Project WANAVEE

How have I missed this, those photos are awesome.

This is one thing I've been looking at. Is there a noticeable difference in the 4.56 vs. 4.10's? If I did that, I'd be looking for 4.56 F&R with lockers. Biggest downside with 2008 was just having the rear locker available.

It would've been nice if GM would've made 4.56 gears part of the Alpha Offroad / Adventure package.

JPaul said:

I'm curious as to how close to the edge the Alpha's 5.3 in even a mild build with the 4:1 transfer case and 4.10 gears in a CI housing really is. I know people have been munching gears, but it also seems a lot more common to break CV's, and I've only seen a couple examples of the stub shaft shearing apart. I have spare CV's and a spare stub shaft. Swapping gears though is another matter. I don't plan on wailing on my Alpha, but I do want it to be reliable. Someday I'll probably go through with doing a solid front axle swap to really beef it up (especially now that 4speed has so generously started documenting the whole process). But that won't be for a few more years most likely.

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I'm in the same boat. I'm looking for a balance of performance with dependability. I have have tossed around re-gearing to 4.56 but hadn't really considered that they may be more prone to failure.

Also not sure if there is enough improvement just going to 4.56 to make it worthwhile. If I re-geared, I would also go with a front locker so that is a big plus...

11% more torque on a stock rig
As for those going from 32s to 35s, whatever performance is lost you gain back

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Super cool H3 Wanavee, hard work and dedication always pay off! Keep up the good work.

The way the Alpha owners describe it, the move from 4.10 to 4.56 makes the H3 feel like it was supposed to with much livelier pickup from a stop.

Well I have to admit, I have an I5 and a V8 and the way GM went with the axle ratio puts the alpha at a disadvantage to what it should be off the line. Its a difference, but doesnt feel like a gigantic difference like moving from 5 cylinders to 8 cylinders

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Schwarttzy said:

How have I missed this, those photos are awesome.

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Thanks. And thanks for making some of the awesome parts that are on it. :thumbs:

Big2dabank said:

Super cool H3 Wanavee, hard work and dedication always pay off! Keep up the good work.

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Thanks!

I'm sure the 4.56's do help the V8 feel more torquey, but honestly I'm happy with the 4.10's with this tune. As I mentioned, the biggest change was in low-end torque (although it's better everwhere), and I feel that the low-end is about perfect now. It's quite a bit better on the 35's than it was stock even on the 33's. That's where I feel that the stock V8 was rather lame for a V8. All fixed, has the low end punch that a V8 should, and for off-roading it's awesome now! On top of that, it still gets the lower cruise RPM on the highway, and will still pull up inclines without any drama, even keeping the converter locked on the mild ones.

Where I feel that it really lacks is in the midrange and up horsepower for short highway on-ramps or passing, but that's something that steeper gears won't help much with. A 6.2 truck engine will, though, with its 100 extra horsepowers and 100 extra torques. Tuning it right will keep the immediate low end at current levels while giving it all that extra power with a drop of the foot. That's why it's on the "probable in future" list with this new trans which can handle that. :thumbs:

So WANAVEE is back at World Tour Off Road getting the new RPM Level 6 4L60E and a Circle D HP series torque converter with a stock stall speed, along with the Derale trans cooler and Derale 180* fluid bypass thermostat since I'm eliminating the internal radiator heat exchanger and still drive in freezing temps.

It's also having the following replaced with OEM parts while they're in there:
Radiator (manual trans version)
Water pump assembly
Fan clutch
Radiator hoses
Accessory belts
Idler and tensioner pullies

There are a few more things happening as well (nothing else major) that I'll detail when I get it back.

I had BBP put together a tune for the RPM trans that matches the build and takes out all of the transmission specific protections since it won't need them anymore. This includes faster (but not harsher) shifts and eliminates torque management between shifts. I received the tune before I dropped it off at World Tour, so I decided to load the tune with the stock trans so it was there when the new trans goes in. I went on a test drive after loading it, and during that drive, I wanted to see how the stock trans reacted to this tune at WOT because I figured it could handle at least *one* WOT upshift. I was wrong. Now the stock trans slips horribly during the 1-2 shift at anything beyond light throttle. :giggle: That's okay though because it made it to the shop just fine (mostly highway anyway) and RPM will be rebuilding this trans for someone else down the line since it's the core.

