Suburban K20 1986 Silverado - "Silvester"

[kikkegek]

:-) yes we had. trip was super!

[kwin]

Originally Posted by kikkegek

just returned from 2 weeks of France with the Suburban and family. here are some impressions:

I've been to France and spent a week in Paris, if I remember correctly the streets there were a little tight! You must have made lots of friends! I'm envious , looks like a great time.

[kikkegek]

wel...evey now and then on the small roads we got the "mean look" hahahaha...but driving a big car like tis in europe you get used to that

[68Timber]

Cute kids and good looking dogs - looks like it was a fun trip.

[kikkegek]

yeah, it was really nice, thanks.

[motornut]

looks like quite the tour,weather looked good too

[kikkegek]

Changed the nickname of the Burb to "Silvester"

any way I can change/add that to the topic title? (admin maybe?)

[kikkegek]

finally solved my headlight buzzer connections. In southern France we left the lights on and had to get help in the morning, because both batterys were drained.

so, back home, bought a simple piezo buzzer:


and connected it through: IGN (pink-black) and heater-control-light (grey).

now it buzzes when the lights are on and IGN is OFF.



pretty annoying sound, will never forget now!

[kikkegek]

today I got a Innovate MTX-L mounted and when I drove home got my first readings.

I have adjusted the settings for propane using the serial cable and a USB2Serial adapter with LM Programmer. Quick fix.

I also have calibrated the O2 sensor in free air and it read 23.9 after calibrating which is the new upper limit when you change it to Propane.

drove home and got the first readings.

cold engine idle: 15.0
cruise 50 kph: well over 17
almost WOT: 14.5
warm engine idle: 15.5

I have the MAX setting turned in a couple of turns on the 425 so I can open that up to make WOT a little richer.
idle could maybe be leaner?

tomorrow we go to a US car meeting in Muiden, which is a 70-80km drive one way. Nice distance to do some highway readings at 90-100 kph cruising.



what are ideal AFR's to pursue? remember I drive Propane...

Also painted my grille flat black to match the rest of the front

[kikkegek]

few things that we found during installing MTX-L:
- with the standard bung, the O2 sensor would not be IN the exhaust fumes, but it would sit flush with the end of the bung. Since we were putting the bung ON the exhaust, we decided to shorten the bung a little, so the sensortip would sit at least flush or a slight bit in the exhaust
- we could not get the plugs from the sensor and the extension cord put together. They should "click"...but it was impossible to push them in far enough to get them to "click" to prevent them from coming loose during driving. We had to use tiewraps to secure them together.

[kikkegek]

drove about 150km yesterday and took some readings.

90-100 kph: mid to high 17's
50 in kph: ~18
idle: ~15
accelerating light throttle: ~17
accelerating medium throttle: mid 16's
WOT: high 14's

what I do notice is when I accelerate and the rpms increase, the mixtures also increases. Which I think is good?

I actually think I am all in the ballpark with my readings...I have found some realy interesting topics on the RASO alternative fuel forum.

I just have a rich idle at 14.5-15.0...

[kikkegek]

US car show over here in the Netherlands this weekend was packed. Over a 1000 cars attended. There even was a rare Plymouth Superbird!
Check out the pics:
https://plus.google.com/photos/10722...CJH2gv2W1qPWQg

The Plymouth Superbird:


our baby:


and a couple of supernice Suburbans:

[FrankieD]

Seems like American cars ar popular in Europe I have been watching a couple other builds over there.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...=417515&page=3
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...=526059&page=2

[kikkegek]

Originally Posted by FrankieD

Seems like American cars ar popular in Europe I have been watching a couple other builds over there.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...=417515&page=3
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...=526059&page=2

yes they are.

In Zweden they even have the biggest US car meeting of Europe.

http://www.bigmeet.com/

[motornut]

Originally Posted by kikkegek

US car show over here in the Netherlands this weekend was packed. Over a 1000 cars attended. There even was a rare Plymouth Superbird!
Check out the pics:
https://plus.google.com/photos/10722...CJH2gv2W1qPWQg

The Plymouth Superbird:


our baby:


and a couple of supernice Suburbans:

gee don't even see most of those here ,nice,grill looks good too

[dznucks]

Hey man, i found your build thread. your doing lots of really cool stuff.

drove about 150km yesterday and took some readings.

90-100 kph: mid to high 17's
50 in kph: ~18
idle: ~15
accelerating light throttle: ~17
accelerating medium throttle: mid 16's
WOT: high 14's

what I do notice is when I accelerate and the rpms increase, the mixtures also increases. Which I think is good?

