A few years ago I started to plan and procure parts to build a fun LSX powered S10. It started with buying a 2000 S10 Extreme rcsb because I wanted to keep it as light and nimble as possible.
The mods started with mostly cosmetic stuff; clear corners, LED, taillights, rollpan, muffler. I got a great deal on a set on genuine C6 Z06 wheels and tires from Craigslist and always thought they would look awesome on an S10. It took 2.5" spacers in the front and 3" for the back to fit pretty flush with the fenders. Absolutely no rub on the front even while at full lock. I had to trim the fender flares on the back because it's a truck and heavy stuff still goes in the bed.
From there I got the idea that having a Z06 themed S10 Extreme would be awesome. While the wheels looked sick on the truck the factory front brakes looked absolutely puny and didn't do squat for braking. I thought about going standard Corvette but I figured I should stay C6Z and go big. I gave Tobin at Kore3 a call and got a set of calipers and brackets to fit on a set of blazer spindles I picked up at a junkyard. I also bought a set of DBA rotors and Hawk HPS pads because, well stock sucks.
I think so too, not much noise from them and they have great bite but they are dusty and wear pretty fast. What are your plans for your truck this winter?
http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums...psdhdpm4aq_edit_1479268679116_zpslxa9bgir.jpg http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums...psqqjniury_edit_1479268429723_zpsgqz8xowm.jpg
I also bought a set of the Cal Vu mirrors with heat, a Cervini's front valance, street scenes smooth cowl, a grill I found on eBay, and a cowl hood. A lot of it needs to be adjusted and painted but fits pretty well as is. I've never seen another hood like this one and I did a ton of searching before I finally purchased this one. Very happy with the way it is going to look when it's all together! I contacted Black Cat customs for a set of LED's and Z06 themed guage face for the cluster. I found that the guage needles were too thick and hatred the orange hue they gave off so I sanded the orange off, painted them red and shaped the tips of the needles to a finer point.
Yeah Tony pretty much spec'd every aspect of the build. He insisted on going with Wiseco pistons and rings, Callies crank and rods, ARP everywhere. I went with the MMS 235 NFI+ heads with hollow valves, Ti retainers, and extra hand loving by him. Also went withJohnson link lifters and Yella Terra rockers. I did go with the FAST 102 ported by him. At the time the MSD wasn't available and I really like the look of the FAST although I have sanded it down, and epoxied the crap out of a lot of it in an effort to smooth it out and ready it for "chroming".
I tried to do as much research as I could about the ability to "ratio" the guages and from what I'm told by Black Cat, as well as the tuner I'm going to be using the driver on the guages can in fact be adjusted to the correct ratio. In my case the speedo would be corrected by a factor of 2:1 and the tach would be somewhere along the lines of 1.3:1. The guage motor gets the signal from the computer on how much to sweep and it can be adjusted through HPtuners. That's what I'm told anyway! If it doesn't work I will probably go with a Racepack or similar set up.
On the interior I scored a hell of a deal on a corvette Z06 steering wheel with suede and red stitching. It does not fit directly to the splines on the S10 column but Moon509 on here has pioneered the the part numbers needed to do the swap while retaining the airbag. At the moment I'm using a Pontiac Solstice airbag cover with a van airbag shoved into it. I went with this cover because I haven't been able to find a corvette cover for a decent price anywhere. I'll most likely get this one covered in matching suede with the right corvette logo. There are a few guys on the corvette forum that do it and it wouldn't even be much more than a stocker.
Right now I have a base model leather when mounted to the column because I didn't want to ruin the suede with greasy/dirty hands while the swap was underway.
My best friend is an electrical magician and will try to make the radio switches work with the radio at some point. As far as I know I'll just need a clock spring assembly with the corresponding wires for it and splice them into the connectors on the wheel. Hopefully...
