Doomsday Chevy Project

That makes two of us. What I will probably learn from this is: to Never do this again!!! haha

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Well the plus is that every body panel on that truck is available including the floor pan if you didn’t want to have to fabricate it. Original power plant? I have to assume that on a doomsday truck it won’t be an LS swap.

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It has a 283 with a two barrel that will stay. My experience with them is the two barrels actually worked better than the four barrels. Yeah I was thinking of converting it back to points. It currently has the HEI distro on it.

Yeah there is nothing you cant get for it and most parts are fairly cheap. The floor pan is $1000 shipped so way over my budget. I already have the sheet metal and it shouldnt be anything I cant handle I have a CAD system to model it and all the equipment to make it. :slight_smile:

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Are you going to hybrid it? I’d leave the electronic ignition in place and just keep an points distributor stashed in case of an EMP type event. Even a spare module in a metal box. I have an old gutted washing machine encased in concrete with a styrofoam liner that I keep a spare laptop and some other electronics in. I don’t care who thinks I’m nutz.

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Yeah not sure how I would hybrid the carb though. Maybe get a twin two barrel carb intake manifold and put a dummy carb on it? Then run the chargas in the dummy carb, Yeah thats a great idea with the HEI Distributor and will be what Ill do.

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You could either build a plenum below or take a 4 barrel and seal off the biggest barrels jets for woodgas like the Mother Earth News guys did.

Edit: I didn’t explain the second one too well. Plumb the woodgas into the two biggest barrels but seal the jets off.

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I think I’d hybrid with propane. Simple on and off solenoid with a simple injector beneath the carb, like a NOS plate. In Doomsday gas will go fast but there will be a fair amount of propane tanks under BBQ grills. You can probably tell I’ve been thinking about this for a while.

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Oooooh I like it. Now to find one thats really hard to do now days.

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LOL I love it. That is whole point of doing the theme thing. It makes it more fun. But at the same time this may just be needed. I could possibly make it try fuel? That would be pretty cool.

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Pretty cool and still pretty do-able. Everything I know I learned from RoadKill.

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Some have tri-fueled successfully, MattR

Shame his pictures will no longer load up.
But the text will give you his thinking and building scheme.
S.U.

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Have you had any time to mess with this since last winter Matt?

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Nope, no time or room :frowning:

Im hoping to get back on it this fall. I need to order a complete full floor pan then get it welded in and I can then start putting her back together.

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You might check craigslist. I have seen the sheet metal tools go for less then a grand. Unless by fall project you meant you were going to shape them by hand to keep warm.

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I have a 2000 Dodge truck with a 5.9 that been sitting out in the back 10 for about five years now. Had some fuel issues related to the brain box and I couldn’t easily solve them so I parked it. Now I would like to resurrect it by giving it a lobotomy. It has a distributor and single coil. I want to pull the MPFI intake off it and put a carb and manifold on it. The question is does that free it from all the sensors that feed data to the computer and can the computer be eliminated all together? ABS was eliminated long ago. I’m putting it here because this will be my doomsday truck and it will be wood gassed.

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If it has a rotating distro with simple ignition control module that can run stand alone from an ECM. Then yes. just slap a carb on it.

I picked up a low mileage 5.3 ltr for the Doomsday Truck. The 283 thats in it now is going to get stuffed in the S-10. That truck will be next.

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Just about any engine can be set up to bypass all the sensors. You need spark and fuel. If you bypass all the sensors the ECM will set a code and go into closed loop mode. The ignition system will still work but you will need to keep the MAP sensor. Other than that I all the other sensors can be omitted. Im sure there are some exceptions, especially if some grounds are omitted the ECM then may shut down the ignition system.

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Spark and fuel. That’s just about the limit of my diagnostic abilities. I’ll have to do some research on that distributor. If the ignition module is reporting back to the ECM then I should be able to swap it out for a pre-OB module or distributor if necessary. I’m not clear on what the MAP would do in a non-FI engine. I’m pretty much wanting to drag this thing back to 1969.

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Its your vacuum advance for the ECM. Its the same principle as the vacuum advance on carb engines. But on an engine that the ignition is controlled by the ECM you need this sensor.

Your engine has a mechanical so no need for it.

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My 1st truck was a 1962 chevy 283 truck, ran supream, I think the reason i dont remember, was i crashed that truck on the way too chesning, two youg kids ran a stop sign speeding and i teeboned them at about 65 mph out on dodge road.woke up in saginaw HOSPITAL:.dont remember the rest. that truck had a solid frame thoiugh. Those kids were speeding so fast through the stop sign, it pushed my front bumper and fenders about a foot in the direction they were flying, i hit them dead broadside, the rider in his vehicle road in my ambolinse to the hospital, his friend or brother went in another ambolinse. I was about 16 years old then.I dought i could servive that crash at my age now, 64.

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