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Well, now that you got it out of the garage, what are you going to do to one-up that to celebrate your birthday on Saturday....? :deal:
 
Well, now that you got it out of the garage, what are you going to do to one-up that to celebrate your birthday on Saturday....? :deal:

No idea....... :dunno:

48 though, man..... 4 dozen years old. I don't like the sound of that one bit.... :haha:



-G
 
No idea....... :dunno:

48 though, man..... 4 dozen years old. I don't like the sound of that one bit.... :haha:



-G

Greg, you could be counting the minutes you are old and that would be 25,228,800 minutes when you reach 48. :D
 
48 though, man..... 4 dozen years old. I don't like the sound of that one bit.... :haha:

That's still fewer than the largest package of eggs you can buy at the store. So, by my count, you're still one dozen shy of getting old. Logic: I have it.
 
No idea....... :dunno:

48 though, man..... 4 dozen years old. I don't like the sound of that one bit.... :haha:



-G

Every time I hear myself complain about being old, I eventually remember to remind myself getting old is better than the alternative. :D

I just turned 49, so from now on when it's your birthday, you can say "At least I'm not as old as that Canuckistanian smart ass I know."
 
Every time I hear myself complain about being old, I eventually remember to remind myself getting old is better than the alternative. :D

I just turned 49, so from now on when it's your birthday, you can say "At least I'm not as old as that Canuckistanian smart ass I know."

That will be my new life mantra..... Thanks Rene! :haha:


-G
 
Happy upcoming birthday BTW...:waytogo:

Danger is getting big!! I still remember talking about baby jail in this thread and that doesn't seem that long ago. Looking at the last series of pics, you should be justifiably proud. You've got the trifecta of coolness going on. I see your landscape stuff, of course the Blazer hitting a huge milestone, and a great kid posing on top of your big block. :waytogo:

You couldn't ask for more and keep a straight face I'll bet.
 
Happy upcoming birthday BTW...:waytogo:

Danger is getting big!! I still remember talking about baby jail in this thread and that doesn't seem that long ago. Looking at the last series of pics, you should be justifiably proud. You've got the trifecta of coolness going on. I see your landscape stuff, of course the Blazer hitting a huge milestone, and a great kid posing on top of your big block. :waytogo:

You couldn't ask for more and keep a straight face I'll bet.


I've been working SO hard for the last 10 years, that it's been insane at times..... The house needed a LOT of work and every time I turned around some major thing was going wrong (septic system, roof leaks, well pump, etc). The Blazer project always went on the back burner as the other demands of the home, marriage and family took center stage.

....and yes baby jail. Almost 18 months of pure sleep-deprivation and NO spare time to think about anything besides diapers, feedings and trying to keep the household running.... Starting a family in your 40's is a tough assignment. :D

Only over the course of maybe the last 6 months, have the planets finally aligned enough where the loose ends of a million household projects are now being checked off the list, Charlie is old enough now to start hanging out and having fun conversations with. And yes, I've been logging enough hours on the K5 that I finally had the payoff experience of rolling it outside into the sunshine and spending an afternoon just enjoying that feeling, drinking a few cold ones and snapping a couple hundred photos.... :waytogo:

Believe me, this weekend I absolutely had that experience of just looking around at the house, yard the truck on the driveway, and Charlie doing his goofy pose on that old-school BBC and feeling pretty proud and blessed for so many things that are good in my life these days.



-G
 
Awesome pictures, awesome kid, awesome big block, and awesome clearance! Diggin this update.
 
When you look at this picture, it makes you think bad photoshop. They didn't even bother to put any of the suspension or drivetrain in the picture......

1426B950-286E-45EE-9C20-DD43EA4B0F9A.jpg


Martin
 
MOAR SUNSHINE PICS FROM SATURDAY......

Here are a few more from some different angles, or just because I think they came out looking cool....

The response to the photos has been overwhelming, so I figure I "might as well" give you more of the stuff you like. :D



IMG_0533.jpg



IMG_0454.jpg



IMG_0427.jpg



IMG_0415.jpg



IMG_0637.jpg



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This one was manipulated using some kind of Apple tool call "Tilt Shift"... to mess with the perspective. A buddy of mine sent it back to me once he'd messed with it..... kind of makes it look its in some kind of miniature model.....

