3500_6.5
Well-Known Member
Figured I would start this thread to give those interested something to read. Just going to give a little history of the truck and keep everyone updated as the build progresses. Its a long read...
The truck is a 2000 K3500 crew cab dually with a 6.5, obviously, 4l80e and 4.10 rear end. I bought the truck last August (2013) with around 240,000 miles on it. The truck was bone stock, original engine and the tranny had been rebuilt around 20,000 miles earlier. The only modifications to the truck was the good old SS Diesel Heatsync on the intake. He had just replaced the injection pump a few months back, then put on the PMD and heatsync about a month before I bought the truck. He had also just had new ball joints, cv axles and sway bar end links put on. The truck is overall in pretty nice shape. No rust, paint is as good as could be expected, and it has a few scratches and small dents here and there, but really not all too bad for 14 years and 240,000 miles. Interior is also in pretty nice shape. None of the leather seats even have any tears in them yet. Driver seat shows some wear, but no rips. The rest of the seats still look brand new. Enough history, on to the build...
First thing I did was install boost, pyrometer and tranny pillar mounted gauges. Max boost was the normal 6-8 psi with everything stock. Next thing I did was replace the PMD... went bad about a month after I had the truck. After that, I got a Diamond Eye exhaust, marine injectors and the A Team Turbo and installed them all at the same time. Install was fairly easy for all three. Pretty straight forward and about as easy as unbolting old and bolting new on, with some slight modifications here and there but nothing I couldn't do in my driveway in an afternoon. Exhaust note was noticeably deeper, egts lower and max boost was around 11-12 psi with the A Team. I would say power under a load was more but probably less under normal driving due to the larger turbo lag and no added fuel. A few weeks before Christmas I put new rubber all the way around. I went with 265/75R16 mud terrains that, believe it or not, were retreads. So far, I have absolutely no complaints about them. As of now, I would probably run them without hesitation on my Suburban as well. The company seemed to do a really good job on the retread. Very surprised by how good they are. I put two inch spacers in the rear to keep the tires from rubbing each other. The truck had the step sides and "ground effects" on the cab and bed that I finally just finished taking off about a month ago. I think it looks much better without them...
After that, I finally pulled the trigger on a KOJO tune to match the turbo. Got the tuned ecm installed around the first of the year. Along with new tow mirrors and a high output lift pump. Instead of the usual several hundred dollar pumps every diesel owner seems to think they need, I opted for a $50 high volume lift pump that is designed for high hp carburated engines. Internally regulated to 15 psi. Cheap and easy to install and have yet to have an issue with it. Ran well with everything installed. Better than any other 6.5 I have owned. Pulled hard to redline and pushed around 18 psi of boost max. Wasn't really a whole lot of turbo lag. Was a little slow to build up to about 5 psi of boost, but then would climb pretty quickly from there to about 15-16psi and then slowly top out at 18 psi. Would smoke some at initial throttle and then clear out as boost climbed. Egts never really got much over 1100 degrees, maybe 1150 max is all I saw. My original goal for this truck was 400 hp. Long story short, I was somewhat disappointed when I was obviously far from that. I would guess when it was all said and done, that I was in the 300ish hp range. I wanted more after the tune, so I did an optic bump and messed with timing a little. Maybe got a little more power, but wouldn't say it was anything noticeable.
After all this, I ended up having to replace the glow plugs towards the end of winter. But drove the truck probably from mid January until sometime late March with the truck set up like this. The PMD was still mounted on the intake. I had bought a relocate cable to move it to the bumper but never got around to it. It was a really cold winter and I don't drive the truck that much so I figured it might be alright. Well...the first warm day(and by warm, I mean 50s) the truck started dieing again. Died 6 times in 3 days and then pretty much every time I drove it over the next week. So....instead of buying another PMD, I decided to do what my original plan was when I bought the truck and scrap the electronic DS4. Was lucky enough to basically at the same time, get my old built 6.5 engine back. We put a 300hp marine pump on that engine when my brother owned the truck, so I just pulled it off the engine and threw it on my 2000. Got a gas pedal and trans controller and had it up and running.
