Badassblaze's 2006 Dmax DD/Tow rig build

[BadassBlaze]

Well... Its kind of dirty from Barnwell so I don't have any current pics of it at the moment, but I bought an 06 CCSB Duramax . 4x4, LBZ motor, 6spd Allison, LT3 trim level, black exterior, charcoal interior. Bone stock other than the HIDs and Incubus 20s that are on it. Never had a gooseneck in it. It currently has 101k on it. Truck is immaculate and has been well kept. Anyone that saw it at Barnwell can vouch for how clean the truck is, the miles don't indicate how good of shape it is in.

Pics from the ad:

Plans for the future are:

EFI Live/DSP5 Switch with Stock/Economy, 40hp, 80hp, 100hp, and 130hp (if the trans will hold it)
Gauges (probably Edge CTS)
TransGo Jr
MBRP 4" exhaust (supposedly the quietest without a cat)
33x12.50R20s
20x10s... probably Hostages or Predator 8s
Cognito upper arms, dual fox resi's in the front
Colormatch all plastics
Esky Handles
Debadge/Demold (except for the Allison/Dmax badges)
Sound deaden interior ala Cornell on GMFS
Double din touch screen, some bump, and some speakers
LED interior lighting
Katzkin Leather-charcoal leather, silver stitching, perforated centers

Plans might change, but thats what the tentative plan is. The truck is almost perfect as is, and I hate to do anything to it, especially since it got 12-13mpg towing 8000-9000lbs running 70-75 out to Barnwell and back (hand calculated), and 23mpg hand calculated unloaded (except for 4 39" Iroks) on the highway from Temple to New Braunfels running 70-72mph tonight. Call bullshit all you want, do that math 110.6 miles divided by 4.8 gallons (and it was pushing it to get that in it)

and yes, the HTOWNRACING sticker and 4x4 stickers are already gone lol

 

[BadassBlaze]

]So I've knocked out a few things that needed fixing.

First being the bowtie:

Next was new headlights and turn signal housings to replace the foggy stock ones. Passenger side has the new ones, driver side has the old ones for reference. Looks a lot better now.

And then did the whole de-badge/de-mold:

Waiting on stereo wiring, raammat, and ensolite to arrive. I have bought esky handles so when the other three arrive, I'll be tearing out the entire interior and install the handles before I sound deaden it and run the speaker wiring.

 

[BadassBlaze]

Got some stuff in. The tip is a 5" tip, but looks huge lol. Still waiting on my tunes, egr block, pcv reroute, fuel pressure relief valve shim kit, and transgo Jr. Should be here end of the week.


Got my cts monitor installed... pretty pimp. This weekend I hope to get the EGT probe installed

 

[BadassBlaze]

First off, big thanks to everyone that came by and helped. There is no way I could have got this stuff done by myself. With 5 guys workin on the truck, we got a ton accomplished this weekend.

Project 1: We completely stripped all the interior out of the truck, RAAMmatted the doors 2x, back wall 2x, roof 2x, and 1x on the floor. Then we put Ensolite on the doors, roof, and backwall. Doing this stuff is super time consuming, but the end result is very much worth it. The roof and backwall are the most noticable differences. Before they were just huge resonating panels, now when you knock on them all you hear is solid thud. Riding around in the truck is very quiet and its almost odd. There is no resonance whatsoever in the cab, its almost like having a conversation inside of a coffin or something. I also got my exhaust on (more on that later) and at cruise at any speed its as quiet as stock inside. You have to lean on it fairly hard to hear the exhaust with all the mat and ensolite. Overall, I say its an extremely worthwhile mod, but you need to have some help to do it in a timely manner. Also, big thanks to Cameron (Squat and Poot) and Travis (01jackedZ) for doing my Esky handles and Evin (slow harley truck) for helping do the sound deadener.

