C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis

[1971_c10]

Originally Posted by knomadd

Man that sounds good! Congrats on the successful first drive. I know how good that must feel.

Thanks Duane! And yes sir! I'm up to around 150 miles on the build now. So time to do some catching up on build posts.

[1971_c10]

Ok guys ... time to get back to posting some of the process that got me to here. I'll admit I've been focused on getting this thing on the road and getting miles on it in advance of the C10 Nationals. If I've got enough time and tuning on it I will probably autocross it down there. But, there are a few things I need to get done before that. More on those later. Let's get into the exhaust.

So I wound up making the exhaust myself. I ordered some 3" chunks of 16 ga 304 stainless from Stainless works and went to town fitting the pipes. The headers have a ball and socket setup with a piece that has the O2 sensor on one side and the header on the other. So I just needed to mate up to that and then head back.

To do the fitting, I created a cardboard template of the 180 I bought and then cut that up to do the initial fitting. I really only needed about a 15 deg section, but that doesn't exist so I was faced with cutting something on a custom angle so picked the 180 since it was the cheapest vs say 2 45s.


Showing the cuts


Here is the setup before welding. Note, I don't own a TIG welder so I had planned to hire a guy. Well, that guy wound up not working out, but through a connection with a neighbor, he got me hooked up with a guy who works on the 78 car and they have a vast network of talent so they found a guy to do the welding for me for a couple cases of bud.



Then was time to start mocking things up and planning the hanger. I picked up these "trick" hangers from Stainless works as well. They have this bushing setup intended to bolt directly to the frame or a bracket.


For this phase, I used some 45s to dump before the axle, but before I cut up the 180 I wanted to see if I could get over the axle. Turns out, you can. It's tight, but in this shot, this is the tight space. I'm guessing this was intentional, but Rob would need to verify, but the pan hard bar sits far enough back that a 3" pipe fits between the axle housing and the pan hard bar with about 0.5" clearance on either side. That's on the driver and passenger side has even more room. So basically a 90 deg turn and then some easier angles and the pipes can be run out the back. So that's definitely on the list for a near future upgrade, but I'll let a pro shop do that work.

[1971_c10]

For the hangers, I simply needed to fab a bracket. Nothing special, and bolts to the bottom of the frame right below the rear bar so the access hole for the rear bar bolts worked perfect.




All painted up and pretty



Here is it installed



Now, here's a little trick I used after I drilled the holes and was installing the bolts. There is no access hole in the "bottom" of the boxed frame (there is a drain I found), so I didn't want to loose HW down the frame rail and never recover it. So I created a temporary plug for the frame rail. This is just murphy proofing the installation somewhat. The plug is sized for the spot in the frame rail where I wanted it, slightly larger than that cross section. It was a bit of cut, fit, trim, repeat. But I got a tight fit. The string is double use, so in case the plug falls I can pull it out and it is offset on purpose for installation, think of raising barn walls, with my finger holding the bottom, I pulled the string to rotate the plug in place.


Here is a shot of the plug installed.

[1971_c10]

One of the things I knew was suspect was how the PO had mounted the grill bezel. I knew it wasn't right, but I had no clue how wrong it was until I researched the correct setup and bought all the right parts. So I essentially had to fit the bezel and get the brackets/installed riveted. I don't think the front clip had ever been right until now.

Used some clecos to do the initial fit


Tossed some new black paint on around the headlight


Front end shot showing everything bolted on and aligned to the best I can with the tolerances on these parts.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So one thing I had put off and put off was installing the secondary air cooler on the trans lines. This thing is a good and bad thing at the same time. With the high stall converter it slips a ton so driving say up a hill at about 25-30 mph puts it slipping the most and generating tons of heat. So I need the cooler for that purpose (which is basically every time I drive home since I live at the top of a hill with a 1 mi 2-4% grade climb). Every other time, the cooler keeps the fluid too cold. It takes forever to get heat into the fluid and then when I do it stays down around 140-180 most of the time. Ideally it should be between 180 and 200. Such is life. I may wind up replacing this setup with a single plate cooler to see if that works better. But for now it works.

