Well its done. Drove it to work today and it works great, its way more powerful, gobs and gobs more. I have some things to do still, the wideband sensor is in but I need to install the electronics for it.

I am definitely going to need a remote trans cooler because everything is heating up, a lot. It takes about 20 minutes, but it does start to overheat. Never as bad as the HHR fan did though. Its just this killer dry heat we have, 105 today and 20% or less. But I need to solve it, first I will remotely cool the trans and then step to a better radiator if needed. For now I have the mechanical fan, but I may try a biggass Efan from something.

 

Congrats. Is there a shroud around the fan, it forces the fan to pull through the radiator. I noticed in the video there was no shroud.

Speaking of videos, I believe that it is burnout video time.

 

Well I had a shroud on it the first night when i said it was cooling well, but that old plastic snapped so I had to take it off. The stock one actually matches up with the waterpump on the hemi pretty well so i may be able to put the whole shroud on there. I will try to rig it a little better and see if there's any change.

As for videos, I believe you are correct. Its really too bad I didn't get any today because this truck did things its never done before. These toyos are partcularly sticky, and since I got them I haven't been able to have any "fun" except for in the snow.

Well that was short lived. Because today, a co-worker of mine showed me a parking lot that has a gutter around the perimeter, which resembles a small auto-x course without the cones. Well I took the truck around the "course" and immediately felt all that power, the first turn in was smooth with plenty of tire squeal, the second felt a little rougher and as I exited the 3rd turn I felt the tail start to slip out... So I floored the bitch and tail slid (baby drift) through the short straight and past my imaginary finish line. It was awesome. Then I tried a 2600rpm stalled launch and it easily overwhelmed the rear brakes so I launched it and left a 50 footer.

Then, I was with a buddy of mine. So there's a little story behind this. We love to race, but always had slow vehicles. When I got my truck he had a Honda accord, like a 93 or so. When we raced it was clear who was faster, so I walked on him. Then he got this 2.5rs impreza which was a fair quick little car, standard awd and all. Well I built up a list of mods and it wasn't long before we were perfectly neck and neck in every race. Then he had to go and buy this infinity g35x awd with the 3.5 in it. And it was just too much for this 4700lb beast. He would walk 7 car lengths on me before 75 mph.

Well, we just ran a couple from the digs tonight and now, with a shotty tune, we are nose to nose all the way to 80, which is when we ran out of room.

So give this a perfect tune and new gears and I think this thing will be a monster. For now its running pig rich and has 3.55s.

 

OK, so I'm zeroing in on the problem, it turns out its no where near as bad as I thought. It has been running rich and misfiring, but only enough that a mild gas smell makes its way to the crank case. I changed the oil and it was perfect, smelled like oil lol. No gas in it and hardly any residual gas smell while I was changing the oil.

So, that being said. I loaded my latest tune from hemifever and the smoothness picked up quite a bit, a little bit on the power end, but not much. My wideband is still acting up, and I am sure there's a gasket or flange leak interfering with the o2 reading and the wideband readings. It goes back to the exhaust shop tomorrow so it will be solved then, or I will change my gaskets and maybe add donut gaskets to the flanges.

And the good tidbits. Everything works. Except cruise control, I have to re-mount the linear servo closer to the firewall because the cable won't reach to that side of the throttle body (all connected items had to switch sides) throttle response, omfg throttle response. I could never have imagined such a smooth and peppy throttle. This 84mm gape is my favorite part I think.

And some bad tidbits, its hot here, and dry. The engine warms up to operating temps and stays steady there (180) for a good long while. But everything eventually heat soaks and then the temps start to rise
It never overheated, and its still well within a safe range.. But its quite a bit hotter than 180. My guess is the thermostat opens fully and then the fan just engages hard up to keep it cool, and does an OK job. I will be getting a remote cooler and getting the hot trans fluid out of the radiator all together then I'll be fabbing a separator to keep hot air off the air filter. Once the tune is all smoothed out and the lean spikes are gone, the engine should run much cooler. All this together should solve my cooling issues without needing to spend much more money.

Another thing, I'm not going to sugar coat this. The hemi with a cai sounds like crap compared to a cai on a 4.7. The exhaust sounds OK, but nothing like the 4.7 does. No mistake, the hemi sounds meaner and bigger.. But the 4.7 was like an escape into symphonic resonance, a well tuned instrument playing over an orchestra (contradiction). OK, enough sappy ****. I'm happy to trade the sound for power. I still have 3.55s and I can leave a set of treads anywhere.. Almost. These toyos are resilient, but may have met their match. I'd kill for some 4.10s though... Sigh.

 

This sounds amazing. I'm glad everything is going as planned or better for you. I will have a ton of questions for you this fall, but it's neat to see this thing transformed before our eyes. Congrats!! Awesome work.

 

Just make sure you get the throttlebody, its a must. The drive by wire setup is incompatible with this swap. The bbk is the best solution. There are adaptors for the LS throttle bodies, but i think that setup only works with car intake manifolds, due to the lower part of the chebie tb hits the manifold.

 

As I said in my other thread, the wideband is working perfectly now. The exhaust fix helped a little but recalibrating it fixed it the best. The instructions for installing it said specifically that I don't need to calibrate if its the innovate sensor. BS.

So I will be making some full throttle videos for Sean at hemifever to get everything dialed in and tuned right, then I'll be doing some sound and driving vids, maybe a burnout or donut video haha.

 

 

seems very fast but a new shift schedule will really help her out! I think you should get the Hemi badges that come on the 1/2 ton pickups..it will make people really appreciate the project especially for the Mopar guys who know Dakotas don't come with anything bigger than a 4.7

 

Let's see some pictures of your exhaust setup. What kind of horsepower do you think you are putting out with that setup? Seems like it pulls nice and strong, but like it was mentioned and most of us know, that tranny is too soft. What about the kit that Blown was running in his tranny, might be worth looking at installing in yours.