New guy from Maine, USA

Hey everyone,

Just signed up for courses - first time doing any tuning myself but have been witness to quite a bit, specifically in Subarus.

I'm in the process of LS swapping a 1980 C10, which will remain largely stock as a daily driver, but am also building a turbo 5.3 that will eventually be fairly radical (364 stroker, aggressive turbo-specific cam, S475 turbo) and swapped into a semi-dedicated race car platform yet to be purchased.

I work in IT as a day job, and love data and data-oriented optimization, so figured tuning was right up my alley.

I'll be using HP Tuners primarily, but hope to expand beyond that in the long run - lots of folks locally running Megasquirt systems in their turbo LS projects. I don't have any desire or plan to go professional, this is just a fun hobby that will benefit myself as well as my friends.

Excited to get going

Glad to have you aboard. I am in a similar path. IT as a career, cars as my hobby. I've tuned a few cars, currently building my 90 GTR and retuning my 90 MR2 turbo on a haltech. Good luck with your project, I'd love to hear more. My dad just built a LS3 57 chevy, and at some point he'll ask me to e85 tune it.

Thanks! Its pretty basic - bought a 1980 C10 sight unseen in South Carolina, had a friend pick it up for me, flew down, wrenched on it for a day, and drove it home. It hadn't been on the road in 1.5 years when I bought it.

Needs a bunch, but primarily I will be rebuilding the front suspension and lowering it a bit further, and a bigger wheel/tire package. This is a real budget build - got the Yukon donor for free (bad frame but...) with a low mileage, factory replacement L59 (flex fuel 5.3,) picked up the LM7 that will become a turbo engine for $150 complete, with wiring harness and PCM with a lot of miles and a bad lifter. The truck might get painted, some day. Thats pretty low on the priority list though. I'm also doing a 4L80E for durability, even though the truck is light and will only see light duty. Its lowered 6" in the back with a home made axle over spring flip kit, and the front just has lowering spindles but I have a set of 2" lowering springs to swap in once the snow and ice go away.

This is the truck as it sat as of November of last year. Now its burried under 2 feet of snow.

Ultimately its just going to be a test bed and my daily driver. The L59 will stay mostly stock, maybe a mild cam eventually. The LM7 will likely get tested out sans turbo in my truck, but eventually dropped into a Fox Body Ford, because they're cheap, easy to work on, light weight, and easy to find.

I mostly focus on drag racing, but am interested in all kinds and really just a lifelong gearhead finally stepping into the 21st century.