A 4500 would definitely be smarter, would be extra nice if the shifter lined up with the factory hole. I had a 3500 in my last blazer with 373 and 35s and 5th was nice to shut it up but my highway mileage went down a noticeable amount, 4th was best for mileage( averaged 14-15 at 75 ish) If it came to it I could always swap it or add an overdrive unit or something in the future
That was his last blazer.
I just went back and checked, 3.73 and new 35" tires.
Yessir, both blazers are 3.73 and 35s, thats where my idea of not needing OD came from. It would run highway speeds fine in OD but mileage suffered, 1:1 on the nv3500 was where I got my peak mileage of 14-15. Not that Im building it as a mileage machine but when I finally get around to restoring the camper getting the most out of each tank would be nice. If the 350 ever lets me down it will likely get my spare low mile 6.2 and that would get even better mileage but id have to regear for peak rpm
and 6 was 160. Poked the bore scope in 4 expecting the worst, looked good enough except for carbon buildup. Then noticed that the exhaust valve rocker arm was tight. Backed it off 3 full turns and ran the compression test again. 220 psi. Ran the rest of the valves and they were all tighter than expected. After running all the valves the only low compression hole is 3 at 175. Also noticed casting numbers under the covers while running the valves. 10088113, looks like 87-91 corvette heads or zz4 crate motors 64cc chambers, I was told it was a crate motor, so I read up on the zz4 and saw 10:1 compression…… its been running on 87 the whole time ive owned it with the occasional 93 fillup trying to diagnose other issues. No pinging.
So back at 14° actually tightened this time and went for another drive. Noticeable improvement, probably another 10% or so. Except the worst pinging ive ever heard in my life at half throttle. Drove it easy back to the shop and proceeded to pump out 25 gallons of the 87 I put in it this morning, drove back to the gas station for a second time and put 100$ worth of 93 in it. Drove it easy a couple miles to get some good stuff in the bowl and then laid into it, no more pinging. Got it back and shut it off and no more dieseling. Will have to see if that trend continues.
I wanted a longer panhard setup but wasnt able to find any other examples to go off of for my setup, with only a roughly 4” lift I dont have much room, especially with the hight of my spring pack. My untrained eye said there wasnt enough room to run a bar over the leafs, it looked like it would hit the frame, leafs or maybe both on compression . I dont plan to go any taller, and the swaybar was a must, especially for once I get the camper put back on, ill probably have to add a rear swaybar as well. And im thinking about adding a rear panhard with the 64s and 6” shackles but I dont know enough about suspension to know if what I do is going to help or hurt, the universal kits from ruff stuff I have would put my rear panhard going from pass frame to driver tube, which seems backwards to me, that seems it would make the truck pivot under front and rear compression, but maybe thats better than both axles getting pushed the same direction? Right now the truck drives and handles great for a k5 on 35s IMO, but I haven’t flexed it much to see if theres going to be any issues there or not. before the panhard Id have roughly 1/3 turn of the wheel in corners id have to take up to get the truck to start turning from the axle moving over. Im still not completely excited about the front end setup, k5 frames are hot garbage imo, before the panhard I had dad turning the wheel back and forth while I looked at everything and the axle moves, frame bends and twists, with the hoop on my bumper I can see the frame wiggling alot over bumps, alot of that is body mount movement but the whole thing seems flimsy, and I need to find a way to check but I think the rear frame section is bent slightly over the axle from what im guessing was an overloaded trailer setup, theres a bow in the floor id like to get rid of for camper sake. My understanding is that panhards should be equal in length and angle to draglink but with the steering box being on the outside of the frame I would have had to hang the panhard even further off the frame? It seems good enough for me, its way safer to drive now, but im most definitely very worried about the frame cracking. I looked at everything when I swapped to the 2wd box and it looked good, added the brace to it when installing the 2wd box and was thinking about coming up with some way to tie the panhard frame mount to the passenger side frame rail but not sure exactly how. ORD coming up with a panhard kit anytime soon? I like kits that dont make me think too hard lol
It was needed in my case, the 52s flex more side to side, id have about 1/4-1/3 turn in each direction on the steering wheel taking up slack in corners, back to back corners were slightly sketchy lol. Around town it wasn’t all that noticeable, but curvy backroads and 60mph curves we’re starting to get annoying, and eventually I want this thing ironed out to drive cross country
Yep. I plan on doing something similar on my burb. Going to make it quick disconnect for when its not a street queen
Thats not a half bad idea… might have to look into that, that would probably take alot of stress off the frame wheeling, but might be kinda hard to get lined back up