Side note: if anyone wants details on how to convert, just let me know. Its pretty straight forward and really isn't too dificult to do.
With the marine pump (I had it turned all the way up), the truck smoked...a lot. Boost was lower, around 15 psi max. I messed with the timing some. Advanced it a little more and the turbo lagged big time, had the same max boost, but smoked like a freight train. I retarded the timing some and got it to where it spooled really fast. Once it started spooling, it spooled to 15 psi about as fast as a stock turbo would, but that is where it would max out. Still had some smoke, but a lot less than when it was too far advanced and egts were still low. Seemed to have quite a bit more power than the tuned ds4 did at lower rpms but seemed to lose steam once it got to higher rpms where the ds4 kept pulling.
So, after about a week of that, I decided to pull the pump, again, and sent it out to be built. And that is where my build is currently at. Found out the pump was putting out 101cc at 2000 rpm, 90cc at 2600 rpm and steadily dropped from there. Which would explain the fast spooling, lots of pre boost and low boost smoke, and then loss of power on the high end. The pump had somewhere in the 50-60,000 mile range on it so I guess its to be expected that it was a little worn out. So it is getting rebuilt and tuned as we speak. Hoping for somewhere in the 120 +/- cc range when its all said and done. The pump will be going back on the 245,000 mile engine for now.
I am building another engine for the truck, but it is a slow process. The plans for the build will be: 18:1 pistons, forged crank, splayed main caps, cam, ported heads, ported lower intake, custom upper intake, intercooler, custom machined precups, headers, marine injectors set for the pump, stud girdle, and head studs. So far, I have the block and heads that will be for the build, pistons, intecooler, head studs, gaskets, and stud girdle. Will be porting the heads and intake here when I get some down time and hopefully be getting the precups machined soon too. Headers are actually manifolds off of a NA Hummer, but are designed similar to shorty headers. Will have to make my own crossover pipe and will have to fab up the passenger side manifold, but I have a pretty good idea of how I will do that.
Its a long read, but theres my story and my build. Will post pictures and updates as I go for all those who are interested. Will answer any questions that I can. Hope it will be a good read with some good info for some of you looking for more info on builds similar to this.
The truck is a 2000 K3500 crew cab dually with a 6.5, obviously, 4l80e and 4.10 rear end. I bought the truck last August (2013) with around 240,000 miles on it. The truck was bone stock, original engine and the tranny had been rebuilt around 20,000 miles earlier. The only modifications to the truck was the good old SS Diesel Heatsync on the intake. He had just replaced the injection pump a few months back, then put on the PMD and heatsync about a month before I bought the truck. He had also just had new ball joints, cv axles and sway bar end links put on. The truck is overall in pretty nice shape. No rust, paint is as good as could be expected, and it has a few scratches and small dents here and there, but really not all too bad for 14 years and 240,000 miles. Interior is also in pretty nice shape. None of the leather seats even have any tears in them yet. Driver seat shows some wear, but no rips. The rest of the seats still look brand new. Enough history, on to the build...
First thing I did was install boost, pyrometer and tranny pillar mounted gauges. Max boost was the normal 6-8 psi with everything stock. Next thing I did was replace the PMD... went bad about a month after I had the truck. After that, I got a Diamond Eye exhaust, marine injectors and the A Team Turbo and installed them all at the same time. Install was fairly easy for all three. Pretty straight forward and about as easy as unbolting old and bolting new on, with some slight modifications here and there but nothing I couldn't do in my driveway in an afternoon. Exhaust note was noticeably deeper, egts lower and max boost was around 11-12 psi with the A Team. I would say power under a load was more but probably less under normal driving due to the larger turbo lag and no added fuel. A few weeks before Christmas I put new rubber all the way around. I went with 265/75R16 mud terrains that, believe it or not, were retreads. So far, I have absolutely no complaints about them. As of now, I would probably run them without hesitation on my Suburban as well. The company seemed to do a really good job on the retread. Very surprised by how good they are. I put two inch spacers in the rear to keep the tires from rubbing each other. The truck had the step sides and "ground effects" on the cab and bed that I finally just finished taking off about a month ago. I think it looks much better without them...
