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The "restification" of a 98 6.5 TD...

ak diesel driver said:
no these http://www.cipausa.com/
Click to expand...

Since that's the main site, I'm going to guess you mean the "ford-ish" looking ones?

Part number 70500 for power heated?

I've seen them, not very enthused about how they fit with the truck's lines.

I'm pretty sure the Dodge mirrors are going to be the best comprimise between style, visibility and price....
 
First steps towards tuning the old girl myself were taken today. I ordered the VDF from Westers for my 98.

Now to hunt up a copy of tunercat II.

Got a couple lines on one. One is "ugh that hurts" and one "OMG THATS EXPENSIVE" option......:rolleyes5:

Once I get up and running, I'll probably offer my calibrations and tunes for a nominal fee. Probably 50 bucks and you pay shipping. Well, I'll probably just give the cals away if someone wants them, but you'll need a VDF and a Tunercat II program and cable to use them.

An exception would be if I don't have the proper year VDF for your PCM. Then, cost would likely be you buy the VDF from westers (99 Bucks), pay shipping and no charge for anything else.

This will all be on an "AS IS" basis, but I'd have no problem reflashing guys PCMs with other cals once they've ponied up some dough once.

But that's going to be many moons from now, if at all.....
 
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Well, another 850 bucks down the drain.

Ordered Tunercat II from Moates.net a few minutes ago.

The program and cable are no longer available from the developer.

So you basically have 4 options to get it for OBD II:

1. Find someone with a used one (they go for around a grand these days, IF you can find someone willing to part with one!)

2. Buy a Roadrunner "guts" kit (hardware add on for LS1 PCMs) from moates, which qualifies you to buy TunercatsII and a reflash cable from them. They can't seperate the products due to a licensing limitation and you end up on the other side of 850 bucks after it's all done

3. Buy Westers Diesel Tuner for 1899.00 (it's essentially tunercat II)

4. Pay 500 bucks to JET tuners and hope to hell it works with other VDF/CAL files than what JET sells. JET is just tunercat II but they're mucked around int he works and it comes locked to a specific VIN. You have to pay more for each new VIN if you want to do more vehicles.

So other than tuning the truck and maintenance, I'm done buying stuff for it for a while....

But:

Now I have an unlimited tunercat II program!

I can tune as many OBDII run vehicles I want!

All I need is the vdf files (available from the original developer, Moates or Westers for 80-100 bucks a piece) and I'm up an tuning flash powered OBDII PCMs. All my ODBI stuff was just gathering dust now anyways.....besides, I always hated the hassle of erasing, flashing and swapping memcals.

:)

PS. EFILive won't do the 6.5 and they have no plans of adding it. While it's a nice program, it's still almost a grand and of no use to us.

PPS. I could have just broken into tunercat II (it's just an algorythmto create a password) but I still wouldn't have the hardware (obdII cable interface) and it's worth paying the developer for this particular program....
 
And so, the beginning or my warning "repeater panel" begins:

DSC03887.jpg


:)
 
Getting really stoked now!

Moates has changed my order status from "processing" to "shipped".

It's on it's way!

Oboyoboyoboyoboyoboy!

Can't wait to get into that sneaky little PCM.

The according to Lyndon, the VDF should give me acces to everything. Boost, fuel spark, Trans, lockup tables. All included.

Oboyoboyoboyoboyoboy!

As a side bonus, I'll be able to swap the Roadrunner realtime emulator into one of the spare 411 pcm's I've got on the shelf and either sell it or maybe find an LS1/vortec project to bang about with.

Hmmmm, I've still got 2 complete TPI setups gathering dust in the garage...... that would be super cool setup in sequential fire instead of batch.......maybe a vortec lower and a vortec engine or vortec heads on a 4 bolt main block........little bit of rewiring..........yeesh, better cool my jets for a while........;)
 
OK, so here's the plan after a bit of research:

We all know how the 65 is susceptible to cracks in the block and heads. We all know the basic architecture is at fault (or you can figure it out) when you're talking about adding power.

