SubUrban Gorilla Part VIII

From a rusted out suburban to tricked out Gorilla.

Ian and Jesse's trail and tow monster nears completion. Plus this soccer mom traded in her minivan for

a

Boer. We'll meet Mud mom, Sherry Richardson. That and more right now on Xtreme 4x4.

I,

hello everyone and welcome to Xtreme 4x4. Today we are finishing another project. Yes, the suburban girl

will be driving around by the end of the day. You're probably looking at it saying, hey, that looks a little different since the last time we saw it.

Well, I'm sure you guys have figured out by now. We were on all of our projects when the cameras are around and this one no different.

The last time we worked on this truck, we had just finished up the interior with all the wiring and accessories.

Then with the electrical completed, we went to pick up our frame from the Rhino

lining dealer at

Rhino linings of middle Tennessee. They first prepped the frame with a primer

before rolling it into the spray booth

for good co

truck bed coating.

The coating is a rubberized sealant that will not only protect our frame from rust, but it's also chemical and abrasion resistant.

Once we had the frame back at extreme, we put our mock up axles back under it

and then lower the body back onto the frame using new body isolators from L MC trucks.

So with a rolling chassis again, it was time to deal with the body and the paint.

Now the suburban Gorilla is being built to spend just as much time off the road as it is on. So dropping like 10 grand on a hire car, custom paint job just didn't seem right.

So we loaded it up and took it to a local body shop with a painted it, exotic gray with the new nano

clear coat system.

This clear coat system is supposed to be more durable than the standard clear coats

and it's supposed to shed dirt and mud off a lot easier, but I guess we'll just have to find that out later.

Then all we had to do was slip in our twin turbo

duma.

This is where all those mock ups really pay off because the engine dropped in between the frame rails, no major issue.

So that gets you caught up to what's been going on behind the scenes. But what got us to this point right here.

It all started with the idea of building the ultimate tow rig for Xtreme 4x4.

We shopped around and found our inspiration.

2006 Hummer Alpha H one.

But can you say sticker shop?

So we had an idea

what if we built our own H one inspired truck that's even better than the Hummer version.

So it all started with a thrashed 87 suburban

that we dragged into the shop and stripped to the bare frame.

We converted the front suspension to a four L with coil springs and modified the body to fit our twin turbo

Duramax Alison 1000 transmission

and MP 203205 combo.

And when it came time to build the Dura Max, the only place to go was Gleans

engineering. And so

the California

where we built our engine and ran it on the

dyno.

The final results 1300 pound feet of torque and 770 horsepower

with all the fab work finished and the body back from coding, it was time for the most complex wiring harness ever. 26 circuits in all with custom touches like three TV S, a backup camera DVD player HIV, off road lights. And of course, all the normal circuits found in a truck.

So now you're caught up and by the end of the day, this thing will be out on the road and on trails and it's going to be a blast and the drive train in this truck, no question. It's insane. It's over 8 ft long

and we're stuffing all the power through the same Allison 1000 that you find in a Hummer H one

instead of using an aluminum transfer case

we're using a dual cast iron full gear set up. Arguably one of the strongest dual case setups ever

off road design supplied us the triple stick shifter to control their doubler set up.

We chose the floor mount system because of the location of our trans.

But the Allison 1000 is a fully computer controlled trend.

And power train control solutions have just released a stand alone controller for this model.

P CS got its start building stand alone EF I systems

and seeing the trend of computer controlled transmissions being installed in almost everything. They now make controllers for all popular models

was built for both function and comfort. So of course, we get to have heating and air conditioning. We went with the elite fresh air system from hot rod air. Not only can we pull in fresh air from the outside, but we can recirculate the air that's inside the cabin.

We also had a lot of options as far as piecing together stock parts. But this turns out that it's much cheaper and easier to install what

the condenser is mounted behind the grill. The unit itself is installed into the truck.

This

unit has both cooling and heating and a Bill. Firewall B connector will help clean up the install

banks, engineering built all the accessory brackets for

the max.

And once the lines are connected from the AC compressor to the bulk head,

the air conditioning system is ready to roll

that break system from Vanco power breaks and steering system from West Texas off road are going to work hand in hand with

each other. And that's because we're using hydro boost brakes. Now, hydra boost is not new technology and the principle is pretty easy to understand.

It uses the pressure from the power steering pump to work as the pedal assist inside the master. I think of it this way, typical vacuum assist brake system puts out between 1000 to 1600 P si while a hydro boost kit maxes out at well over 3000,

the urban gorilla body has a flat firewall.

So we picked up a used brake pedal assembly from a CJ seven Jeep.

And since Van

Gogh has a bolt in replacement kit for Jeeps, it made choosing our master cylinder set up quick and easy.