Few pictures:

Backwall

Door with one layer on it. I came back and put a 2nd layer on the outside skin

Mat with a dick on it

Esky handles (truck is super filthy right now, but it might rain tomorrow so not washing it yet):

Project 2: Cutting out the stock exhaust and putting on an aluminized 4" MBRP with muffler and 5" stainless tip. I did something that was probably pretty reckless and gave Travis a sawzaw and told him to hack it off. After much laughing at the sawzaw working him over, the exhaust gave up the ghost and came out. Brandon (Focker04) and Cameron pretty much knocked out the whole thing while I was working on ensolite. I ended up dumping the exhaust over the axle. It took some adjusting (up and down, position between the spare tire and frame is almost perfect), but I got the tip just right today where you can see it peeking out from about 15 feet back, as well as see it through the frame/leaf spring. It echos off the ground and sounds awesome. The tone is awesome (coming from a guy that hates the sound of diesel exhaust), and when you really lean on it, it sounds like a jet taking off. Only thing I am going to do is put a hanger in right at the tip to help support the exhaust as the last hanger is right at the end of the muffler, so about 2-3 feet of pipe is hanging unsupported. It's still pretty solid, but I want to add it eventually. Very much love the exhaust on the truck. No pictures of cutting the old stuff out or putting in, just a few of the finished results (truck is very dirty right now):

Project 3: Running stereo wiring for future stereo. Since I had the interior out, I went ahead and ran all my rca cables and power wire from the battery back to the rear seats. I also made 4 runs of speaker wire to each door for when I go to a 4 channel amp and component speakers. Doing this with the interior out was so much easier. Sorry, no pics of it, we were installing the stuff at 3:30AM and were just trying to get it done to go to sleep.


Overall, successful weekend. I think the kill count was 25-26 beers, half a bottle of Jameson, third of a handle of Captain Morgan, 3 large pizzas, and 1 box of cheesy breadsticks lol. I can't express how much I appreciate everyone showing up and pitching in. Usually working on stuff ends up with 2 people working and everyone else standing around, but this time everyone was doing work and it went really fast. Thanks so much to everyone for the help!

 

[James Pate]

Good looking truck! Plans sound good

 

[BadassBlaze]

Pics from today:

Video:
Brake boosted to about 6lbs, then let of the brake and hammered it. Ignore the hang up on the 1-2 shift, I had it in manual mode and forgot to shift . Also, sorry for the wind noise, it was like a small tornado today. The video doesn't capture how loud it is at WOT... its much louder in person.

[yt]30CrfC8ub7Y[/yt]

 

[BadassBlaze]

Came home and my lift pump was sitting on the front step. Ordered it at 6 on Friday, arrived today. Can't complain.

 

[BadassBlaze]

Got my switch in. Had to cut and solder wires to extend it to the console. I wanted it stealthy, and I wanted the locking switch because other people occasionally drive it and I don't trust anyone with the truck/trans.

Also got my EGT probe in and hooked up to my CTS. I was nervous as hell starting the truck up the first time. I drilled the manifold manifold with the bit dry (no grease) with a vacuum cleaner sucking right next to it and took my time and didn't push on it hard so the chips came out like powder. Then I took a small magnet on an extending thing and ran it all inside the manifold. This pulled out a ton of stuff. Then I put the vacuum over the hole for a bit. Then tapped the hole and repeated the clean out procedure with the magnet. Got everything threaded in and hooked up and went for a spin.

Can someone confirm my EGTS? WOT for all of 4th and part of 5th, the highest EGT I saw was about 1190-1200F on the stock tune.

 

[BadassBlaze]

Running 70 about 600-620.


This lift pump has kicked my ass. 3 trips to autozone to finally get the right fuel line tool, then getting all the stuff routed, and doing a hack job on the wiring (temporary) to get the lift pump wired, then, I go to turn the key and the WIF sensor starts leaking since its now under pressure. I guess I found my true problem of loosing fuel pressure under WOT. What sucks is I have to be at work tomorrow at 8, and the WIF sensor I ordered from the local Autozone won't be here till 9 tomorrow morning. So I'm trying to rig something to plug up the WIF sensor to quit leaking. I'll probably turn the pressure down on the pump as well.

