Topic: GMC Syclone Drag Truck Build Thread (Read 9874 times)

JRoyPDX · « **on:** January 08, 2019, 04:28:52 PM »

Okay I talked me into it, gonna share my build thread on my Syclone here. I've got alot of catch up to do, but let's start at the beginning.

So rewind to October 2017. I had just sold my Evo 8 project and I wanted another project. I came across a deal for a 1991 GMC Syclone #569 of 2995 for a little over $9k in Michigan. It already had some nice upgrades and was supposed to have a freshly rebuilt engine and transmission, an upgraded a2a intercooler, PTE 52mm turbo, front coilover conversion, etc. I bought it and had it shipped over after having a 3rd party appraiser come back with a value on it of $14500.

The plan is, or was, to have a weekend drag truck and street truck. Something I drive to the track and drive home and drives a high 11.

It arrived here to me on 10-19. Here are photos of it while it was still on the east coast.

I've got a bunch of stuff more to post, might take me a while.

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #1 on:** January 08, 2019, 04:34:13 PM »

10-19 the truck arrives!

https://youtu.be/eA5Fd1uSBOE

Right off the bat I made a monster list of all sorts of stuff that was wrong with it. Brakes were trashed and stuck so that was my first project.

1. Fix Brakes
~~2. Replace locked up viscous coupler~~
3. Remove AC heater box, replace with AC delete heater box
4. Install Sparco wheel
5. Install MSD ignition + wire 2-step
6. Install cap/rotor, plugs/wiires
7. Purchase and install larger injectors
8. Engine bay cleanup, remove unwanted wiring
9. Loose bolt on turbo flange
10. Clack noise sounds like loose rocker arm
11. Transmission cooler line has a leak
12. Install Fluidampr balancer and Moroso pointer
13. Repair front fender cladding
~~14. Repair bed rust~~
15. Paint hood
16. Replace missing fog light (or both)
17. Weight reduction mission
18. License and Register
19. Wheels and tires??
20. Remove stickers and install oe decals
21. Raise front coilovers, repair spherical joint in one coilover.
22. No vacuum line on BOV
23. Fresh fluids throughout

Photos of it up on the lift just to see what I was working with...

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #2 on:** January 08, 2019, 04:42:32 PM »

Brakes. Rear is Camaro FBody. Removed all parking brake stuff, new pads and rotors. Front gets a new caliper, new soft lines, new pads, new rotors.

Don't be too impressed by the front caliper replacement, they're not any bigger and still a single piston. Just not very expensive and light weight.

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #3 on:** January 08, 2019, 05:10:53 PM »

While doing brakes I found a spherical joint on my passenger coilover had fallen apart.

Also found destroyed bump stops, so tore into that...

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #4 on:** January 08, 2019, 05:35:02 PM »

Okay so now we are just about at the end of October '17

I've found that the motor has some less than awesome noises in it and I was very worried about this motor rebuild being junk. I thought maybe valvetrain noise, maybe a bent pushrod, maybe maybe maybe.

I started by cutting open the oil filter and inspecting that and it was spotless. I wanted to clean up the intake manifold and check out the top end anyways so it was at this point I decided that if I was going to do this much I would not put it back together without putting some springs, retainers and a cam in it.

A guy from the Syclone/Typhoon FB groups hooked me up with a brand new Comp 412-8 cam he had laying around for $200 and some springs and retainers from alexsparts.com got me rolling. Time to tear it apart. First, let's make some room.

Then I sent the intake off to have it soda blasted and it came out great.

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #5 on:** January 08, 2019, 06:31:42 PM »

So this part is kinda funny. I decided that while it was this far torn down and the AC stuff had been removed I should get a non AC blower motor housing. Then I thought I might decide to completely delete the entire HVAC system.

So I ordered a blockoff plate too so I could waste money while being indecisive too!

