pope_face

Er... care to elaborate on the "don't sleep in your truck" comment? Hopefully that wasn't what resulted in the loss of your license... =P BTW, I hope all this back and forth talk isn't considered thread hijacking...

Awesome... mine needs a bit of work to it... the hood and driver's side fender were in a bad way, but I drove down to the States this past weekend and picked up really nice replacements for them... I've got at least one rust hole in the floor pan that was previously patched up with fiberglass, and probably a few other spots, but everything will be fixed with new metal soon enough. Where did you get the truck, and how much did you pay for it? Does it run?

Not to hijack the thread here, but 71-521, what kind of rear window are you making for the 521? A bubble type, or something different?

Ok... that makes sense... Looks pretty good. I just noticed you're on the Island...

Seafoam is great, but watch what you do with it... Seems like you took pretty good care of it, so you might not actually have to seafoam it. Only reason to do it would be excess carbon build-up... but if you've got that then you need to watch that it doesn't blow out the head gasket or anything else when you do it... you might end up with a lot more work than you need for something that won't change the vehicle's performance... Just stick to fixing the pan and changing the oil... go with synthetic if you want... that's what I run in my daily. No idea if it actually lives up to the claims of increased horsepower and whatnot, but I've got valve tick and it seems to help a bit with that. Just make sure you run a decent filter... K&N makes oil filters that aren't too much more expensive than a Fram or whatnot, and I've heard they're better... Again, not sure if there is anything to prove that claim, but I feel better using it.

Voleurz... Is it just me, or is the bed on that truck off of a different year/model... I could be completely wrong, but it just seems like the lines don't quite match up... Looks pretty good though. KA-510... are you in the process of doing some body work, or is that the way the paint is supposed to look? Don't get me wrong, I think it looks cool... I've always been a fan of the rats... I think you should do the back to match... :D

'91 Ford Explorer 4x4 4.0 V6 four-speed automatic 3.75 final drive ratio w/ 235/75R15's 4500+ lbs including me and the usual stuff I carry in it I use anywhere from 11.5 - 20.5 L/100 km... so 20.5 - 11.5 mpg... Wierd... I just noticed that the two values are flips of each other... 11.5 L/100 km = 20.5 mpg; 20.5 L/100 km = 11.5 mpg... I figure it out by resetting the trip odometer every time I fill the tank... I take the # of litres added, and divide it by the number of km travelled, then multiply by 100... I figure it gets me a pretty accurate number... The truck's way out of tune though, I think I've got valve tick, and this is between city and highway driving... I used to really lay into the throttle too, but I've mellowed out with driving a lot... averaging about 15-17 L/100 km...

I appreciate the advice on going with FI, and I don't mean to be rude, but I just like carbs... I've never really had a thing for ECU's, or any kind of electronics for that matter. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate or use them... I have a computer, and an iPod makes it super easy to play all of my music in my daily without carrying around a bag of CDs (or tapes, or eight tracks... I don't think a record player would work too well in a vehicle though...) but I'm an old-school guy when it comes to certain things. I can tinker with carbs, I can't do the same with an ECU. To be honest, I was going to go with an L-Series... the reason I decided KA was due to how easy it is to find them, parts availability, emissions friendlyness, and power potential... Building a KA will cost me roughly as much as building an L-Series, but seeing as the end result will work better for me I've decided to go that route. If I couldn't get rid of the ECU on the KA even with carbs, I'd go with a turbo motor... maybe a VG30 if I could convince myself to try to cram it in. But, that's not the case, so it's a carbed KA. :D

Now that is some good body work... The little inside bit where you have the bolt hole could use a little work, but the outside looks fantastic... looks like it came straight from the factory. BTW, are those spikes in the bumper of that black and white Dat in the first pic? Looks vicious... reminds me of how Jaguar stopped mounting the cats on the bonnet of some of their cars because pedestrians were being impaled... :eek:

My vote lies with design... As for the term, I suppose "Arrowside" doesn't quite instill the same sort of confidance as "bulletside"... :D I can sort of see the bullet resemblance though... or, at least if you see it from like a front/side view...

Makes sense... I would say it's too much as well, but technically it's not really missing anything, as far as I know... it is a complete engine, I just don't need the intake and ECU and whatnot on it, so those are being replaced... The other thing is, I'm not sure about price differences between here and down there. It seems like most people haven't gotten used to the fact that the dollars are pretty much equal. I suppose I'll keep looking... I was considering trying to find a wrecked pickup with an auto and pulling that engine/transmission... seems like the simplest way to find an engine, see it running, check the mileage, and get it somewhat cheap... I can always consider getting it rebuilt after that. Actually... this is probably a really stupid question, so forgive me if it's been covered before, but if I get a KA (either the DE or the E) and transmission out of a car (240ZX or Maxima or whatever had them), will it mount up the same as one from a truck providing I swap the oil pan to the truck rear-sump one, or are there more differences between the car and truck motors that I'm not aware of?

Do you happen to know something the rest of us don't? :rolleyes: It is a nice truck... Love the seats and door panel...

