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magnethead
03-15-2017, 04:00 PM
Original build thread: http://dodgeforum.com/forum/2nd-gen-dakota/394387-starting-the-build-process.html

Start Date: April 2016

Here's the last 11 months in synopsis:

Truck is a sport with V6. Trans has failed for the 3rd time from a hard life. I miss having a fun to drive doorcar since we got the dragster, so i'm bringing doors back.

Battery is in the bed, wired with 2 gauge from battery to master switch to the PDC. 4 gauge runs from master switch to a 250 amp ANL fuse to the alternator.

Swapped out the jump seat for the durango console, filled it with electronics.

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2016/Truck/20160329_202551.jpg

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2016/Truck/20160330_183228.jpg

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http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170212_131718.jpg

magnethead
03-15-2017, 04:09 PM
I'm putting a powerglide in the truck, which is it's own battle of wits. I tried to find every way of making the JW kit work, but FTI and Martin Saine are both saying to do a mopar converter front, massaged onto GM output stages.

I also removed the RWAL solenoids and replaced with a Wilwood proportioning valve. RWAL valve was full of trash on both sides of the plunger. Followed up with muting the ABS dash light.

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170210_180955.jpg

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170210_181001.jpg

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http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170110_170206.jpg

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http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170131_181008.jpg

magnethead
03-15-2017, 04:16 PM
Finally, the last week or so since I got a converter, has been beating my head against the wall about the converter bolts. Right after I drilled out one of the factory botl holes in the flexplate, FTI goes "How bout we just do a mopar front cover and ring gear?".....So now I need a flexplate. There was a brief thought of welding the nuts to the GM flexplate, but one of the bolts would go right through a window, which would likely cause the crank sensor to misfire.

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170312_004126.jpg

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170312_004133.jpg

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http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170312_004824.jpg

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chrgr340
03-15-2017, 04:55 PM
Cool project! What's going to be going on under the hood, motorvation wise? Magnum with some sort of power adder I'm assuming?

magnethead
03-15-2017, 05:45 PM
Cool project! What's going to be going on under the hood, motorvation wise? Magnum with some sort of power adder I'm assuming?

Only Ryan Hogan and a few others know the long term goals....... O:-) But it will be a bracket racing truck that will be OBDII compliant and emissions/inspection/street legal :)

slammedR/T
03-15-2017, 07:18 PM
Whole bunch of junk............. Drink Bleach!

:jester:

magnethead
03-15-2017, 08:16 PM
Whole bunch of junk............. Drink Bleach!

:jester:

Didn't take you long to show up, chaddums ;)

magnethead
03-22-2017, 01:36 AM
Finished up installing the MSD box tonight. Two-step RPM limiter seems to work well.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmQ_bvRy7tQ

krs1r/t
03-22-2017, 11:01 PM
Very cool. What is the end product? 408. Boosted 360. ?

magnethead
03-23-2017, 03:32 AM
Very cool. What is the end product? 408. Boosted 360. ?

Only Ryan Hogan and a few others know the full plan...only thing I will let known is it will be 365". IF you know who Devin Lewis is, it will be similar to his truck....Goal is general bracket racing, 7.00 index in the 1/8 (maybe 6.60), and 10.90 NHRA Super Street. While fully street legal and driven to the track.

If you look closely in some of the photos and apply critical thinking, you'll see some subtle hints ;)

magnethead
03-24-2017, 09:59 PM
Picked up a converter for an A518 today. Was given to me for free by a local shop, already cut in half to make my life easier. Only problem is that it has the offset bolt hole (you can see where the counterweight was knocked off), so that pad will have to be cut off and relocated, or something. Preliminary thought is to have FTI weld 1/4" pads to the existing feet (and relocate that offset pad) to match the midplate, take a 9.5" front cover, and weld it into the A518 front cover.

The JW flexplate is 131 tooth, the A518 is 130 tooth. I'm not sure if that will cause any problems, but I dont think so.

All dimensions are with some margin of error.

