2004 Yukon XL 2500 LBZ

[BigDogYJ]

He's in an industrial complex. It's quite a bit nicer than a pole shed. He did have to leave his big place in Orlando when he stopped doing Disney work and switchec to doing Duraburbs full time.

Yeah the shop is definitely in an industrial area. It's pretty unassuming, but the end product that these guys roll out is pretty spot on. My interactions with Eric and discussions have always been alot of fun. He enjoys what he does and it shows.
Their goal has always been to try and be as factory appearing/functioning as possible.
They have a YouTube channel with a number of their projects documented. They have also done some different combinations over the years (Escalade, Tahoe, etc). They are definitely focusing on the newer bodies as of late (2007+).
Some parts they use are getting harder to come by (at least from AC Delco).
The work isn't cheap, but the quality of the finished products that I have seen is worth it for me. I probably could have done it myself (and/or found someone closer to me), but I just don't have the time anymore so I was ready to just get it done (and done right) so we can enjoy it and use it.

Looks awesome!!! Are you just going to let them scrap out the Dually?

Yeah that was worked in as part of the deal as a credit for the remaining parts (both the rest of the dually and the powertrain from the yukon).

 

[Will L.]

Heck yeah, anytime a shop takes donor parts as partial payment, that helps both you and them.

I like that you planned a big drive on delivery. If any problems are gonna show up it is best sooner than later. And planning a long run, any issues can be delt with by missing that days “worlds largest ball of string” event.

I wonder how many he has done now. If the chance to ask arises, please share. Would be interesting to get a total number of them to a GM exec to show that - yes moron, a lot if us want this. Now start making them.

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

Heck yeah, anytime a shop takes donor parts as partial payment, that helps both you and them.

I like that you planned a big drive on delivery. If any problems are gonna show up it is best sooner than later. And planning a long run, any issues can be delt with by missing that days “worlds largest ball of string” event.

I wonder how many he has done now. If the chance to ask arises, please share. Would be interesting to get a total number of them to a GM exec to show that - yes moron, a lot if us want this. Now start making them.

The last ones he was doing were basically for GM. He got the contract to do diesel swaps to the government only 2500 Suburbans(Joe Smoe can't buy a 3/4 burb, but they still make them, special production for the government only). And I doubt even counting the dozen or so shops that I know of that specialize in duramax swaps to gas GM suv's, it would have been enough to sway them. Our only hope is the new straight 6 thats coming out.

 

[BigDogYJ]

I wonder how many he has done now. If the chance to ask arises, please share. Would be interesting to get a total number of them to a GM exec to show that - yes moron, a lot if us want this. Now start making them.

I want to say somewhere around 200 but Im not 100% sure. I’ll ask him next time I talk to him or see him on Thursday.

The last ones he was doing were basically for GM. He got the contract to do diesel swaps to the government only 2500 Suburbans

Yeah he’s been pretty busy lately with some government stuff. Last I heard he’s not taking on anymore private customers at the moment. I guess I got in at the right time.

 

[Will L.]

Wow, ok. Thanks for asking. Lucky you made the move when you did. Wouldn’t surprise me if those suburbans left his shop and went straight to an upfitter for uparmour. We used to do some when I owned the truck equipment shop and 1/2 the time we did some descent power upgrades as part of the package. On the gubmint ones we did that had 6.5s going to db2 and twin gm turbos,wmi, and much lower gears was on a couple. Not any hotrod diesel shops existed back then. So most were gassers that got supercharged.

No 3/4 T suburbans now too?! The ‘01 was a 3/4 and it was so much nicer than the 1/2T my buddy had that was otherwise identical. What a shame. The 05 escalade the wife drives now inplace of her suburban annoys me in comparison.

Sorry for the sidetrack, my mind wanders. Sometimes it takes me with it.

Hope
You enjoy the new and improved Yukon. If your travels run you through Vegas, give a hollar.

 

[Ed HD]

I didn't mean that as a bad thing, for the record lol. I guess I'm just used to buildings and stuff here where we have -40° weather to deal with and crap. You don't need to build for that kind of weather, just hurricanes, lol.

Did you just keep the Suburban rear end, or did you have them upgrade you to the 2500HD rear end?

I've watched some of their youtube videos over the years and they definitely have their act together. I wonder if they've done any L5P swaps yet?

 

[Ed HD]

Yeah that was worked in as part of the deal as a credit for the remaining parts (both the rest of the dually and the powertrain from the yukon).

Maybe he'll swap the 8.1 into the Dually and sell it as a complete truck! lol

 

[btfarm]

I'm pretty certain the 496 (8.1) is a popular motor for hotrodders

 

[BigDogYJ]

Did you just keep the Suburban rear end, or did you have them upgrade you to the 2500HD rear end?

