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

Aha!

Been looking for this little bugger for a while:

DSC03990.jpg


Night vision camera. I had it squirreled away in one of my electronics drawers and ran across it today while I was searching for my Jawbone® handsfree.

Now I can get on with swapping it on to the rear of the truck.

I've already got plans for a custom console to hold the 7 inch touchscreen I've got lying around from a previous carputer I had in my 300M project:

DSC03991.jpg


Console will also hold the 8 additional digital gauges that will eventually monitor the trucks vitals and send the signals to the warning panel I built a few posts up.

Now, all I have to do is get started!

:rolleyes5:
 
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Time to get a bit more serious about my rear cam and gauges.

But, as we all know the 95-98 interior is a bit......umm... "challenged" for space to install gauges.

I really dislike pillar mounted gauges. Just gets in the way IMHO.

So, a couple hours of cardboard work gets me the raw "buck" to start with:

DSC03995.jpg


DSC03994.jpg


You can see where the touchscreen will go. The area where the broken and useless ashtray used to be will mount 8 or so digital gauges.


I'm on the fence about building another carputer and putting it in the console itself. I've got enough left over parts to install it, everything from power supplies and dolby 7.1 soundcards to dual head video and amps. Sure would be nice to have on board OBDII diagnostics again. I could also load up tunercat II and flash to PCM self contained from inside the truck itself, but I don't know if I could stand the "whirr" of the cooling fan inside the cab. The Ol' whoar up under the hood makes enough noise already.....:rolleyes5:

What I'm at a loss for is what to put down in the big flat space that's left over. I've toyed with the thought of making a space to hold the blackberry, the ipod or just a tray to hold whatever is rolling around.

Any ideas?

:)
 
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We have a 'soft' console there in the 99 Burb - it has 2 cup holders in it, close/tight to the seat.... might be an option. They are in the 'right' spot for both driver and passenger there.
 
My RR emulator showed up today.

Nice little bit of work.

Unfortunately, it's not compatible with the 6.5 ecm so I slid it on to the shelf for a future 411 PCM project of and LB7 swap.

I'm tracing down a few other leads on a real time emulator option for the OBDII 6.5, but that's kind of "hush hush" right now....

;)
 
I'm very interested in how you go about the interior console. I have thought about pulling the center console in my 95 and building one that goes all the way to the dash with guage mounts. And there would be a screen and another subwoofer in there too.

Looks good!
 
bison said:
Seriously,i think you got to find yourself a hobby :hihi:

BTW nice work :thumbsup:,i wouldn't have the patience.
Click to expand...

I got one, you're reading about it!

tanman_2006 said:
I'm very interested in how you go about the interior console. I have thought about pulling the center console in my 95 and building one that goes all the way to the dash with guage mounts. And there would be a screen and another subwoofer in there too.

Looks good!
Click to expand...

Keep watching and I'll be posting as it is built.

Not going to be any sub in it though.

Last thing you want is to mount electronics to a sub box. Not only that, there's not enough air volume to make a proper box to isolate the negative wave....
 
great white said:
I got one, you're reading about it!



Keep watching and I'll be posting as it is built.

Not going to be any sub in it though.

Last thing you want is to mount electronics to a sub box. Not only that, there's not enough air volume to make a proper box to isolate the negative wave....
Click to expand...

I'm not a speaker box builder by any means BUT I know people who have done stuff like this. Might need to have 2 seperate boxes if it will effect the display screen.
 
I have installed an 8" sub in that spot in a Taurus wagon and a Ford truck and both sounded fabulous, it filled in that space with sound waves, but had bigger subs in the back. Although I can agree that may not want electronics attached, although lot of amplifiers out there screwed down to sub boxes. A 6.5" driver would not vibrate a heavy box thats secured down too much.

Its a good looking setup though, it takes a lot of time to do these things and you have to do it right the first time, because you never get around to changing it once its in there working. Well that what happens to me.
 