Then, I started tearing into the motor. Leakdown checked out, oil filter is good, nothing looked odd anywhere so I chose to put it back together with new lifters and see if I lucked out. (spoiler, I didn't luck out). In the end, it still makes alot of noise, might be a wrist pin or something, but I'm just running it until it quits.

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #6 on:** January 08, 2019, 06:52:16 PM »

The decision was made...

So that means the dash needs to come out. Then EVERYTHING comes out...

And then I got the engine mostly back together. At this point we are about halfway into November 2017.

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #7 on:** January 08, 2019, 07:00:08 PM »

Front end going back together and I also sent the hood out for paint. It was still just in primer.

So if anyone was wondering, at this point the tuning solution for this is a Walbro fuel pump, a chip that has adjustment ability to it from TurboTweak and a Scanmaster G gauge built specifically for Syclones. These connect to my laptop via bluetooth and I can use TunerPro RT to datalog and the chip allows small adjustments to timing, fuel and boost curve to be made. I made a mount for the gauge where the heater controls used to be. It has a one wire data link to the ECU, for 1991 it is pretty impressive.

Sample of TunerPro RT

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #8 on:** January 08, 2019, 07:08:43 PM »

Next steps are kind of cosmetic. The first is fixing the body cladding, the front right wheel arch showed up broken off of the truck. Luckily the transport trucker saw it coming loose and stopped to save it. Those things are like unicorn parts.

Some new tabs and epoxy took care of that...

The next step was putting my freshly painted hood back on.

All back together!

And here was the startup, it ran and I just needed to adjust valves.

Running video: https://youtu.be/C8BQlL8at5g

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #9 on:** January 08, 2019, 07:16:40 PM »

Now we're up in the air to sort alignment problems. Can't really drive it because it doesn't drive really straight and all the steering junk is wore out.

In with new tie rods and adjusters.

At this point it ran good, but was a little smokey at first. I figured maybe after everything being torn apart and it sitting for so long, etc. there might be a bunch of residue to burn off. But it kept smoking.

Here's a video of the smokey issues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6eLeH1YvWk

So pulled the downpipe off and found this...

The PTE52 was puking oil out the rear seal like crazy.

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #10 on:** January 08, 2019, 07:23:35 PM »

CALENDAR CHECK! At this point I took quite a bit of time getting the truck running, hood painted, cladding fixed and running. At the point I realized that the turbo was toast, it was February 1st.

I did not work fast at all.

So what do you do when your turbo is poop and you need another? You talk your buddy out of his brand new Gen 2 ball bearing Precision 6266. $1200 later and this is what photos look like.

Feb 2: I'm super happy because now I'm driving it!

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #11 on:** January 08, 2019, 07:42:21 PM »

Fast forward to March. Got my interior buttoned up and started finalizing things to make some of my first passes.

Started doing some logging and making some adjustments. Fighting alot of bugs, but slowly I was getting it sorted.

And I finally made my first pass!
Some things about it though:
1. Pushing thru the brakes at the line
2. Not building much boost on the brake
3. Erratic boost levels
4. Need to install my 450lph pump, it had an old 255lph in it, but it just wasn't cutting it.

I had more work to do, but I made one somewhat decent pass, managed a 12.0

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #12 on:** January 08, 2019, 08:01:09 PM »

Late March into Early April.

Ordered a new torque converter that supposed to have a target stall around 3500rpm. Was going to re-stall the Yank 9/11 I already had, but the shop recommended moving away from that one as they didn't think they'd be able to get any more stall from it. I had the Yank freshened up and sold it.

So I swapped that in, had the rear driveline rebuilt and had a new front shaft made from scratch.

Went ahead and pulled the bed off and installed my fuel pump as well as a master cutoff for the battery

Finished by fitting up my buddies drag radials and factory wheels while I send my wheels for powder coat and order my radials

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #13 on:** January 08, 2019, 08:23:42 PM »

Calendar check middle of April 2018

I forgot to post in the last one when I did the pump I also installed the Radium FPR I had laying around from the Evo build that I never used. I modified the fuel rail to accept AN fittings so it is all very easy to take apart and looks good.