I actually think I am all in the ballpark with my readings...I have found some realy interesting topics on the RASO alternative fuel forum.

I just have a rich idle at 14.5-15.0...

You mentioned at idle you are 14.5-15.0 and rich. With an A/F meter, 14.7 -18 is lean, 12-14.7 is the rich side. Make sure you are not detonating, you can do this by pulling your spark plugs and reading the markings. (google reading spark plugs) Look for something that looks like pepper flakes on the plug insulator, this is signs of detonation. I'd hate to hear that you burnt a piston, way over there in the Netherlands.

Also, you mentioned your vacuum readings. those numbers are perfect, it tells me you have a healthy motor.

[kikkegek]

hi thanks man!

Stoïchometric for propane is 15.5 in stead of 14.7 for gasoline. thanks for the response. appreciate it

[FrankieD]

Originally Posted by kikkegek

yes they are.

In Zweden they even have the biggest US car meeting of Europe.

http://www.bigmeet.com/

No wonder they are getting harder to find over here you guys are buying them up

[kikkegek]

did some more stuff on the Burb.

using the MTX-L for measuring AFR's I have found several "problems" and solved them:

1. vaporizer of my propane system had a small vacuum leak in the low pressure part. repaired it and car now start very easy in the morning.



2. PCV was old and needed to be replaced. I have replaced it and the idle is now smoother and mixture is richer (because the PCV was causing a vacuum leak at idle and cruise).

3. My WOT mixture wasnt getting richer then 16, while this should be 13-14.5. I opened up the mixer and found I had previously closed the MAX POWER setting 50%...duhhh....
see small hole in the middle is what lets the propane through:


and now fully opened up


after opening her up my WOT mixture goes to 14.5...which is fine....but I could try to make her a little richer...but car already feels more powerfull when flooring her...yeahhhhh....hahahaha more powerrrr....

bought some parts from a Suburban that was parting out at a local shop I visit a lot:
- intake duct
- intake water protection connection part whatever that is called


- radiator top panel support for 454 radiator (I once bought a CU730 Heavy Duty radiator by mistake, great cooling, but doesnt fit my standard 350 panel)


- Bumper guards (Gave the Burb some teeth! hehehe)

[kikkegek]

took a nice pic today...

Grrrrrrrrr............hahahahaha

[motornut]

Originally Posted by kikkegek

took a nice pic today...

Grrrrrrrrr............hahahahaha

Nice teeth lol
gettin cold mornings here too

[McJames]

How did you take care of your highbeams? did you just paint over them or did you take them out? I just converted my light to projectors and dont have use for the highbeams now so i just took them out for now...

[kikkegek]

Originally Posted by McJames

How did you take care of your highbeams? did you just paint over them or did you take them out? I just converted my light to projectors and dont have use for the highbeams now so i just took them out for now...

cool!

the highbeams are in my projectors. They are bi-xenon projectors.

I just took some old sealed beams and painted them flat black to match the other flat black parts on the front.

You got any pictures of your projectors and build?

[McJames]

I actually scored a great deal on amazon.com. The lights are H4 12v 55w P43t bulbs. the headlight housing looks like a normal 4x6 halogen. These lights act as highbeam and lowbeam. Here is a link if you want to see them Chrome Projector Headlights 4X6" & LED.... This is the best picture I have for right now. (also came with these nice LEDs I instaled where the highbeams would be). I can post more if your interested.

[kikkegek]

he Mcjames,

no thanks. Blueburb from this forum already tried your type of headlights and was very dissapointed with the output.

If you bought them for looks, then your fine. They look nice.

But if you bought them for the output, then you will probably be dissapointed. These headlights are regular H4 Halogen headlights, that still use the light from a H4 bulb that is being reflected against the back reflector for output. The lens in front is just blocking this output and only making it worse.

I did something totally different. I really hated the output of these small houses and first bought some-bi-xenon bulbs:


on this picture you can see these xenon bulbs dont match the H4 bulbs. That is one of the reasons why glare occures when you use them.

here is a picture of the output of my Autopal headligts using Halogen versus xenon bulb:
pretty clear: xenon rights and halogen left: see the glare in the xenon part


the light on the road is pretty good, but I got flashed constantly by other drivers.

that is when I decided to retrofit real xenon (H.I.D.) projectors into my housings:










very clear output and good cutoff with no glare above the output


finished picture:


here is a picture of some nighttime driving on a remote road:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lACmnqGZ5A

you can hear me switch from low to highbeam...