K5tiltshift.jpg





-G
 
This one was manipulated using some kind of Apple tool call "Tilt Shift"... to mess with the perspective. A buddy of mine sent it back to me once he'd messed with it..... kind of makes it look its in some kind of miniature model.....

Tilt shift is a reference to old cameras with billows. You could tilt the lens on the end of the billows to have a strong blurring effect on those areas that are intended to be out of focus. This happens because the distance between various areas on the lens and the surface onto which you're projecting the image is different. Essentially, it messes with the focal length of the lens. Kind of. It makes your subject more powerful, and as you noted, typically has a miniaturizing effect on the subject. It's really strange to look at photos of huge urban areas in tilt shift images because they look like Lego creations, or claymation or something. [/artlesson]
 
WEDNESDAY FUN FACTS....!!!!

It probably should have been more obvious to me before this point, but the whole charging process for the ORIs was a reminder about just how EASY it will be to set ride height with this setup..... and not just at my "original values" either. Experimentation will be as simple as dumping a little nitrogen from the struts.

A couple of quick examples of "setups" I could try:

As designed: 26.5" Belly Height, Front AS% = 73%, Rear AS% = 70%, Bump Travel = 6" / Droop = 7.5"

Lower By 1 inch: Belly = 25.5", Front AS% = 71%, Rear AS% = 67%, Bump Travel = 5" / Droop = 8.5"

Lower By 2 inch: Belly = 24.5", Front AS% = 70%, Rear AS% = 64%, Bump Travel = 4" / Droop = 9.5"

Lower By 3 inch: Belly = 23.5", Front AS% = 68%, Rear AS% = 61%, Bump Travel = 3" / Droop = 10.5"


Being able to pull 3 inches of ride height out of the truck easily may end up being pretty useful when I'm driving a lot on the street, to improve normal handling... and in situations where only having 3" of bump travel is probably not going to be an issue. I guess it's possible that there could be offroad terrain where the lower CG of the truck is actually more important than having tons of bump travel.... so being able run trails at 23"-24" belly height instead of nearly 27" could be an advantage.

The most pleasant surprise is how little the AS% change (both front and rear) as the ride height is dropped. I was concerned that antisquat would quickly shoot to some kind of out-of-control values, or that the relationship between the front and rear designs would be radically altered. But as it turns out from the numbers listed above.... the changes are actually quite small and predictable.

Realistically, since the truck was built with the tires at "street pressures".... the belly height of 26.5" will be substantially lower once the tires are running down around 10psi (or whatever works). This means that theoretically, I could actually increase the ride height by another inch or two and go from 6" of bump travel to something potentially as high as 7" or 8" of bump travel and still have a reasonable CG..... :thinking:

The simplicity of being able to mess around with these kinds of ideas with nitrogen pressure changes is going to make it pretty fun, I think.




:waytogo:

-G
 
That's one aspect I like about the ORIs is easy of changing the pressure. I bumped up the upper and lower pressure for racing it to firm it up some then I want to try maybe bumping ride height up a inch or two for snow wheeling to get the 18" normal belly height out of the snow more. I think York bumped his up a touch before the last black hills trip too to keep from turtling out so much.
 
Uh oh, on the fly ride height adjustment is back on the table now isn't it? :saweet:
 
Uh oh, on the fly ride height adjustment is back on the table now isn't it? :saweet:


LOL, no....


But it wouldn't take much to build a small table of values that could be taped to the inside of the glovebox door once I had a few different "setups" that I liked.


  • Upper PSI
  • Lower PSI
  • Rebound Screw position

Off to the side of those specs would be the resulting:


  • Belly Height
  • Bump Travel
  • Droop Travel
  • Front AS%
  • Rear AS%
Then maybe a short description for the terrain/application it's good for.

With the dual-fill nitrogen kit, I could literally change setups in about 5 minutes (front and rear shocks).... not quite "on the fly" but certainly easy enough that I'd be tempted to get a small travel-size bottle of nitrogen and a protective foam-lined carry case so that I could keep the bottle, regulator and all the lines with me in the truck safely. :waytogo:


-G
 
I may have missed it... did you cut the top of the door off to match the bedsides?
 

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