I've got a J-Series in there right now, so regardless of which engine I choose it'll still be a complete swap... all the mounts and everything have to be changed, so if I'm going to do it once I may as well do it right. I don't think the J-Series ever had an auto transmission... However, I did just find out on Friday that I can replace the FI on a KA with dual carbs, so that's what the plan is... Haven't decided between the E or the DE yet, so I'll have to do a bit of reading on that, but Specialty Engineering has a DE out of a late model pickup that they'd sell me... Only thing is, they want about $2000 for just the engine itself, plus whatever it costs for a manifold, carbs, and whatever else I need... not to mention an automatic transmission to go with it... They say it's got about 40,000 miles on it... is this a reasonable price, or am I blinded by my eagerness to start this build? However, I ought to ask... if I swap the KA over to carbs, I'll need to use a different distributor or EI, correct? Or can I reuse the stock KA ignition? Sorry for the thread hijack... like I said, I didn't want to waste any more room in the engine forum for questions that have probably been answered already somewhere else... But, I've looked through most of the threads on here, and almost all the relevant threads on the 510 Realm, and haven't found much out about this...

Sorry to hear for your loss, but I'm glad it didn't end worse... We don't have mountain lions around here as far as I know, but there's been reports of bears coming onto properties on the North Shore to look for food... my friend lives about an hour north of me and she tells me she sees bears around quite a bit. Only animals I see around here are coyotes, but I'm in the city, so you'd expect less animals like that...

"He can't come in here... he'll see everything! He'll... he'll see the big board!" Olive: "I'd like to dedicate this to my Grandpa, who showed me these moves..." Announcer: "Aww, that's so cute. Where's your Grandpa now, is he in the audience?" Olive: "He's in the trunk of our car..." I loved Little Miss Sunshine... way too many good quotes, but I won't waste too much space... :D

I don't have any experiance with dual carbs, but I assume any setup like that is going to be harder to tune than a single carb... as for the Mikuni's vs the Webers, I suppose it's more up to personal preferance. Some people seem to like the Mikuni's, some like the Webers. I'm not sure if the SU's are the Mikuni's, so you might want to check into that. But, if you don't have much preferance towards one carb or another, get the Webers... you can find them new pretty easily, there's a bunch of used ones floating around, and it'll be easier to get jets (and possibly rebuild kits) for the Webers... But the more important question you need to ask yourself is, do you need dual carbs? What are you trying to achieve? Do you need carbs, or would FI work? If you need carbs, are you going to be doing enough head work to warrent the extra cost of dual carbs, or are you just replacing a worn-out stock carb? You could just go with a larger single carb rather than dual carbs... Remember, dual carbs require a new intake manifold, modifications to the choke and throttle linkage, and you have to buy twice the carbs... I've seen a single Weber sell for $400-$500 new up here... a lot of money to drop if you don't really need it.

I'd stay away from black and orange on the wheels. You could do either one, but both together would them look kind of Halloween-ey... it'd be like driving on four pumpkins. The sun design was pretty interesting... if you really wanted to tie in the body you could keep the wheels black and do the sun in a red similar to you body. I suppose I just like to avoid using too many colours on anything... The truck is already red, so that's a major colour... you've got a fair bit of white on it already, so you ought to keep that... I say pick one more colour for the wheels and stick with that. Just my $0.02.

Depends on how much work you're willing to do, I suppose... I don't know turbos, but I think as far as basics go you'd probably go with fuel injection... you could go with a VG (correct designation?) and get it with turbos stock... IIRC it's a bit big though, so you might have some issues getting it in. I don't know anything about the SR's, but you might be able to get a turbo on one... a bit pricey IIRC... that leaves either an FI L-Series, or a KA... seems like the KA is generally the more common choice, and ought to fit fairly well in the 510... I think the truck SOHC had lower compression, but I honestly couldn't tell ya... I don't suppose any of that really helps you much, though...

Just to clarify, you tried the brakes while the truck was up on stands? While it was off? Was there no pressure at all with the engine running, or was it just really weak? Have you actually checked the vacuum line for cracks or kinks or whatnot, and do you have clamps at both ends, tightened well? Have you actually checked how much vacuum you have in the line with the car running? I really don't have any idea what it could be... Have you tried bleeding the brakes to make sure the fluid is getting through all the hoses? How does the brake pedal feel? Only thing I could think of is maybe the vacuum is being applied to the firewall side, rather than both, or perhaps a valve is clogged and not releasing pressure or something... The booster is the only thing that comes to mind that could be affected by whether or not the truck is running...

Ah, I didn't know that they all had the same axles... My bad. Good to know that it can be done without too much trouble...

Good to hear you finally got the wheels you wanted... I think they'd look pretty good in orange too. Are they the original ones you were looking at, with the 28" tires, or is it a different set? And, more importantly, have you tried them on yet? :D I want to see an actual pic of these mounted... And you could keep those caps, just bondo over the Chevy logo and spray-paint the D logo on them instead, unless you manage to find four 521 emblems somewhere... Edit: BTW, lake pipes are the old-style racer exhaust pipes, right? The ones that run underneath the side of the truck with the caps on the end? What do they do? I always figured that you could take the caps off to bypass the muffler, but I was never sure...

Sounds pretty good! Take it for a test-drive anyways... do the rolling start... You didn't mention a transmission swap, and I don't think any of the 521's came with autos, so you ought to be able to do it that way... just get a good hill, or bring a buddy and hook up a rope between the two. That is, if the seller lets you... just a thought.

Build it up right, and you could probably throw a deer in the back... you get the best of both worlds! I know what it's like to drive something like this for the first time... I was giddy when I first picked my 521 up... way too much fun. It still thrills me even when I start it up, even though it's not really drivable for me ATM.

Just to clarify, this applies to the 620's, not the 520/521's, correct?

That's one slick four-door... where's the plate from? It looks almost home-made...