Now, the steering on this truck is a pretty typical swap for a K series GM. We've replaced the four wheel drive box with this two wheel drive unit so we can have crossover steering instead of the typical push pull you'd find on this type of truck. Plus we'll be using hydraulic ram assist to help with the larger tires, but we're not going to install that cylinder until we get the actual axles underneath the truck. That's going to happen later. Stay with us

after the break. Don't you love a woman who's not afraid to get dirty? We'll introduce you to champion mud racer Sherry Richardson. When Xtreme 4x4 continues,

welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 as I'm sure you guys have figured out by now. Jessey is never afraid to get dirty. This is true. And you're about to meet a woman from Louisiana who has a passion for the dirtiest off road racing anywhere. Check it out

on the mud tracks around Louisiana. There's just as much testosterone as there is mud.

We do rough painting

and we do jump on top of each other every once in a while. But we have a lot of fun that truck turning over, flipping a lot of horse power and a lot of speed. A lot of noise,

throw you back to seat,

you know, love start flying. It's just a wild ride. And then on down here, mud racing has always been dominated by men,

but those days are now numbers. I'm not a soccer mom, I'm a mud mom,

but you just ask any of my three sons and they'll say she's not an average woman racing in her second season. Sherry Richardson is not intimidated by the men. I've told them if you wanna beat me, you're gonna have to outdrive me and they give me everything. They've got,

they don't cut me any slack and now we're all fighting for the same real estate. So it's just a bump and grind all the way to the end. You can't tell the difference whether it's a man or a woman driving

because she's just as aggressive as they are. Her husband was a pioneer in Louisiana mud racing and after many years of cheering him on Sherry got the bug. Couldn't let my husband have all the fun.

You make sure your safety equipment is first class, then turn her loose and let her get out there and do her thing. Let her competitive spirit shine.

It's her competitive spirit that makes her a role model and a fan favorite. It's unusual that a mom would come out here and mutter race like this. I get a kick out of the little kids that come up to me and, and say, hey, Miss play

for teach, may I have your autograph or somebody would just come and say, hey, I want to shake your hand and say, I appreciate you and I enjoy watching you say,

I mean, that makes it great for me. I mean, it's just like Danica Patrick, you know, it's,

it's just something you don't see every day. Not everyone is a fan of sherry, the man that I race against. They just really embraced me in the sport. Sometimes it's their ways. But uh they don't like it when I beat them. So they, they may have their feathers ruffled a little bit, but

that's just part of it. After ruffling a lot of feathers in the stock class. Sherry and her co driver son moved up this season to

Super Stock.

It's a lot to handle. It's taken me most of the year to learn how to handle this because it's a new class, a new truck, a new group of racers, it just takes seat time. It takes experience. And this year I took it as a learning curve year for me to learn this vehicle sitting third in points. Her learning year has the competition on edge.

They try to rattle her so she can't perform like she's capable of doing. I just tell her to not let the other guys intimidate her because that's all they want to do. They want to scare her and get her off her edge because if you go truck for truck, this truck will be any truck out there. Her truck is a 79 ranger packed with the kind of power that makes even tough

guys sweat. What's under the hood is a 454 cubic inch Chevy engine that's been bored and stroke. The headers are uplift headers out of the top of the hood with work. But in the water,

we also run this engine on alcohol, not, not race gas but alcohol. She's generating a little over 600 horsepower

with a little over 500 pound foot torque. Torque is what's important in mud race. That's what pulls away the vehicle in the sticky mud. What Skyjacker did they designed this suspension on this truck specifically

for her to try to compensate for her not having the strength in her arms. That a man would

and we've accomplished that and she handles it pretty well to win a mud race. It takes more than a powerful truck. She's extremely competitive. She's a very quick learner. She has great reflexes to drive one of these mud trucks. That's what you need to have at Motorsports City's quarter mile horseshoe track. Sherry's day was over when she ended up head first on the levee. I was just blacked out and had no idea where I was just trying to drive line.

I didn't win. But by any time I get in that truck, I get behind that wheel and, and, and press that gas. It is a lot of fun going up against these guys just bumping and griding. It can't get any better than that.

I think I'd go nuts trying to drive around that track with all the mud flying. I couldn't see anything. It's gotta be a blast. Maybe later on. We'll hit some mud with the gorilla.

Oh,

yeah.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to extreme

and the completion of our suburban guerilla project.

Now, we still have a ton of parts to put back on this truck after stripping it down for coding. But by the end of today, you're going to hear this gorilla roar to life.

The truck has been rolling around on mock up a

until today,

but we had put on our wheels and tires ahead of time so we could determine our ride height.