I sent my truck to a local fab guy and he built my fender exit exhaust. Made this version on April 30th, shows a little bit of the exhaust build and some two step just for fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyzkqS5hzko

After this, I made my way to the track.
With a new fuel pump, new converter and some drag radials I wanted to see what it'd do. I was expecting maybe a 11.6x type of pass.

And then it happened.
I staged and got on the 2step and it moved out. It was WAY faster to the 1/8th than I expected and the trans wasn't shifting as I was getting rev limiter between shifts. Somewhere just past the 1/8th I lost a bunch of power and it literally stopped accelerating at 114mph. I ran the last 500ft or so at that speed and chose to just stay in it to see what it would do.

Here's the result.

As for why I lost power: melted tip of spark plug #6 (it was loose) and timing was being retarded from false knock, chased down a pinched wire later
As for why it wasn't shifting right: bad TV cable to transmission

Here's some photos from track visit for fun. The Typhoon is my buddy Brian, he holds the stock engine, stock turbo record for a Typhoon at a 12.3 and is currently putting an LS swap in it.

The next steps at this point were to work out more bugs.
Fix the spark plug
Fix the knock sensor issue
Get boost to hold more steady (did some porting, changed wg springs, got manual controller installed)

My next post will be some runs after fixing a bunch of this stuff, getting a new chip from TT with some more drastic changes and has a video and some slips.

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #14 on:** January 08, 2019, 08:30:28 PM »

Okay so now we are somewhere around the middle of May 2018.

I've got a new chip in the memcal, made some changes, got boost alot more steady and I set out to make some passes around 18psi.
For comparison, the 11.37 pass was made with it making 28psi and then tapering off a ton. This is alot less boost.

I was able to make consistent back to back passes and that's what I really wanted to do here. With this thing being buggy and having weird issues, I wanted to run solid passes and repeat them. 4 passes at 11.9x consistently repeated made me happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l048BTCHDUs

Then, I got my wheels back.
I hated the color, so when my buddy decided to sell his stock wheels that I had been using I bought them, sold my wheels, sold his radials and put my radials on his wheels.

I also installed a transmission temperature gauge, we're ending may now and moving into June.

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #15 on:** January 08, 2019, 08:34:46 PM »

Welcome to June 2018!

So in this post, I have some more racing that I did. I'm about to make an upgrade so I wanted to push this setup a little more before I started tearing the truck apart again.

Here's a video from the race day. More boost, more ET, still doesn't want to let it eat on the timing side, but I did manage to back up the 11..3x easily with less boost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoASULmO-jw

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #16 on:** January 08, 2019, 08:41:40 PM »

June 25th, 2018. Time to begin my installation of my latest upgrade.

I was really tire of not being able to control the efi system fully and having to mail chips back and forth to Turbotweak.
So say hello to Holley.

Integrating this into the truck while retaining alot of stock wiring was time consuming, picture time.

That was all me just tearing down the oem harness and taking everything old and unnecessary out of it, then I used painless mesh style loom to re-cover it. It turned out pretty decent.

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #17 on:** January 08, 2019, 08:43:34 PM »

Wrapped up the exhaust while it was all torn apart too.

Also went from my 80lb injectors to 120lb injectors.

On top of all that, I noticed that my intercooler really wasn't doing much in terms of IAT managment so I decided I needed to move it up into the grill.

And my started was always intermittently clicking so a new one went in.

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #18 on:** January 08, 2019, 08:48:44 PM »

July 8, 2018

Fires up on the first try!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo3U0k5fblA

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #19 on:** January 08, 2019, 08:53:17 PM »

This ended up being a really effective location for the boost controller

July 26th, 2018. I talked my buddy Aaron into a few pulls on the dyno. It was probably a little premature as I should have worked some more bugs out first, but I wanted to see where I stood.