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Mine will get bolted down for sure and I have 2 10's in the back already. If the screen set up won't work I might upgrade my head unit to something with DVD capabitities and maybe more, but the dvd stuff is just on the wish list. I am thinking a laptop holder is more likely for driving around recording data and for work/ business purposes. I think installing the guages there would be cool too.
 
There's no driver going into my console.

Please don't degenerate my build thread into a pee-ing contest or a discussion on how to build a speaker box gents.

Please start a seperate thread if you wish to discuss it further.

:)
 
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As some of you know, I've recently started tuning my 98 6.5 with RTOBDII (tunercatsII) from Moates.

It was not an inexpensive propostion.

It works really well, but I've been longing for real time tuning.

IOW, you install and emulator in your PCM and your laptop can make changes on the fly to the program. This saves immeasureable time tuning and it also allows you to see what a change to one parameter does right away rather than a whole flash for one item.

Problem is, no one makes an emulator for a 6.5

Or do they?

Here's the skinny on what I've been "collaborating" on:

The OBDII pcm's use a 32 leg PLCC format flash chip. That is, it's a square chip and it has legs on all four sides.

Moates sells an "ostrich 2.0" emulator and by coincidence, our chip is one of the target supported chips. Problem is, it's meant for a DIP format chip. IOW, a rectangular chip with a row of legs down each side.

The other problem is there's no 6.5 OBDII software to support the Ostrich 2.0

So here's what I have on the go after talking to Craig ove at moates .net.

Tunercat I supports the Ostrich 2.0 natively. He's going to contact TC and see if Ostrich 2.0 support can be added to RTOBDII. If that happens, all that will need to be done is build a header to adapt the PLCC surface mount to a DIP ribbon cable to use an Ostrich with tunercatII and our PCM. That's where I come in and fab up a prototype.

I've suggested to Craig that a package selling for around 6-800 bucks might be well recieved by the community if this works. I haven't received a response on that suggestion, so no news there yet.

I think it would be well worth the price to tune your own PCM in real time instead of paying 500 bucks for each flash most guys seem to ask. Of course, you also gain the knowledge (or inexperience) of the tuner for that 500 bucks. You'd be one your own with a real time tuner on a 6.5, at least until enough guys get some experience with it.

It's a long road with lots of land mines along the way, but it may happen.

Fingers crossed...
 
Have a new plan for the front end of the truck.

I already have a front mounted 2 inch receiver but it hangs just slightly below the front valance:

DSC03927-2.jpg


This has always bugged me a bit. So....

I'm going to alter the hitch so it tucks up between the frame rails and pokes out through the valance just below the licence plate holder. The "push in" hitch cover will make it almost invisible once installed.

I'll remove the tow hooks and use the valance holes for ducting to both the air box path and more air to the rad.

The loss of the tow hooks won't be a big deal as I'll have a removable shackle that will fit the 2" reciever. That's a better arrangment anyways as pulling on one tow hook has a grater possability of pulling the frame rails out of alignment. A center mounted shackel will distribute any pulling loads equally.

It's all about the little things....

I'm also laid up from work today with a thrown out back:

:(

So I'll have a little time to work on my custom center console later

:)

The pain killers they've got me on are also pretty righteous!

:hihi:
 
Pulled the new 35 footer home today.

The truck never noticed the 30 footer back there. You knew it was there, but didn't have to worry about acceleration or EGT's that much other than long, steep hills. You could top 1000, but it was usually during fairly heavy acceleration.

But that 35 footer, well.......

I had to noticably get into the thottle much deeper to get the whole shooting match rolling.

EGT's topped 1000 only once on a long low grade and that was only for about 3-5 seconds while picking up speed while climbing.

Looks like a stainless 3" down pipe and 4" stainless muffler system are on the menu soon.

No doubt this will also speed up the need for a decision between a P400 or Duramax swap too.....:rolleyes5:
 
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