project Rentedmule

Finally threw some paint on my faded primer/bare metal hood

before


Still wet


Done - not perfect but neither is the rest of the truck!

Looks good I like the blue and satin black together a lot actually, you should do your roof as well.

I've always liked the look of those envoy front bumpers.

I finally got around to pulling my jumpseat out for weight savings - it was 20 lbs on my bathroom scale.

The jack and everything else associated with it came in at about 12 lbs so 32 lbs out of the cab is a decent loss for no money.

I also weighed the spare tire - it was 36 lbs.

I'm hoping to finally get the proper seat belts this week so I can mount my race seats. They'll cut another 60 lbs over the power leather seats.

The carpet is fairly heavy too

Start of spindle/brake swap



End of the 2011 auto-X season

nice man, congrats on first place!

Way to go Mule !!

Congratulations on 1st place, that's awesome.

How much does your truck weigh as it sits at the moment?

Thanks!

I've never weighed it but I'm guessing around 3600-3700 lbs maybe? 

I've decided to go with the 13" brake set up and I'm collecting the rest of the parts for the swap now.

I also picked up a set of slide-a-links since I plan on pulling a leaf sometime soon to soften up the rear end a bit.  Not sure how they'll work on course but I'll need some sort of traction bar to keep from tearing things apart with wheel hop.

The wife also bought me a welder for Christmas so hopefully I'll be doing some more serious fab in the future 

Slide-a-links deal fell through as the seller didn't ship so paypal is working on getting my money back.

In the mean time some 'new' 295/35-18 Toyo Proxes T1R's for the rear to match the 265/40-17's I got for the front late last summer.  The rear Eagle F1 supercars lasted through 2.5 pairs of fronts before they were trashed.

 

The race season is approaching and I'm starting to get the truck prepped.

I finished fabbing up my race seat mounts and test fit them a while back.  Unfortunately I still can't find seat belt ends that bolt to the floor so the final install is on hold.





I also bought a second PCM and had XTREME80 on s10planet do a custom tune for me.  When I removed my supercharger a long time ago the dyno tuner threw some crap normally aspirated tune in the truck and it clearly was not great.  Shawn's tune feels incredible compared to the stock one, the hypertech PP3, or the last tune I had in there.  More power throughout and the shifting characteristics are much better.  He also programmed in a second trans tune using the tow/haul capability in the late model LS1 style PCM.  It will give me full manual shift control in 1st and 2nd and let me run to the limiter in either gear without shifting, instead of the stock setup which only allowed that to happen in 1st. This has been a major issue for my lap times in the past since the random up/downshifts in 2nd add seconds to a run.  I haven't wired in the switch yet but he tested it on his truck and it works well. 

I also bumped the rev limiter up from 5600 to 5800 rpms to give me a hair more speed between corners without shifting.  He tested as high as 6000 on his truck (almost all the same mods as mine) but it started to float valves at 5900.  I may look at upgrading my valve springs soon but I tried it out a few times last weekend and it ran smooth up to the limiter so it's not a priority.

I'm ordering a new set of 3.42's for my zexel/torsen install today so that should also make a huge difference on course.

Nice, those seats look like a huge step up from the stockers. You won't be leaning on the door panel anymore lol.

Look at early second gen belts. Think they bolt to the inside rear seat bolt. I was going to try the clip side from a early extended cab but sold the truck before I got the parts and then resold them.

BTW, Hi Tyson!

Hey dude!  Good to 'see' ya!

I was actually able to find a set of belts today.  I think they came out of a '96 but I'm not positive.  They work with the male ends of my current belts so I should be good to go now.

Seat belt issues are figured out and the seats are finally in

Nice! Where are you at on the spindle swap? Last I read you had decided on the 13" and had spindles and calipers ready to go.

I have the spindles, new hubs, a set of Carbotech auto-X compound pads and I just picked up some 13" rotors this week (kindly donated by my father's parts store for some work I did for him).  The LS1 calipers were a wash - they can't easily be made to fit the blazer spindles so I sold the set I had.  I bought a set of C5 calipers and abutments about 1.5 weeks ago from firefighter on S10planet - they should be here any day.  I'll get them rebuilt and painted and then get the brackets and lines from flynbye next.

The new rotors look pretty huge compared to the stockers


The brake project is second in line (and importance as far as racing goes) to getting my torsen installed.  I have a new ring and pinion and bearings for it now so I should be getting that in over the next few weeks.

Seats look great, so do those rotors. They look massive compared to the old ones.