TCI Engineering's Turbo C10

[waynieZ]

Nice fab work, and great project.

[WSSix]

Originally Posted by rustomatic

Ditto! That is mid-engine as it sits--note the front axle centerline in relation to the heads. This truck is getting very cool.

You're right! I didn't even think about it that way. I was thinking have the engine behind the cab.

[TCI Engineering]

Haven't made much progress lately. Ed and I have been discussing the chassis center section and engine placement at length. There is no physical way to lower the engine in place so we've decided to build a removable lower section of the chassis. It will have 6 attachment points and allow the body/chassis to be lowered over the top of it. I've built this over and over in my head so many times that I get disappointed when I walk into R&D and see that it isn't physically built yet. I should start on it today though.

Much like the engine placement, cab placement is still up in the air. I had read and spoke to a few C10 builders that if you body drop .75" the bottom of the pinch weld will be dead even with the bottom of the frame. That's not the case on this truck. I am currently using our Camaro 3/8" spacers(which are roughly.75" less than the stock rubber mounts) between the cab and frame mounts and the pinch weld is still well below the bottom of the frame. On top of that the rear of the cab is lower than the front, using the frame as reference. This kind of works to my advantage though. I had kinda wanted to tilt/rake the whole body down a degree or two in the front. My plan is to make the bottom of the cab parallel to the bottom of the frame.

All of that means that the core support bushings will also need to be modified to assume the new angle. This pic is with roughly 1" less thickness.



I was at a stand still with cab placement because I wanted the pinch weld rolled up flat. I'm an OCD photog so i've seen way to many good looking trucks be ruined by the pinch weld.



-J

[TCI Engineering]

Ed was working on shock placement while Sal and I were at SEMA. Here is what he came up with. This is basically our original upper shock mount raised another 7/16". She's going to be loooooooooooooooooooowwwwww.

[TCI Engineering]

SEMA, Pleasanton & Scottsdale, 3 weekends in a row working out of town has slowed progress on the C10.

We needed a little room under the cab for intercooler piping.



Still need to roll the edge to add some strength.



Started working on the chromoly center section. Form fitted around the tranny on the bottom side. The two middle tubes aren't mounted yet. There will be a couple cross braces added for the tranny mount & driveshaft loop.

*NOTE* The relationship between the front of the bell housing and the cab mount.




The Torque Arm will end up filling out this space so I needed to devise a way to gain clearance. It took some thought to get the angles right but the bend came out perfect (Even though chromoly deflects so much after being bent).

[TCI Engineering]

Still plugging away on the center section. Built the main tranny hoop and tied it in with some downbars. It is just tacked in place at this time. I still need to throw the cab back on to confirm placement. It'll make sense why the tubes are on top of the frame once the cab is back on.



I still need to make a couple tabs to close out the round tube on top of the frame.



The rear tube placement must be 21" behind the front one to fit properly. I plan to tie the driveshaft loop, tranny mount and Torque Arm mount all together in that area.

[TCI Engineering]

We had our friends at California Rebuilt Exchange build us a quick ratio manual rack. Yes, that's right, a manual rack with what will likely be 315 or 335 tires on the steering axle. I better start eating all the spinach.

In all seriousness though. We are going to begin testing the feasability of running EPAS with our suspension. I figure that if it can handle this type of load & abuse then pretty much every other application will be just fine.

[Jr]

Which epas system are you going to test? There are a few popular ones in the market place...

[Jimbo1367]

Are you going to gusset the UCA mounts? Please say "Yes"

[TCI Engineering]

Originally Posted by Jr

Which epas system are you going to test? There are a few popular ones in the market place...

Ummmmm........junkyard...... lol

We will likely try both the Vue/Equinox and the Prius boxes. The Vue/Equinox appears to be more robust but has some "On Center" concerns. The Prius might be the easiest to adapt but just not sure of longevity under this much load.

Originally Posted by Jimbo1367

Are you going to gusset the UCA mounts? Please say "Yes"

Yes, I will add gussets. That whole area will be tied into firewall down bars as well.