After that, I finally pulled the trigger on a KOJO tune to match the turbo. Got the tuned ecm installed around the first of the year. Along with new tow mirrors and a high output lift pump. Instead of the usual several hundred dollar pumps every diesel owner seems to think they need, I opted for a $50 high volume lift pump that is designed for high hp carburated engines. Internally regulated to 15 psi. Cheap and easy to install and have yet to have an issue with it. Ran well with everything installed. Better than any other 6.5 I have owned. Pulled hard to redline and pushed around 18 psi of boost max. Wasn't really a whole lot of turbo lag. Was a little slow to build up to about 5 psi of boost, but then would climb pretty quickly from there to about 15-16psi and then slowly top out at 18 psi. Would smoke some at initial throttle and then clear out as boost climbed. Egts never really got much over 1100 degrees, maybe 1150 max is all I saw. My original goal for this truck was 400 hp. Long story short, I was somewhat disappointed when I was obviously far from that. I would guess when it was all said and done, that I was in the 300ish hp range. I wanted more after the tune, so I did an optic bump and messed with timing a little. Maybe got a little more power, but wouldn't say it was anything noticeable.
After all this, I ended up having to replace the glow plugs towards the end of winter. But drove the truck probably from mid January until sometime late March with the truck set up like this. The PMD was still mounted on the intake. I had bought a relocate cable to move it to the bumper but never got around to it. It was a really cold winter and I don't drive the truck that much so I figured it might be alright. Well...the first warm day(and by warm, I mean 50s) the truck started dieing again. Died 6 times in 3 days and then pretty much every time I drove it over the next week. So....instead of buying another PMD, I decided to do what my original plan was when I bought the truck and scrap the electronic DS4. Was lucky enough to basically at the same time, get my old built 6.5 engine back. We put a 300hp marine pump on that engine when my brother owned the truck, so I just pulled it off the engine and threw it on my 2000. Got a gas pedal and trans controller and had it up and running.
Side note: if anyone wants details on how to convert, just let me know. Its pretty straight forward and really isn't too dificult to do.
With the marine pump (I had it turned all the way up), the truck smoked...a lot. Boost was lower, around 15 psi max. I messed with the timing some. Advanced it a little more and the turbo lagged big time, had the same max boost, but smoked like a freight train. I retarded the timing some and got it to where it spooled really fast. Once it started spooling, it spooled to 15 psi about as fast as a stock turbo would, but that is where it would max out. Still had some smoke, but a lot less than when it was too far advanced and egts were still low. Seemed to have quite a bit more power than the tuned ds4 did at lower rpms but seemed to lose steam once it got to higher rpms where the ds4 kept pulling.
So, after about a week of that, I decided to pull the pump, again, and sent it out to be built. And that is where my build is currently at. Found out the pump was putting out 101cc at 2000 rpm, 90cc at 2600 rpm and steadily dropped from there. Which would explain the fast spooling, lots of pre boost and low boost smoke, and then loss of power on the high end. The pump had somewhere in the 50-60,000 mile range on it so I guess its to be expected that it was a little worn out. So it is getting rebuilt and tuned as we speak. Hoping for somewhere in the 120 +/- cc range when its all said and done. The pump will be going back on the 245,000 mile engine for now.
I am building another engine for the truck, but it is a slow process. The plans for the build will be: 18:1 pistons, forged crank, splayed main caps, cam, ported heads, ported lower intake, custom upper intake, intercooler, custom machined precups, headers, marine injectors set for the pump, stud girdle, and head studs. So far, I have the block and heads that will be for the build, pistons, intecooler, head studs, gaskets, and stud girdle. Will be porting the heads and intake here when I get some down time and hopefully be getting the precups machined soon too. Headers are actually manifolds off of a NA Hummer, but are designed similar to shorty headers. Will have to make my own crossover pipe and will have to fab up the passenger side manifold, but I have a pretty good idea of how I will do that.
Its a long read, but theres my story and my build. Will post pictures and updates as I go for all those who are interested. Will answer any questions that I can. Hope it will be a good read with some good info for some of you looking for more info on builds similar to this.