The plan is to tune the ol' 6.5 for now. but not much else will be done from this point forward. It's healthy enough "as is" to go a few more years at least.

My road runner emulator kit is a 512k which will work with an 512k LB7 computer and give me real time tuning and emulation on a duramax.

So, once the good ol' 65 gives up the ghost, the truck is going to get a full on DMax swap. It's not exactly new ground, but it's not a path with a lot of footprints on it. Then I'll have a RR equipped DMax 98 sierra that I can tune with tunercats II (which I'll already have :)) or pony up some dough for EFI live, which also natively supports RR.

That's the long term plan for the truck now.

A P400 is just too much cash to rationalize staying with the same design and it's inherent lo po limitations. Plus, it's just plain old....well.....old. Support will start to dry up in the coming future.

And the more the years pass, the more the prices on those 2001-2004 Dmax's will drop.

Yup. Sad to say it for the old 6.5, but a 6.6 is somewhere in the truck's future.

But, the 65 has still got lots of years left yet and I intend to use 'em all to save the $ for the upgrade.....
 
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Well, screw it.

I went ahead and ordered the 98-02 dodge towing mirrors.

I tried "suction cup" ones and the CIPA slip on ones, but nothing is working for me when towing the 30 foot TT.

Hope these fill the bill...............
 
When you get them please do a thread on the install. I want better towing mirrors than what I currently have and there is no real choice out there. There is only one aftermarket item I have found that comes close to what I am looking for. They look like the extension mirrors that Ford uses. When I adjust my current ones to see in back of the trailer I can't see the pickups rear wheels.

Don
 
handcannon said:
When you get them please do a thread on the install. I want better towing mirrors than what I currently have and there is no real choice out there. There is only one aftermarket item I have found that comes close to what I am looking for. They look like the extension mirrors that Ford uses. When I adjust my current ones to see in back of the trailer I can't see the pickups rear wheels.

Don
Click to expand...

Same problem I've been having. Anything that doesn't look like total A$$ doesn't work worth a damn for rear vis.

The dodge mirrors are setting me back about 300 cdn (clear vue with power/heat) but they look to be the best option for looks and visability.

We'll see once they get here I suppose, but they're going to be the last attempt. They'll work or I'll live with 'em as is.

To all those going "300 bucks?!? You got hosed", yes I know that they can be found cheaper on a certain web site. However, once they add extra shipping and handling (and they ship UPS standard) it comes out to more than 300 bucks.

Just don't get any breaks when shipping cross border these days.....
 
My tekonsha P3 brake controller showed up today.

Looks to be a quality unit!

I think I'm going to mount it in my dash where the useless ashtray is. It's ben screwed shut since I bought the truck anyways.

That way, it's not hanging below the dash beggin to be stolen, looks like a nice custom install and is within reasonable reach for manual override braking...
 
Well, I started massaging the ashtray area for my Tekonsha P3 and decided it just wasn't the look I was after. Still looked like an aftermarket piece just "tacked on". I like thing to look like they belong on the truck, not an afterthought.

So after some consideration of the matter (beer) and a bit of staring at it (had a nap, watched some TV), I decided to flush mount it in the instrument bezel. I like the integrated look of the new factory Ford brake controllers (it's in the DIC in the cluster) and the closest I would get to that in my ol
GMC is on the left of the instument bezel, just below the gauges. There was an hour meter in that spot that the PO had installed and then disconnected long ago, (leaving me with no way to know what the actual hours are) so no loss there.

A couple hours of fitting, shaving, filing, milling, measuring, cutting and making bracketry inside the dash and it's a done deal!

Now it's close at hand, easy to read and looks almost like something the factory might have done. It's LCD and has many menus and options (color, dimmer, tow boost levels, diagnostics, etc) so close by in easy reach is a real bonus.

A little more work and it should look really good. Not to mention, it's damn near level front to rear with the truck instead of hanging off the dash somewhere. Those little digital accelerometers should be nice and happy now!

Wiring and pics tomorrow.......
 
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