A518 Front Cover ID:
11"

JW Assembly Height:
7-11/32" (no clearance)

Height to backside of ring gear:
1-14/32" stock, sitting on 1/4" plate
1-17/32" JW assembly w/ spacer

Height of A518 front cover, absolute:
3.115"

Height of A518 front cover, above ring gear:
1.675"

Height of A518 front cover, above internal center:
1.800"

Height of A518 internal center, absolute:
3.115 - 1.800 = 1.315"

JW Assembly converter mating height:
1.360"

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170315_112632.jpg

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170315_112644.jpg

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magnethead
03-27-2017, 10:42 PM
Making progress on the battery box. NHRA rule is two 3/8 bolts firmly attaching the body to the nearest structure, preferably frame rail is possible. I'm doing a 1/4" steel backing plate, the 1/8" steel bed, 1/8" of bedliner material (all sandwiched between two nylocks on each stud), then a 1/4" aluminum top plate and wing nuts.

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170327_123750.jpg

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http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170327_123958.jpg

magnethead
04-20-2017, 12:21 AM
A month later and the battery hold-down bracket is finally completed. Racing and work got in the way a little.

Slowly working on getting my debt from Christmas paid down so that I can get the torque converter and SHIFT system budgeted.

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170419_173013.jpg

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magnethead
04-25-2017, 04:07 AM
Did a quick experiment, then packed everything up into a box to be shipped to FTI in Florida. Also pulled the firebird out of the garage to give it some much needed attention.

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME WITHOUT PROPER SAFETY SYSTEMS!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnWSVniZ3xU


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djoqKVfnl9g

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170424_172649.jpg

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magnethead
06-10-2017, 05:20 AM
If you can't tell from the lack of recent updates, things didn't go as planned. Well, they went as I had predicted (things being done wrong) but not to the master plan. Converter was 1" too short, so sent it back, they fixed it, and now it's on it's way back to me again. Hopefully now it will be correct.

Trans temp gauge also came in, thanks to my friend Michael Pliska in their engineering department. PN 17354 .

The trans crossmember came in from Richard at HiPoTek. I will let the chain of email explain JUST HOW DEDICATED this man is to making things right with the customer.

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/Screen%20Shot%202017-06-09%20at%2011.23.08%20PM.png

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magnethead
06-10-2017, 05:20 AM
This should pretty well describe the issues with the converter. I received it at noon and had it back at the UPS store by 5:00.

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/Screenshot_2017-06-09-23-45-57.png

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http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/trans.jpg

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/assemb.jpg

magnethead
06-15-2017, 05:30 AM
Converter came yesterday. Stabbed it in overnight (because what else am I going to do, lay in bed unable to sleep?) then came home after work and worked on it some more.

SUCCESS! I have .060 clearance and I already have a plan to expand it out to .100 . Going to get a piece of sheet metal, and stab it in behind the 1/4” mid-spacer-plate.

Starter lines up great (after I had to fix a few issues with the bell housing because it’s for an LA starter and not Magnum), plenty of teeth engagement. Actually could have left the ring gear in it’s original position on the front cover, so add that to the build notes to save some time & labor in the future.

Overall, considering we all (Myself and 3 others at FTI) went into this rather blind, I’d say we did pretty damn good.

I had to cut .200" or so off of the nose of the starter. This allowed it to mount flush to the bell.

Once this was done, I realized the raised alignment groove on the starter was hitting the bell, so I had to do a little notching for that.

With the starter taken care of, I moved to the flexplate. I had previously drilled out the converter bolt holes from 3/8 to 7/16 with a uni-bit, however I must have not been very centered. I had to re-drill with a 15/32 drill bit then use the dremel to open up one of the holes still. I also had to cut off 1/8" of one of the balancing plates to clear the converter pads.

After all that, everything could finally mate up without binding. I have 0.060" of clearance between the converter and flexplate, ideal is 0.100-0.125". So i'm going to get a sheet of .040 sheet metal and trace over the midplate to it. That will push the trans back and should make me be good on converter clearance.

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170614_001413.jpg

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170614_001422.jpg

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http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170614_214235.jpg

magnethead
06-15-2017, 05:30 AM
I also installed the Isspro trans temp gauge and sender.

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170614_225923.jpg

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170614_230133.jpg

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http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170614_231128.jpg

magnethead
06-26-2017, 11:10 PM
working on the final details to make everything right.

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170626_170514.jpg

http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h355/magnethead494/Racing_Stuff_2017/Truck_17/20170626_170530.jpg

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