Its been a year now since the final completion of the build.
I have driven the truck every day except when I was out of town on business and some of those days, my wife drove it. The truck has just under 19000 miles since the build (it had about 7500 miles on the speedo when I started daily driving so I have driven it about 11500 in the last year).
Over this year a few things have been added/modified as the continuing shake down took place. The most significant was the replacement of the transmission. One more crap incident from the original builder (ALL of whose work I have had to completely replace). The tranny started leaking badly and I got a recommendation from Pete at Fat Man Fabrications and took it to Affordable Transmission here in Charlotte (nice bunch of guys who know what they are doing). They pulled the tranny and took it apart and then they told me that the tranny was old and worn out. It had at least 100K on it and many of the parts inside had what they called 'hard rust' on them which indicated not only long wear but exposure to the elements over time. Apparently, it had sat outside for a long time and then been stuck in my truck with a few new parts to make it work. I was told it was a top quality tranny with all new parts. Oh well, live and learn..AGAIN!
Even so, it took four trips back to the tranny place to get leaks finally stopped (warranty, no charge) but now everything is doing well.
The blower (after initial issues with Summit) is now functioning well. I reduced the size of the top pulley by 30% and it dynoed out at 499 BHP. The smaller pulley made a pretty dramatic difference.
All systems are doing well now. While it was a tremendously hard task (five years and counting) and terribly expensive, my wife and I both now greatly enjoy Ol' Blue and take it on trips as well as drive it daily. I really enjoy having people smile when they see it and give a thumbs up.
Another adjustment was the power windows. Initially, the install was pretty terrible with me having to pull the windows up most of the time. I took it to Pete over at Fat Man's and he worked on it for about four hours. Now the windows go up and down like a new car. MARVELOUS - Pete is a wizard.
Finally, I now have power door locks on the truck. With a daily driver and living in Charlotte (where crime is rampant), you HAVE to have door locks. I have a hidden kill switch to allow for killing the starter and ignition but still can lost things in the interior (I have a Viper alarm system but no one pays any attention to alarms, they are going off all the time here in Charlotte) so I really wanted door locks.
Freeman's car stereo here in Charlotte is kind of legendary around here and they do some great work (they did all my stereo stuff (DVD, Touchscreen, Voice GPS, iPhone and USB connectors with voice activation, HD and Satellite radio and 900 watt amp with 6 inch speakers with 10 inch subs) so I went to them.
They came up with a really cool system using dual activators on each door to utilize the original locking arm system and I have no outside indication that I have keyless entry (my intention from the atart was to give the appearance of a mostly stuck truck with everything under the 'covers' being new and modern).
IT works great and locks the doors when I start the ignition and unlocks when I turn off the truck. When I lock the truck with my key-fob it also sets the Viper alarm. Cool.
That's about it. Ol' Blue is a continuing labor of love but since most of the expense, blood, sweat and tears are finally behind me, there is more love now than ever.
I really did not intend to build a super truck but one thing led to another and now I really don't regret it (anymore anyway).
To shortcut the gear heads who know more than I... No I will not argue with you about the horsepower. I have had it verified and and it is what it is. If you don't think its right that is your privilege but I don't appreciate being called a liar so do me a favor and don't post. There are a lot of other trucks you can take exception to and people on this forum you can argue with. I just posted this for those nice folks who asked me to keep them informed of the progress on my truck. To them, thanks for all the words of encouragement and support over the years.
- Dave
