Prob. all of the above. I picked up a short block from what was supposed
to be a '97 Dak with 10K miles (side impact accident wrote off the
truck). I went out to see the truck with the motor in it, but the
instrument cluster was already gone, so I couldn't see the mileage.
Stupid me, I figured, "hey, its a '97, how many miles can it have on
it". When I got the motor disassembled, it looked like it had more like
100K miles on it (or had never had the oil changed), so off to the
machine shop it went.
The first mistake was the machine shop, which did a poor job cleaning up
the old block. That got noticed when we started putting things back
together and had the block re-done (clearances were off, honing was
poor, passages full of debris, etc.). Next mistake was the Vortech kit.
At that time there was no kit for the Dak, just the generic kit. Lots of
futzing around with that getting line routing correct, brackets
fabricated and trued so that it didn't keep chewing up belts. We also
thought the noise was somehow related to the belt and routing, but it
turns out that the blower is just loud. Once the motor was back together
we blew a head gasket (with the 5-6psi pully on), and shortly after that
holed a piston when the fuel pressure reg. went south under boost. Even
after everything was back together and "working", drivability wasn't
great; lots of power up top, but also lots of bucking and surging when
not at WOT. Undoubtidly a fueling/computer problem, but at that point I
was so pissed off (and had put so much money into it) that I just went
back to non-blower operation.
Bottom line was that I tried to build it on a budget, and prob. skimped
where I shouldn't have with stock parts (rods, pistons, etc.) and the
"recommended" components (rather than going "one level better"). The
local "experts" turned out not to be so "expert" in many cases, and I
should have been more careful sifting the "advice" from the mailing
list(s) rather than just taking everything to be true. I'm now a
certified skeptic, so if someone says "oh yea, 5 minutes and $10", then
its 5 days and $1000 in my books :-)). The other factor was that I was
paying to have 70% of the work done as I didn't have the time to do it
myself. Anyway, I now prob. have the most expensive 5.2l non-blower
motor in history :-)
Craig
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Holloway,Frank T [SMTP:Frank.T.Holloway@KP.ORG]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 1998 4:03 PM
> To: 'dakota-truck@buffnet.net'
> Subject: RE: DML: RE: Jules...Gone...Attn. Craig.
>
> Craig,
> Just out of curiosity, where your problems self inflicted, parts
> availability, machine shop work? I spent 9 months building up my 95.
> The
> bulk of the time was spent
> on getting the Vortech dialed in (computer, injectors, ignition, and
> to a
> certain extent the compression). These items (with the exception of
> the
> compression), really
> had no effect on the engine buildup. The same common sense items apply
> to
> all engine builds. My cost on the buildup was approx. $7,000. This
> included
> the supercharger, rebuild, ported heads, new ignition, injectors,
> computer
> (twice modified), custom pistons, custom rods, and many other items. I
> would
> really be
> interested in your horror stories.....
> Frank
>
>
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