Now, we wanted a tire that's considered a Tween that's comfortable on road yet capable off road. And this 38 by 15.5, Mickey

Thomson

TZ is that tire?

It's radio construction is perfect for on road, but it's aggressive one pattern will still give us off road traction. Plus it's a

low rating which is perfect for towing exactly what we built that truck for.

Now, we wrapped these tires around a set of classic two wheels also from Mickey Thompson 20 by tens. And we're using a 20 inch rim for a couple of different reasons. We needed to run a 38 inch tall tire on the Gorilla to fill out the wheel, well, as well as give us good ground clearance. But if we run with a

smaller diameter rim, we would have had a big side wall that could possibly float on us and we had a trailer on the back. So the 20 inch wheel, we end up with a nice size side wall really reasonable on the road.

And then plus we need this 20 inch rim to clear the brakes that we're gonna be sticking on that truck later.

Now,

the cool part about this tire and wheel set up is what you don't see. The 81 that inspired our Gorilla had internal be locks. So of course, we got to have them to

inside each and every one of our tires is a ST

internal bead lock. It's an inflatable inner structure that locks in the inner and the outer beat. So your tire can't fall off your wheel. Plus DT proved and competition tested.

Now, installing this bead lock system may require moving or at the very least adding a secondary valve stem to your rim like we have to do to our spare here. That's all right. We're going to do that anyway, because we're gonna be installing power tanks, new monster valves on all four wheels. These wheels will allow us to air down our 38 inch tires in less than half the time as a conventional valve stamp. And you guessed it because of their monster size, we'll be able to fill up that 38 inch tire using their power tank CO2 tank. Thanks to the compressed air that's bled off the CO2 through the regulator

with the truck in the air. We're gonna go ahead and install the exhaust first, finding a place for the muffler and then mounting it securely.

Then we can start at the turbos and work our way back.

We're using three inch stainless steel primary tubes

into a 3.5 inch cherry bomb metal cast.

Now, before we went ahead and finished out our exhaust, we already installed our 40 gallon fuel tank, make sure we had clearance for everything. And obviously, as you saw, we had to bring the tail pipe out through the fender well, and down through this back part here and with the fuel lines attached to the tank. We're going to go ahead and install this Holly black fuel pump on the frame rail. Now, this fuel pump will deliver a regulated 10 P si charge to the back of the lift pump on the

Duramax.

Now it's time to head under the hood. The first thing to build is a battery box to hold our dual A GV batteries.

Once it's fully welded, it will get a coat of paint before being mounted to the firewall.

Stay with us and we'll be right back.

Welcome back to the extreme shop where Ian and Jessi are putting the finishing touches on their suburban Gorilla.

When you take a closer look under the hood, you can see that the engine is far from being finished, but we are so close, but right now, we got a lot of tubing we need to deal with. Now,

the key to building power in our

Duramax is obviously a cooler, denser air charge. And although it would be easier just to come out of the turbo and right into the intake, we'd be robbing ourselves of tons of power. So right here on the front bumper, we got to put together a stack of heat exchangers

that whole pile is going to start with the radiator. This is a unit from a 2005 D

max pick up that we've already mounted to oil coolers on one for the transmission and one for the power steering fluid.

Next cause the air conditioning condenser and then the two

coolers

with everything mocked into place. You can get an idea of all the tubes we have to make.

The intake charge will go from the turbo into the inner cooler

out of the top of the intercooler and into the intake.

And since you have two turbos and two intakes, it means four boost tubes in total.

The tubing is made from three inch stainless exhaust pieces that came from banks.

It came as a big box of bends that were cutting up to build each tube.

The most important thing to remember is to not compromise the bends in the tube.

This will restrict airflow,

that means making sure that all the angle pieces meet square. So you're not filling in the gaps

since we now have a wicked powder x powder coating booth in the tech center, we're going to coat the outside of our tubes red to match our intake.

Once the powder is sprayed on,

the tubes are baked in a 400 degree oven for 10 minutes.

Shiny

one.

So

engine came with all the wiring it needed to make it run including the bosses.

See you the globe plug timer in the relay box.

I know this looks like a complicated mess, but really all we need is 12 volt constant and switch power to the feeds

as I'm sure you guys have figured out by now. Unfortunately. There is no way we're going to get the Gorilla on the road today. As you diesel guys know it can take a couple of hours just to prime the fuel rail in our Durham

ax to get the thing running. And besides the truck still sit on its mock up axle. Sometimes

there's just not enough time in the day. But speaking of axles, the axles for this truck just showed up

this Dodge Dana 60

Corporate 14 volt were built by Mad four wheel Drive and delivered about 10 minutes ago. But unfortunately, we've run out of time. So we'll give you all the info on these axles next time when we're slinging them under the gorilla, we'll see you then.