Chevy Minaj Pickup- The 3500HD Driftworks MegaTruck

As requested, here's a little build thread for Chevy Minaj:

A couple of years ago I saw this come up for sale, and decided it had to replace our F250. So 'man maths' ensued...... Then we owned it.

It's a Chevrolet Silverado 3500HD - 6.6litre Duramax V8 Diesel Turbo

I wasn't a fan of the lift kit and mud tyres. It's not right on a RWD Dually, but couldn't be too picky if I wanted to get into a Chevy like this in the U.K..
Also it's primary role would be to tow our big Pace race trailer, so jacked is not the way! The rear track width was also 6" wider than anything allowed on the road so it was asking for trouble.


I bought a combination of McGoughy lowering knuckle kit, shocks and some OEM bit's to replace the lift kit parts, & Craig and I set about fitting them. It doesn't go on a ramp so we spent nearly three days scraping around on the floor. Fitting, cutting, smashing and fabricating. It sucked ballbags!


Looked much better though


I was happy.


Finding a suitable length damper for the rear was proving really difficult so I made some adjustable length dampers using E46 M3 HSD MonoPro inverted dampers. I turned and tapped the top mount so I could fit a female rod end, and made a suitable bottom bracket that allowed me to tune the stroke of the damper correctly.


We did a lot of miles in it in 2015, ending with a journey to Poland with the DW86... For that bit it was less 'we' and more Jay & Bon that did the driving, as I got on a plane with Craig & Rich

When it got back to from Poland it was off season. So we got the truck into Dynotorque next door to sort out a repair on the truck bed, as 2 spot welds had come away in the corner of the bed.
So the bed was removed:


Then I pulled a classic move on Craig: "While we have the bed off, can we just......?"
We'd been at the absolute limit of drop, with the axle occasionally hitting the stops. So I thought 'How hard can it be to notch the chassis'. It turns out, pretty hard!

Chris know's all to well what 'can we just' means. Can you tell how much he's looking forward to it?


The truck is a work truck. It has a lot of weight in it, and the trailer is massive and heavy, so I wanted to ensure we didn't create a weak point. In the top of of the frame rail in this picture you can see the 8mm wall thickness box section that was welded in, and the start of the internal plating done in 8mm. There is around 10x the metal in this area than normal now.


Many many buzzes later.


Strong!!!



The leaf spring stack was being reversed so they sit underneath the axle. So we had to get creative with the mount too. It's fair to say after five days working on this, the 'can you just' joke was wearing a bit thin


Then it's time to get the plasma and cutting discs out.




Here you can see the extension made to the 4" exhaust to clear the axle. & the top of the HSD damper I made earlier.


We made some new shackles & decided on a new position for the overload stop to come into play. You can just see it in this picture along side the tyre. It essentially creates a new pivot point for the leaf springs when it comes into play and dramatically increases the spring rate.


Then a coat of paint for the whole frame. I don't think the dropped tow hitch will be needed any more.


Sitting plenty low now! & I'd finally bought some new front wheels to get rid of the super high offset front dually wheels.


So this is the point that you think you're done.... Nope! We had massive vibration when towing under load & had to change the pinion angle in the diff which meant re-angling the shackles and , and re-fabricate a centre bearing carrier for the prop. Another couple of days of work.

Happy, and still practical enough to carry 5 pallets worth of Work Wheels delivery.


Running this low the front dampers had also become a problem. So again we raided the HSD Coilovers parts bin. This time the most suitable damper was a HSD MonoPro S2000 front. Yes a kit made for a Honda going on a 3500HD . We also wanted to make the whole front a bit stiffer so added some springs into the mix to compliment the torsion bars.


New middle crossmember: we had to fabricate as the truck really didn't like coming down off speedbumps now, and kept slamming into the floor hard enough to make us all feel sick . You can't see it in this shot that I've just taken, which is a good thing as it means it's tucked.


New exhaust setup: Despite the extension in the over axle part, the exhaust still touched the body when towing. It was really fucking annoying. So I decide to remove the rear silencer and exit the exhaust pre-axle. Much simpler. It's a tiny bit droney now, but I can live with it as it sounds awesome.





So to summarise:
Not many people could comprehend the amount of work we've done to this truck to get it looking like it does while still being a practical work tow truck, but there you go, I was determined it could go low and still work, and I'm super fucking happy with it now

 

Yeah it's nuts isn't it. To me it looks really ugly in comparison to what it looks like now.

 

Not at the moment. It's pretty much exactly how I want it for now.

 

Thanks man.

I forgot to add this video to the thread.
A bit of context. Rich had done a load of boring video's while I'd been away.
Skip to 3:42 if you don't get it