FML this has been a long day

 

[BadassBlaze]

Well small update, but my fueling issue is definitely fixed. Fixed enough to pull about a truck on a 6.0 powerstroke today. Feelsgoodman.jpg

New WIF sensor and lift pump and I'm good to go. Also ordered:

Cognito Upper Control Arm Kit
Cognito Pitman/Idler Support Kit
Cognito Idler Pivot Assembly w/ Weld In Gusset
Cognito HD Sway Bar End Links
Cognito HD Tie Rod Kit

I know I know... Sway Bar End Links, but they said the reason they recommend it is with the Cognito HD tie rods, there can be some interference with the swaybar and tie rods. They aren't a whole lot so I was like why not

 

[BadassBlaze]

Got my EGR blocker plate in. That was a pain. And now I got several codes. Only one is for the EGR. The other 3 are for IAT high, engine coolant below something or another, and MAF something low.

Common for all this? I was expecting the EGR but not the other 3


edit: Codes were ghost codes. Only real code was EGR

 

[BadassBlaze]

Codes are gone. Must have randomly set the other codes when it threw the EGR code. Its all gone cause...
EFILive is on as of 7:40am this morning


Truck rips on the 90rwhp setting. I drove it to work playing with the tow/70rwhp economy/90rwhp dd tunes. I need to get some more drive time for the trans to learn the tunes, but when I turned on the road in front of work, I hit it about 3/4 throttle in 2nd, and it hauls ass. And it'll puff a dark little cloud of smoke, but it cleans up super quick, not like all those ****** cummins trucks running around lol. Also, the tow tune is awesome, you can tell there is more power on tap, but the best part is the turbo brake. When you let off the throttle, it closes the vanes on the turbo to help provide additional back pressure for engine braking. The higher the rpms, the harder it engine brakes. I love it

I'm probably going to drive on the economy setting most of the time, but the 90rwhp looks like it is going to be fun. Can't wait to get my transgojr in and try the 120rwhp tune.

 

[BadassBlaze]

Towed my jeep and a lowboy around out in the Texas hill country. Ran my 40rwhp tow tune. Runs freakibg great with a load behind it. EGTs only got to 1320-1350 under a 1-4 run, matted to get rolling up a pretty good hill.

For what its worth, I'm not worried about egts anymore. I could get my stock tune up to 1250, so just a slight increase when towing with more power is ok with me. And the turbo brake is awesome. Drop it in 4th and it would hold 60 going down some pretty extreme hills. Loving the truck more and more.[/QUOTE]

 

[BadassBlaze]

Got my tires mounted and balanced today. They are 295/55R20s. I like them alot so far, other than they seem a bit squishy/sway a bit when you turn the wheel back and forth, but it could be because they are at 65lbs Truck still needs to go up a bit as it rubs on the back of the fender liner at full lock. I think I'm going to throw maybe 1/2"-1" spacers all the way around. I'm eventually going to a 4-6" cognito and 20x10s so I'm still undecided on getting spacers yet

Pics:

 

[BadassBlaze]

Ordered a set of 35w HIDs for the highs and will be doing the 4 hi mod when I get them. Tired of not being able to use my high beams

 

[BadassBlaze]

Then:

Now:

 

[04SSHD]

very nice rig!

 

[BadassBlaze]

Thank you sir. I just copied all my updates from GMFS. Not bad considering tomorrow I would have had the truck for 3 months

 

[BadassBlaze]

Gonna nut up and convert gauges/switches/etc to led lighting. I went with a higher resistor value (549ohm) so its not glaring at you. Cost me $21 bucks shipped to the house for 100 SMT LEDs and resistors. I plan on doing one or two items a night until I get them switched over.

 

[MotorrBoatrr]

clean truck