect the MAT sensor and sure enough it didn’t work. Off to the junk yard for the correct sensor. I think I found one of a v6 charger or caravan that ended up matching the plug. Drilled a hole in the tube for the factory grommet to fit hidden away. Trimmed up the engine cover around the new intake tube so it would fit too.
Now I’m ready to get the AC plumbed so I can finish up the wiring. I still have 2 wires from the terminators harness that I need to wire into the relay box. Ordered Sublime Technologies (DIYHEMI)AC fitting kit and found a local place that works on trucks and make’s hydraulic hoses figuring they would knock this out no problem. Well my auto shop luck strikes again and they ended up having the truck for 4 weeks and went way over budget. Part of the budget problem was they wanted me to ok ordering a new compressor (which I did) as the studs need to be removed for the diyhemi AC kits adapters to bolt into. They said they couldn’t remove them from the used compressor without damaging it or spending half a day on it. Anyways I finally got to pick it up and this is what I got.
For one the entire engine is filthy like it had the hood up for weeks and pollen/dust has collected on everything and the hose routing is kinda ugly. We had discussed the routing and I knew there were definite challenges with clearance to the frame and which way would be best but I thought we had agreed on following the passenger side to the front then across. The one hose is ran real slick like factory to a drier then the condenser then compressor. The other one just shoots across the fire wall and loops under the master cylinder and around without much thought. Luckily I was able to re route it after cleaning everything to where I was happy. I know you’re all thinking why not go back and get them to fix it but after all that I just wanted to move on and not get ugly with anyone - plus I know I’m cursed so what good would it do anyways. I probably will be learning how to rebuild transmissions and make A/C hoses in my future 😂. The wiring wasn’t hooked up but I had explained that to them and they could charge it by hot wiring it so we should be good to go. I did a bunch of research/testing and finally got the wiring sorted with this setup.
It took me a minute since I had originally assumed that the wire comming from the AC dash controls was 12v and not a ground signal. I had everything working but the cooling fans were not coming on automatically like it was programmed to in the terminator software. Also most systems/diagrams I could find have 12v going through the ac pressure switch which these trucks are ground as well. The above diagram works perfectly now tho so even if the truck is not up to temp you turn on AC inside the cab the fans will turn on too. The kick wire will automatically disengage the compressor at high throttle or set TPS position kinda like the factory WOT relay. AC is cool not super cool tho so may have to look into it more. Now I can loom up the wiring and make it look right.
So I had some obvious issues with my OD and after more research I discovered I had it wired up wrong. The instructions or lack of are all online and do not show what the wires should be as in power or ground.
This is right off the website and basically all you have to go on. These are the loose wires that need to be sorted.
Power and ground easy , OD status output (basically a light) I had it wired as 12v feeding a new OD status light I had mounted in the center console.
Well turns out that wire is a ground output for the light. Also discovered the switch (OD cancel wire) needs to be a momentary switched ground. I had that also wired up as 12v on the old TC lock up switch located on the side of the center console since it wasn’t being used anymore. It is a standard switch, but it still works by flicking it on and back off - illuminating the light correctly now similar to a factory 2nd gen ram. Brake switch is connected to the brake switch suppling 12v when brakes are applied to turn off OD if I remember correctly. I now have a proper 3rd gear and functional OD. The new light is dimly illuminated when OD is enabled and bright like the above picture when it’s turned off. Lock up seems to be another issue. I cannot physically tell if it is working and there is a lock up status light on the 3.5” screen that has never shown it active. I found that I was monitoring the 3.5” a lot and started to get into customization of the gauges. Here is where I mounted it so it sits on my eye level just above the wheel and the current screen layout. With the trans connected I even have an accurate speedo 🤯 as my factory one isn’t connected anymore.
The waze app on Apple car play is another good speedo that I used since my factory one used to read way over from the rear gear change and it matches the holley to 1mph. You can see the AEM AFR gauge and that reads pretty close to the holley as well.
Here is the engine bay all cleaned up. Finally with the wiring sorted I can re loom it all in tesa tape or whatever looming stuff I have accumulated. I detached the inner fender and was able to run the main harness wires behind it. At first I wanted to de pin the firewall plug but struggled removing it so just didn’t mess with it. The few wires that went to nothing were cut ~6” capped and taped up. With all the wiring / components removed surprisingly wasn’t that many to warrant fighting the firewall connection.
Notice the AC line follows the heater hoses and crosses the motor under the cover now after re routing them. I can probably even up the heater hoses more too with some trimming. I still wanted this gas tank vent line hooked to the charcoal canister but I won’t be running a vac source to it so I just looped that line and will see if this works. I have deleted the vent line before and found it either pulls vac on the tank (if capped)or smells like gas if parked in the garage un filtered.
Photos don’t have the battery hold down straps on either but they were back on for any test driving.