I also kept with the Z06 theme and splurged on an immaculate set of seats I found on eBay. They have power adjust, lumbar, and heat! On the drivers side anyway. They came out of a totaled 06 Z with only 2,300 miles on it. Yeah, they were almost a grand but are very comfortable and I can always sell them another time. As for mounting, I drilled out the rivets holding the brackets to the tracks on both sets of seats and mocked them up in the truck. They were to my surprise actually pretty close to just bolting together. In order to fit in line with the column and stay tight to the center console one of the mounts will have to be slightly cantilevered on a piece of flat stock to bolt down. Very easy install as far as I'm concerned! Not totally sure if I'm going to like the height of the seat but for now they aren't bad. Going to have to drive it a bit to find out.
I got into a little bit of a bidding war with someone over the blazer center console with the forward cup holders on eBay but considering how hard these things are to come by these days I had to have it. Since I'm going with a T-56 and the console was an auto I made a template of the contour on the right side and then cut it out on the left side to match. Finding a boot to fit was a bit more difficult, and a way to keep the boot in the console was even harder!
I got bored one day and had some thin sheet stock letting around so I made another cardboard template of the hole and started cutting, grinding, welding. After about 3 hours I had something that fit inside the boot and was tight enough to the console to be friction fit and didn't have any holes to see through. I don't have any pictures of the ring I made at this time but I should considering how much went into making it. It is curved both side to side and swept up in the back to mold as well as possible.
As you can tell the shifter is a bit short! Haha It is a Hinson Motorsports short throw shifter made for a F body. I have since extended the lever on it to work in the console. It's a little longer than I thought it would be and it makes the throws farther than I'd like too. I'll probably end up shortening it another inch or two and maybe increasing the fulcrum ratio by shimming underneath the shifter base and extending the ball on the shifter arm. A Chevy SSR short throw shifter might be my best bet if it exists.
I cut a hole just big enough for the Ballenger digital readout guage to poke through next to the vent and epoxied it into place. It looks right at home there and will be right in my line of view to keep tabs on the AFR.
I cut a hole just big enough for the Ballenger digital readout guage to poke through next to the vent and epoxied it into place. It looks right at home there and will be right in my line of view to keep tabs on the AFR.
Awesome work bro! You're building my dream truck!! Just add a stepside bed and you've nailed it.Love the Z06 theme! What is your time line for the swap??
Thank you very much! It has been/is my dream truck too. I think it's pretty original and like to think it is what GM would have done if they actually built something like it; an all purpose, do everything truck that can beat a vette in every aspect.
Stay tuned, a lot is already done but I have held off on posting because I wanted to get as much done as I could.
I should be able to start posting about the drivetrain and suspension tonight or tomorrow morning. It'll get interesting from there! I'm in Ma, near Boston.
I actually spoke to one of the tech guys at MGW before I bought a pro 5.0 then the Hinson. The guy I spoke with told me that the MGW should not be lengthened because there is a washer or something in the mechanism and because of the added leverage it can break pretty easily. It's worth a call to tech before tackling lengthening it.
I got a cheap synthetic boot from speedway. I believe it was 5x7 in size and turned out to be a perfect fit. The part number is 91021804.
I have mine as long as it will go. Seems to be a good fir for the console I have now. Im unsure if the floor shift console is physically taller. I also had to move my console back 2 inches to center the shifter.
Gotcha, I'm not sure on the height difference but the one I have is pretty tall. I had to extend mine about 6 inches from the original length.
What coilovers are you thinking about going with? I spoke with Mark at SC&C who is a plethora of knowledge when it comes to suspension and chassis set up. He told me the ZQ8 coils are more than adequate for pretty much whatever I can throw at it and my money/ focus would be better spent on fixing the geometry issues, bumpsteer, and getting a good set up shocks.
Was looking into viking coilovers. Currently running a belltech drop spring, belltech fron sway, blazer spindles (which I intend to swap for blazer drop spindles) ub machine uppers, factory lowers with proforged tall upper and lower bj's. Also Belltech drop leafs in the rear, with street Performance shocks on all fours. Handles well, with it rode a little better. I did have a belltech rear sway but it didnt play nice with my caltracs.