I swapped in an AAM 11.5 rear end from a 2007 3500HD SRW. I also swapped in the front from the same 2007 3500HD with less than 1k miles on it. The Yukon had 4.10’s. Since I was keeping stockish size tires I wanted to keep the stock 3.73 gears that came with the duramax.

I've watched some of their youtube videos over the years and they definitely have their act together. I wonder if they've done any L5P swaps yet?

Yeah they know what their doing.
Right now I don’t think anyone has cracked the computer for the L5P so no swaps of those yet. They’ve been swapping in the LML into the 2017’s. Once they can get tuning working on the L5P ecm then they can work on swapping those.

Maybe he'll swap the 8.1 into the Dually and sell it as a complete truck! lol

I inquired about doing just that (and keep both) but the labor involved would be more than the truck with the 8.1 would be worth in the end. It was hard to tear apart a perfectly good dually but I just didn’t use it or have a need for a pickup anymore. And I knew enough of the history of the power train in my dually to trust swapping it into the Yukon.

 

[THEFERMANATOR]

Wow, ok. Thanks for asking. Lucky you made the move when you did. Wouldn’t surprise me if those suburbans left his shop and went straight to an upfitter for uparmour. We used to do some when I owned the truck equipment shop and 1/2 the time we did some descent power upgrades as part of the package. On the gubmint ones we did that had 6.5s going to db2 and twin gm turbos,wmi, and much lower gears was on a couple. Not any hotrod diesel shops existed back then. So most were gassers that got supercharged.

No 3/4 T suburbans now too?! The ‘01 was a 3/4 and it was so much nicer than the 1/2T my buddy had that was otherwise identical. What a shame. The 05 escalade the wife drives now inplace of her suburban annoys me in comparison.

Sorry for the sidetrack, my mind wanders. Sometimes it takes me with it.

Hope
You enjoy the new and improved Yukon. If your travels run you through Vegas, give a hollar.

They left him and I believe went overseas for armour plating and such. Since tuning is required for Duramax swaps on 07.5+, he actually handled the power increases for them(yes, uncle sam was paying to have NON EPA approved software installed that eliminated emissions control equipment. Gotta love those export builds). And yes, no more 2500 Burb. They stopped in 2010 iirc, and around 12/13 they started building the government only issue 2500 burbs(most get sold to foreign governments I believe). He posted some pictures before on DP, but had to take them down once big brother found out.

 

[WarWagon]

There is a LOT to the "UN Emissions exempt" label I see on military surplus 6.2 diesel engines. Do as I say not as I do is my first thought as the law doesn't apply to 'them'.

 

[BigDogYJ]

Well guys I’m here to pick it up. Lots more details to come but I have an issue I’d like to run by you.
There’s a few things that need some addressing that I haven’t talked with Eric about yet. But in looking things over, in the under hood fuse block there’s some wires ran into a couple slots where a relay for “EDU” is supposed to be. I just touched one of the wires and the engine died. I can’t believe that this would be acceptable. Let me know what you think. I’m starting have second thoughts about this project. But it runs. FYI the red wire is for my lift pump. The yellow and green are the ones they added.

 

[Will L.]

Yeah they need to supply power correctly. I would take the time to give everything a once over real good before driving out of state. Not sure what you paid, but I’m sure it is enough to warrant a descent inspection. And having something that cuts out the engine that could have happened from a bumpy road- ought to have him be willing to square away what you find.

 

[BigDogYJ]

Yeah I’m trying to go over everything real good. So far the relay wiring which was basically to get power for the ecm relay (I really think there should be a better way to do this than to shove wires into the slots. He did say there should be space terminals crimes on the ends of the wires (which there wasn’t). They took care of that. I’ll probably end up moving it underneath the fuse box and tying into the correct wires after I get it home.
Unfortunately everything under the hood was coated in a super heavy layer of armor all. I hate armor all. I really wish that had not been done. And probably due to the armor all the belt is squeaking like crazy. They are changing the belt right now.
Also noticed the hose clamp for the power steering return line was not tightened down it was just loose hanging on the hose.
And the brakes feel really spongy, like there’s still air in it. They claimed they bled the system with a vacuum air bleeder. When I inquired about bleeding the system using the tech2 bleed procedure that cycles the abs pump, he said that only applies to the gmt900 not the 800. Does anyone know for sure? I could have sworn it was needed on at least 03 and newer.

I’m really not trying to be picky but after spending a fair amount of $$ I expect things to be right. The attention to detail is not making me comfortable right now. Especially since we have a 4700 mile trip back home.
I’ll keep you posted as how it turns out.

 

[WarWagon]

I would spend a day or two in the area doing a shakedown. IMO so far it's just normal part of a shakedown and nothing to get heartburn over.