Right off the get go it drove pretty good. Idle/revs kinda hang up on deceleration at slower speeds and could probably have been set lower. It revs high on start up then calms back down to commanded rpm. Still has a wicked sound - a lot louder that the magnum and a lot more power. I checked the learn tables in the software and over the first few drives it hadn’t had to compensate much. Had one issue where it died on me but it didn’t take too long with a digital fuel pressure gauge to diagnose. I had guessed a hose had split or come loose and after removing the bed and pump it was confirmed.
at least I had recently done this procedure before so it was only an afternoons work. I never did replace that hose when I changed out the pump and it bit me. With my confidence now growing in the swap I am working with a professional tuner. He’s able to remote tune via the laptop/hotspot and has fixed a bunch of the mentioned initial issues. He even raised the OD settings so it changes a bit later more like what you’d expect. It really runs like a beast now feels like it has a ton of torque. It is a bit sketchy in the rain - will break em loose at 20% throttle. I haven’t been able to roast the tires much as the wheel hop is super bad so will have to address that at some point. I really need to learn more about the holley tuning so I can tweak things but getting a pro tune was worth it to get to this point.
A couple of minor details to mention. The brake booster vac hose connected right to this port ( right side port under insulated hose).
The other manifold vac port got capped and a small hole made in it so my stock heater/AC controls can still get the required vac to work.
This is a piece of the removed PVC hose and small filter added instead of it running to where my booster is now hooked up to. All this fits under the cover nicely. Ended up extending the air intake tube. MAT would go up under hard acceleration and I assume it’s pulling hot engine air. Also wrapped the AC line so see if that helps with the AC temperature in cab.
Trucks been running great this summer so far. I drove it to work all week and calculated mpg to 13. A bit disappointing as I was hoping for high teens. Probably has a big loss through the 46re and it sure is easy to rev it up. The AC is just enough to keep it cool in the 90+ heat so I haven’t dug any deeper to see if I can get it cooler. I’m thinking I should have got a new condenser and that maybe that would help but at this point Im letting it ride. So I did telly up the cost and it sure does hurt looking at all at once but I was able to spread this out buying parts early and having a long wait on holley. It was over 10k if you can’t read the itemized list in the pic, if you count me selling the old motor and trans minus 3k. Tried to keep up with all the parts separately so you can see what’s what. The AC work from the shop was around 1300 and that isn’t even listed. Exhaust and driveshaft work was the only other shop charge on it. Remote tuning was 350 (not listed)and the tuner has been great at working out any issues well after the initial appointment. Still I’m currently buying more parts for it and continuing to improve old Boozer so I can’t be too upset 🤣.
It adds up quick and while using some premium parts I still feel like this was a budget build as much as possible. I found a local guy who works on trans and took a gamble on some outside help. He was able to replace the trans shift selector gasket (without dropping the solenoid)and tail shaft gasket so no more drips on the driveway. That only cost $140 so I’m calling it a win. He also let me know the pump seal is a little leaky but i don’t feel like dropping it out just yet. He also put a return spring on the TV (I know Chevy term 😅 lever and adjusted the cable some. It shifts a lot calmer now so I guess that’s a good thing but it definitely needs a shift kit if I am going to keep it in. Haven’t decided what the next step is with that - maybe rebuild, nag1 or 8 speed.
With more aggressive driving I have noticed the front end just doesn’t feel as solid as it once was. It’s hard to describe but I hope moving the motor forward hasn’t messed up the weight distribution that much. I’m going to try and fix a few things anyways. Years ago I got this front sway bar from PST and probably should have sent it right back but I made it work (first thread). It’s like the angles on the sway bar end just don’t line up with the strut rods that it’s meant to bolt onto. Plus they never could get me the correct size bushings- well they looked pretty destroyed now.
You can see the squished bushing and some rubber that I used to make up for the larger size. Found a new addco (hellwig) front sway bar and ordered a whole new kit. Along with this I ordered new front springs in the hopes of raising the front slightly and correcting the dreaded first gen lean. If you know these trucks at all you know what I’m talking about.
New spring number New springs. Not much height difference unloaded. New bar on top vs old below. Shows the end of the bar kicking out better to align with the strut rod. Another look at the difference.
I can already tell by first looks it will work better. Guess what the bushings were the right size too and I could reuse my already frame drilled location. Measurements were taken before and after - and I actually had a 3/4” lean to the drivers side.
I put some rubber pieces in as spacers to hopefully correct the lean as well. New sway installed and had clearance issues with the tie rod. Cut down the brackets. Much better alignment and fitment.
After cutting the brackets down the front feels so much better now. After the springs settled it did raise the front almost an inch but that was exactly what I wanted since I was getting some rubbing on big dips. The lean however is still the same - I know back in the day there was a spacer that corrected this and I may have to look into something similar. The back end also got some love as I ordered some clamps for the leaf spring in an attempt to cure my wheel hop issues.
Box and directions. I clamped each side to the front of the spring like so.
Didn’t have anything to go off measurement wise just put it where it looked like it would be most effective at strengthening the leaf pack. So far so good with the leaf spring clamps - no more hops and smooth burn outs / launches. As I type this I just now noticed I didn’t follow the directions per the pic 🤣. I’m happy with it tho cheapest best fix so far !
How does it drive?
lever and adjusted the cable some. It shifts a lot calmer now so I guess that’s a good thing but it definitely needs a shift kit if I am going to keep it in. Haven’t decided what the next step is with that - maybe rebuild, nag1 or 8 speed. 