I see, I like the Vikings more than the QA1's. The Ridetech stuff seems to be one of the best choices out there. I would think that the ride quality would be vastly better with a drop spindle and taller springs because you'd gain the 2" of travel back. I may go that route if mine still rides like poop next spring. I'm hoping the extra thick bumpstops and new shocks help. How do you like the Belltech leafs and Caltracs? I haven't decided what to do for rear suspension yet. Contemplating a Ridetech or custom offset 3 link set up with a watts link but that'll wait until I get the truck running and totally sorted out.
For the front suspension I went ahead and kept the front springs and blazer spindles but that's about it. I got a set of used SPC lower control arms and striped them down and repainted them. A set of Speedway uppers and new ball joints top and bottom. They however are not jiving with the headers at all and I'm waiting on a set of adjustable SPC uppers. There is absolutely no room between the control arm and the header, doing an alignment with shims would require taking the header off! I ordered them with the NASCAR style screw-in tall Howe upper ball joints and Tall lower ball joints. I also got a Little Shop of Horrors steering linkage kit from a member. It drops the center link location so it's parallel with the lower control arm mounts and moves the tire rod location almost in line with the lower ball joint. I tried doing some research to get some feedback on the kit and really didn't find anything. If someone could chime in that would be great! I also cut off the factory rag joint on the steering and welded on the Flaming River joint. After looking for an adjustable shock for the truck and finding the Koni's are discontinued I opted for the Street Performance drop shock because they had good reviews are are reasonable prices compared to the Bilstein's. That and they match the black and Gray theme!
The caltracs are nice, definitely keep things planted. They must have been causing some sort of binding with my rear sway, after I took it out the truck handles and rides better. Still wish it rode a little better. I'm really digging those LSOH steering linkage parts! Just so you know I'm pretty sure the UB machine uppers were designed by Mark at SC&C and they have zero fitment issues with my longtubes. I've had shim adjustments done on the alignment since zero whining from the alignment shop.
I really wonder what was causing the sway bar to not like the caltracs... I was thinking about picking up a set or making some but I don't want to have to worry about them interfering with having a sway bar. The LSOH kit sure does look nice but I'm skeptical about the longevity of the heim joints on everything. Some dirt and grime and they aren't going to last. I am going to try to find some kind of boot to cover them with in the meantime.
I actually did know that Mark had a hand in designing them. I have also heard that when some guys were calling UB asking about them the response was "huh, I dunno?" Haha
If you look around there are part numbers floating around for those arms. One with full size ball joints, and one with the s!0 style. If I find my receipt I'll post it here.
Not really, maybe a couple lbs difference. I bought it for the cool factor and to hopefully get rid of the bumpsteer issue with these trucks. As soon as I get the truck running and driving I'll report back about it. Thanks for checking out my thread X, your truck is a major inspiration to us all!
Okay, so onto the part that goes Vroom Vroom! My first plan was to go with a LS6 and T-56 that I bought from a crashed 05' CTS-V. My plan was to just throw it in and run with it but after a light teardown I noticed wear on the cam lobes and a small coolant leak from the head gasket.
I tore the whole thing down to the block and after getting some quotes to machine the whole thing I found that for a little more money I could go with a all new LS3 stroker with a forged bottom end and full ARP fastener set.
While I was at it I started looking around at head porters to work over the 243 heads. I contacted AI, and TEA and the consensus was about at least $1600 for the whole shebang. I was trolling over on LS1 tech and saw that Tony Mamo head come out with a set of 220cc heads for 346-383's but that was before I decided to go with the 416. After I told Tony about that decision he advised me on a bunch of particulars on the short block.
He suggested I went with Wiseco pistons and their ring package. He set me up with his drilled Johnson 2116 link lifters, Yella Terra Ultralite Rockers, FAST injectors, custom spec'd cam and his 235cc NFI+ heads.
The heads start off as his 235cc heads and have been upgraded with 10mm rocker shafts, lightweight hollow SS valves with titanium retainers, the extra NFI porting, as well as his hand hand finishing/ blending on the bowls and ports for extra measure.
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