The dyno showed ignition starting to break up around 23psi and it was still picking up some knock for some reason. On these power pulls I was targeting 15 degrees of timing but literally getting 15 degrees pulled from the knock sensor. It was also 95 degrees outside.

Video of that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUYqvokmaGQ

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #20 on:** January 08, 2019, 08:55:58 PM »

So the stupid thing is I fixed it in 5 minutes the very next day

I was able to toss a set of colder plugs in. That allowed me to get it up to 20 degrees max timing, make the thing sing, make the knock sensor shut up completely and make power.

I'm guessing it jumped 40-50whp with those changes, maybe more.

I took it to the track that afternoon and immediately ran a 7.34 1/8 mile and got in trouble for going too fast. This was at 18psi.

It was a bracket racing night at PIR so I tried repeatedly to turn it down enough to run 7.50 or slower and try my hand at the Sportsman class. I was unsucessful. Dropping the boost to just wastegate (16psi) and turning the 2step down 1000rpm I managed to get it to a 7.49 and did not qualify. I made one more pass turning it up to what I thought would be 22psi or so just to make a get booted and go home pass. It only made about 17psi and ran a 7.38. Seemed strange but I headed home anyway.

It felt weird leaving the park, so on the freeway ramp I set my foot down and learned what I had done. Immediately shot up to 6000rpm, stayed there and didn't shift. Transmission is toast.ng about that is that the next day I fixed it all...

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #21 on:** January 08, 2019, 09:06:41 PM »

Fast forward to August 24th, 2018

I made a purchase. A company called Strange Auto Barn posted this th350 for sale on CL. It has a hughes manual VB and transbrake and was supposed to be built to the hilt.

So on to spending more money. Another TQ Converter:

Trans, bell housing, shifter, burp tank, oh my.

And it ended up being junk. The guy wouldn't warranty it either, basically told me to get fucked.

Don't ever buy things from Strange Auto Barn in Graham, WA.

2 miles into the test drive it flipped the sprag.

Carnage:

So to fix it I bought a CK Performance Mechanical Diode and had a local guy put it back together for me.

Now it is a beast and drives great.

Oh and I had to buy a new transmission cooler too, so I got a derale with a fan.

Video from driving it with the new trans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6oJB8JHI5A

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #22 on:** January 08, 2019, 09:08:50 PM »

Hey look at that we're all caught up!

Now I'm working on a shock mount relocation. Videos on that one explain alot

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvB2lSOxS2w

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #23 on:** January 08, 2019, 09:10:50 PM »

Two more videos of a part of this project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AbVpSHipMM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GRoqpyGMNE

Next video is some more of the shock mount work, frame prep, etc...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHFAlvRuiZs

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #24 on:** January 08, 2019, 09:14:59 PM »

Here is my idea and parts I'm going to use for my rear shock stuff.

And an image dump of the progress so far...

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #25 on:** January 08, 2019, 09:16:39 PM »

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #26 on:** January 08, 2019, 09:18:09 PM »

After all that its in the wrong section. Damnit!

Someone move this to forced induction please.

turbohf · « **Reply #27 on:** January 08, 2019, 10:16:46 PM »

Quote from: JRoyPDX on January 08, 2019, 09:18:09 PM

After all that its in the wrong section. Damnit!

Someone move this to forced induction please.

fuckin newbs.

JRoyPDX · « **Reply #28 on:** January 08, 2019, 10:22:00 PM »

Quote from: turbohf on January 08, 2019, 10:16:46 PM

Quote from: JRoyPDX on January 08, 2019, 09:18:09 PM
After all that its in the wrong section. Damnit!

Someone move this to forced induction please.

fuckin newbs.

Ban!

brine04 · « **Reply #29 on:** January 09, 2019, 01:18:13 PM »

fuckin newb in the wrong forum tits or gtfo

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Author Topic: GMC Syclone Drag Truck Build Thread (Read 9874 times)