Loren's V8 S10

[Loren]

Never go down the rabbit hole at 1am when you have to get up in the morning!

Started looking at wheels. Ultimately decided to stick with the '99 Corvette wheels. But, space is REALLY tight in the rear, rubs at full lock in the front with 2" front spacer and 3" rear spacer (Corvette wheels have crazy offset of 56-61mm... S10 stock wheels are zero, and wider fitment needs -25 or better). So, the easy solution to all of my problems is to move the 3" spacers to the front and get a set of 4" spacers for the rear. Proper bolt-on "adapter" style spacers, of course. And, NO, I'm not going to trash my wheel bearings by fitting big spacers... the spacers are CORRECTING the wheel offset to be correct for the truck.

Gave brief thought to drop spindles and lowering the truck more. Spindles are CHEAP, and I already have lowering blocks for the rear. But, I'm not sure I want to do it. Will have to check my ground clearance and stuff.

Then I started thinking about rack and pinion conversion. Ugh, there's the rabbit hole. I'll have to come back to it at some point.

There are a couple places that sell a conversion kit for around $650 (and one for $1200?) that uses a modified Pinto rack. Manual rack. I'm not sure I want a manual rack on a 3000 pound vehicle with 245 tires on the front.

The rack has to be modified because there's not enough width under the truck to fit proper length tie-rods otherwise. (I haven't looked at this, it's just what "they" say.) But, there's another option. The Dodge Intrepid (and similar cars) uses a steering rack that connects to the tie-rods in the center rather than at the ends. This can work better with some of the existing S10 steering hardware and doesn't require the rack to be modified. Also opens up the option of power steering pretty easily.

More research to do.

Sigh... I've mentally spent about $1k tonight already. But, I have to say... a slight bit more lowering, fixing the wheel rub problem (and the aesthetic of the front wheels being tucked into the fender too far), and especially tightening up the steering... would absolutely transform this truck and make it a lot more fun to drive.

Maybe somebody will buy it before I start spending money on it again...

[cdmiller]

Have you looked into circle track stuff? Since your basically a G-body anyway.

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[Loren]

Oh, yes. My control arms are all circle track stuff.

[AScoda]

Do not go manual steering. Fine maybe on a small light car. Not a truck.
Had a 66 Chevy 3/4 ton with manual steering. It's ok cruising, but tighter stuff like parking, really, really sucks.

[Loren]

Yeah, that's kinda what I was thinking. Had manual steering in my first Miata, in the FASTiva, and of course in the Spitfire. The Spitfire was the only one that was truly at home with it.

[Loren]

Truck was running crappy last time I drove it 3 or 4 weeks ago. Pretty sure it was just running out of fuel. Every time I've tried to start it since it's tried to start... But, never got past a 500 rpm stumble.

Finally remembered to take a gas can when I was out today, and came home with a gallon of gas. If course, the truck fired right up.

Noticed that if I accelerate too hard with a gallon in the tank, fuel sloshes and I get fuel starvation. I think that was some of the funkiness I was feeling the last couple times that I drove it!

Gonna go buy 16 gallons of premium now...