 

[Jaryd]

I agree with war wagon. I would hang around the area for a couple days and put some miles on it. Go do some sightseeing with the truck without getting to far away. Surely if something happened within a hours drive of their shop they would pick up the tow bill to their shop. So they could look at it.

With as much work as they had to do I would expect a little something to get missed like that hose clamp. But the wires, that shouldn’t have happened in my opinion.

Good luck man. Keep us posted.

 

[WarWagon]

Say I just noticed you live in Commifornia. How exactly is this gas to diesel swap going to get through their emissions?

 

[BigDogYJ]

I agree with war wagon. I would hang around the area for a couple days and put some miles on it. Go do some sightseeing with the truck without getting to far away. Surely if something happened within a hours drive of their shop they would pick up the tow bill to their shop. So they could look at it.

With as much work as they had to do I would expect a little something to get missed like that hose clamp. But the wires, that shouldn’t have happened in my opinion.

Good luck man. Keep us posted.

Yeah I think it was just me being a little paranoid and assumptions on my part. I totally understand a few things might get missed. Although I would expect a shop that does this all the time, and has done several hundred, would have a checklist to go through and make sure all is good.
I was assuming (based on talks with Eric and the videos posted as well as other folks posting their experiences) that I could hand over the keys and come back to a perfect truck that was turn key and ready for a cross country trip. In reality, it’s a 14 year old truck with countless things to go wrong from age and Eric isn’t the only one working on it. There’s a few guys (one is pretty young) working with him. While I have no doubt about the work Eric does, I do question the work from his employees. I also have to realize that Eric’s specialty is Duramax Powertrain swaps and not a vehicle builder per say. I also feel like the job was rushed towards the end. But I’ll get it all worked out in the end.

So far....
- EDU relay wiring not complete — Fixed
- Belt squeaking from Armor all — Fixed
- Super spongy brake pedal — Better, he bled the system again and it helped. I’ll probably bleed it again after I get it back home.
- Loose hose clamp PS return line — noticed tonight that it’s still loose. I’ll take care it in the morning.
- Armor All sprayed all over the place under the hood — I hate armor all. I’ve spent close to two hours trying to wipe it down since it looked pretty bad. Like someone sprayed it on very heavy and just left it. Ehh whatever.
- Wrong fuel cap — tonight after about an hours drive, stopped for bathroom and smelled diesel. Walked around back and the whole back of the truck is coated in diesel. And dripping from under the fuel filler area. I opened the fuel door and the cap falls out. It wasn’t screwed in. I tried to but quickly realized the GAS cap was still tethered and doesn’t fit on the Diesel filler. So diesel was sloshing up and coming out the filler and spraying all over the back . Being late at night I Jerry rigged a cap with a rubber glove and hose clamp.
- Steering feels really stiff/right — they had to remove my cognito pitman and idler support brackets and some steering stuff to drop the front diff then swap it. I have a feeling when they put it all back they over torqued something. I’ll have to pull it apart and take a look.
- Fuel gauge not quite right — I’ll need to mess with the fuel gauge parameters in EFIlive to get it to show correctly when full and when empty.

Again, I don’t want it too feel like I’m bashing Eric. I have a lot of respect for what he’s been able to do. I just wish a little more attention to detail was done. After all I did come all the way across the country to have him do the work. He did stay late tonight to work out the issues and get it so we could still head out tonight as we have plans to be in Georgia tomorrow.

In hindsight, I should have planned to spend 3-4 days getting the bugs worked out. I just wasn’t expecting that part is all. I am using this thread to document the whole thing.

On a good note, we hit the road and made it 240 miles to Georgia. Aside from the fuel cap thing, no issues.

More to come as we make it further along our trip. Thanks for hearing me out.

 

[BigDogYJ]

Say I just noticed you live in Commifornia. How exactly is this gas to diesel swap going to get through their emissions?

California allows the swap as long as all the original emissions equipment is installed that came with the engine. And the engine has to be from the same model year or newer. Then it gets inspected at the smog referee station. Once that’s done it’s all legal. Then I transfer my reg to a different county that doesn’t require bi-annual smog inspections.

 

[Will L.]

We enioy hearing it. And not that anyone wants a bash on anyone thread. He has a good reputation. It is important fpr people to understand that a swap like this is a very complex undertaking, even if the person/ shop has done bucket loads of them already. There is ALWAYS kinks to work out.

Documenting your experience here will help others not just if they use him, but anyone else or doing it themselves.

Take pics of each problem as it arises. Stop and buy a fuel cap, saving receipt and take pic for email to Eric. Then stop at a self service car wash to clean fuel of paint and spray down engine. It is gonna get wet, might as well find issues now from it if any arises and get rid of Armor Hell oops I mean Armor All. Yes I agree, oil to make it shiney is dumb.

Many parts stores have loaner tools, maybe when you get fuel cap you can get torque wrench and socket needed to retorque pitman/ idler/ etc?