So I had to fab a new bracket for the cooler



Since I have a little fan specifically for this thing, I decided to mount it to the hood latch/grill center support. That puts this fan essentially in a "dead" zone between the two fans on the radiator.

[1971_c10]

I needed to get the Dakota Digital controller for the vintage air mounted. One of the users on here has some pretty slick looking 3D printed units, but with my uncertainty in what I really want in this area, I just used some steel from the scrap bin and created something to hold the controller, 5 switches and the config selector for the ECU.

Started with a scrap piece of 16 ga steel


bent some tabs to match the mounting of the original unit


Here it is installed with all the gadgets. the key thing is the config selector. I have 2 configs currently (both speed density based) and plan to work on a 3rd for the track (hybrid of alpha-n and speed density for improved low throttle response, more on that later).


One other important upgrade I finally got done was installed 3 point seat belts. I picked these up from LMC. The passenger side installed super easy. The driver installation was easy, but it is not the best setup. Note, I put the tank back in to fill the hole temporarily, so it's the tank creating the issues. But they aren't major issues and will go away when I permanently remove the tank.


I also picked up a new lap belt so all my buckles now match (which they never did before). The last thing to mount is that little ECU screen you see in the pic.

[1971_c10]

As part of the shakedown runs, I needed to get the title transferred to CO and get the registration current so I headed to the DMV for that and picked up some collector plates. Those Ohio plates are hanging on the wall in the shop now. That was my previous home from 2004-2014.



This one is a 'Side Shot Saturday' from a car gathering in Golden, CO. They have what they call the Golden Super Cruise the 1st Saturday of the month starting in May. When it is warm, they have unofficial super cruises so I went this past Saturday. It was good shakedown run as it was a 70+ mile round trip and I got all types of driving in from city to highway cruising at 75 mph (where someone filmed me). Truck definitely attracts tons of attention. Was hard to get a shot of the truck in it's whole. A good problem to have.

[builtbyKane]

That stance is perfect. You built a great truck.

[1971_c10]

Originally Posted by builtbyKane

That stance is perfect. You built a great truck.

Thanks man! I appreciate it.

[bombaadi]

Wow look amazing! How much $$$$$ did you spend to have it done?

[Advanced Design]

Looks really good Chris! Came together very nicely.

[1971_c10]

Originally Posted by bombaadi

Wow look amazing! How much $$$$$ did you spend to have it done?

hehe. 1.5 years of hard work all done by me. Of course I did buy a few parts along the way...

Originally Posted by Advanced Design

Looks really good Chris! Came together very nicely.

Thanks Doug!


Check this one out ...

[lolife99]

Beautiful truck.

[aggie91]

Truck turn out awesome. Love that last picture...

[1971_c10]

Originally Posted by lolife99

Beautiful truck.

Originally Posted by aggie91

Truck turn out awesome. Love that last picture...

Thanks guys! I was shocked how well that last pic turned out. Was literally a "hmm, let me pull in there and grab a couple quick shots." I took three, the other 2 were ehh, this one was pretty good, then a few tweaks with the built in adjusting tools in the Apple photo app and probably the best photo I've taken in a long time, and with a flipping' iPhone. Who'd a thought?

[1971_c10]

A short walk around video I shot the other day ... working on getting ready for C10 Nationals. Lots of tuning tweaks going on.

C10CJ Walk Around - YouTube

[Ramjet51]

Ok Chris...you got bragging rights, cough em up!!

Just a note, I really enjoyed meeting you and your dad at the C10 Nationals at the Texas Motor Speedway.....and watching your attacks...I’m still kicking myself in the ass for not taking videos. Great truck, great job Chris, looking forward to next year.

[1971_c10]

Originally Posted by Ramjet51

Ok Chris...you got bragging rights, cough em up!!

Just a note, I really enjoyed meeting you and your dad at the C10 Nationals at the Texas Motor Speedway.....and watching your attacks...I’m still kicking myself in the ass for not taking videos. Great truck, great job Chris, looking forward to next year.

Yes sir!

And awesome meeting you and your brother. That show was one of the best I've been to in terms of fun and networking. Definitely going to have to plan that show in for next year. LS Fest will just have to be the east one then. lol

[1971_c10]

***Big ol fanfare ***

C10CJ (and I) won our class in the autocross!!!

In fact, people riding on No Limit suspension took 3 classes!

I won the 67-72 C10 class ...

Bill of Bill's Automotive won the 73-87 Square Body class ...

Rob won the pro class with Hellboy ... on the last run of the show!










Three trucks, all on No Limit, three class winners!

[1971_c10]

More Pics ...

The three amigos


Ok, now for some coolness, my truck is featured in a couple articles on theblock.com.

Photo credit: theBlock.com


Photo credit: theBlock.com

[1971_c10]

In case you couldn't make it to the show, here's a video I put together highlighting chunks of the show.

2018 C10 Nationals - YouTube

[cornerstone]

Congratulations! No Limit apparently has this all dialed in perfectly! I watched that truck a week ago TEAR UP the track at Texas Motor Speedway, and I was shocked at how it stuck to the ground and whipped around the track. I imagine that it helped that the truck is about waist high and was stiff as a slot car. I was truly in awe as it ripped out of the corners and slammed into the next turn... absolutely sic!

[Advanced Design]

Awesome video Chris and congratulations on the class win! That looks like it was a lot of fun.

Any idea on how many trucks were there?

[1971_c10]

Originally Posted by cornerstone

Congratulations! No Limit apparently has this all dialed in perfectly! I watched that truck a week ago TEAR UP the track at Texas Motor Speedway, and I was shocked at how it stuck to the ground and whipped around the track. I imagine that it helped that the truck is about waist high and was stiff as a slot car. I was truly in awe as it ripped out of the corners and slammed into the next turn... absolutely sic!

Thanks man! Rob certainly does have his stuff together. I'll even throw out I haven't aligned the front since they shipped it. I checked the alignment and it was within the expected range, but I definitely need to get the front end aligned if only to know what to write down on my logs!

Originally Posted by Advanced Design

Awesome video Chris and congratulations on the class win! That looks like it was a lot of fun.

Any idea on how many trucks were there?

Thanks Doug! The show was a great time and I met a bunch of awesome dudes. I'd venture to guess there was at least 300 trucks with the numbers possibly being around 500 trucks. There was still a fair amount of room but I'd say it was a good turnout for the first year. Plenty of activity to keep people entertained including the nascar limo and ride alongs on the speedway. I'll definitely be putting the show on the planner for next year. The only downer is it is the same weekend as LS Fest West, but maybe that just means I need to make the hike to LS Fest in KY.

For now though, truck is back up on jack stands as I need to check a few clearance items in the front and re-setup the front bar. Oh, and the the rear end needs to be torn apart yet again (1st time was days before the show) as I didn't get the leak fixed as I had hoped. Time for some RTV unless anyone else has any good ideas to seal up the bottom bolt on these aftermarket 9" rear ends. Turns out mine isn't the only one leaking from the bolt. Ugh. Already put in the "good" gasket but sounds like everyone still putting RTV on them even though that's not recommended. Hmmm

[Ramjet51]

Chris, my bottom bolt was also leaking ( maybe all don’t know but I have the full no limit chassis as well)....so my 81 year old very experienced speed freak machinist/ mechanic explained to me that the leak was via the split washer...layer of ultra black on each side of copper and split washer solved the issue for me.

[1971_c10]

Originally Posted by Ramjet51

Chris, my bottom bolt was also leaking ( maybe all don’t know but I have the full no limit chassis as well)....so my 81 year old very experienced speed freak machinist/ mechanic explained to me that the leak was via the split washer...layer of ultra black on each side of copper and split washer solved the issue for me.

Thanks Boss! I haven't gotten in to the rear end yet but interesting enough the ARP kit includes flat washers where the current studs use lock(split) washers. Hmm. I think I swap out all the studs and do the RTV trick. I'm sick of this thing leaking! lol