Providing everything goes according to plan, I'll be going on a group winter-wheeling trip on new year's weekend at AOAA in Pennsylvania. There will probably be 50 Jeeps there and only 1 H3. :giggle:
AOAA is a 6000 acre park and not everyone will be in the same group so it shouldn't be a 50-Jeep traffic jam on the trails.
There will be a catered dinner at the main hotel on Saturday night and a party afterward (which I probably won't stay up for).
World Tour is one of the sponsors for this event and they know this park very well so they'll be guiding their own little group which I'll be part of. Hopefully I'll remember to take lots of pics this time. :giggle:

If anyone else in the area might be interested, here's the info:
http://www.wheelersllc.com/wheelers-day-2018.html

I got the license plate relocation LED's wired up last week. Rather than tapping off of the original license plate harness and dragging it through the bottom of the body or digging for it further upstream, I decided to take the easy path and splice into the left rear parking light near the body side connector and feed it into the rear door along with the factory harness. I drilled a hole through the rear vent plastic and used a grommet to keep it sealed and made a disconnect point just inside the door so the vent isn't captive to the harness. I then routed it across the inside of the spare tire carrier and into the license plate relocation bracket tube which is in the center of the carrier. I made another disconnect at that point to facilitate removal of the bracket/plate/light assembly so the spare can still come off. I spliced the one pair into two pairs inside of the tube so each light had a feed then fed them through the gap in the other end of the tube just behind the license plate then made final disconnects at each light so the license plate could be removed from the bracket since the lights double as the bolts that are holding the license plate to the bracket. All of the disconnect points that are outside are water tight and the harness is secured for strain relief at appropriate places and shrink tubing was used to protect the wires from any possible chafing. I used high quality milspec space-flight rated wire, contacts, and shrink tubing because I use that at my job and it's durable and easy to work with. I sealed the disconnect points with cheap male/female silicone sheaths that were made for cheap stamped-steel motorcycle type contacts, but I wasn't happy with the contacts themselves so I used the good ones.

After typing all that up I realize that pics would help greatly but I didn't remember to take any along the way as I was in a time crunch. I did get a pic of the final product at night, though. I might try a couple things to diffuse the light better when I get it back from the shop.

I expanded the green and brown on the rear door since I had underestimated the size of the spare tire and it covered up the color on the first go round (lol). The Humvee pattern wasn't made with spares in mind I think, and Humvees are a lot wider anyway. Either way Wanavee looked nearly black from the rear so I had to modify it a bit. I'll probably expand the brown from behind the rear-side window onto the top right corner in the back as well because I feel that the rear still needs less black, but didn't think about that one until after I had finished up this expansion.

Here was the original rear view:



And here it is with the expanded color:

And here are just a few more pics that I took:

Very nice. I really should look at doing a tune one of these days. When I rebuilt the 5.3 in my Alpha I tossed a mild truck cam into it from Comp Cams. When I floor it and it gets up to about 3.5k rpm it really takes off. Idle is only a little rough and the startup can be a bit weird at times but it's been great otherwise. I needed a new cam anyway and it wasn't much more than an oem replacement.



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Oh you should definitely get a good tune if you have a cam. It's not super critical with most mild cams, but you'll get more out of the cam and it'll idle better and just run better everywhere, and you'll probably get better gas mileage as well. IOW, you'll gain even more from a tune now than you would have when it was stock.

Here's the trophy that I won at the Veteran's Day weekend meetup for one of three "most patriotic vehicles". The flags are Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Air Force, POW/MIA, and of course Old Glory. Good stuff.

That's awesome!!

That’s one cool trophy.


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Best trophy ever!

WANNAVEE said:

I'm sure the 4.56's do help the V8 feel more torquey, but honestly I'm happy with the 4.10's with this tune. As I mentioned, the biggest change was in low-end torque (although it's better everwhere), and I feel that the low-end is about perfect now. It's quite a bit better on the 35's than it was stock even on the 33's. That's where I feel that the stock V8 was rather lame for a V8. All fixed, has the low end punch that a V8 should, and for off-roading it's awesome now! On top of that, it still gets the lower cruise RPM on the highway, and will still pull up inclines without any drama, even keeping the converter locked on the mild ones.

Where I feel that it really lacks is in the midrange and up horsepower for short highway on-ramps or passing, but that's something that steeper gears won't help much with. A 6.2 truck engine will, though, with its 100 extra horsepowers and 100 extra torques. Tuning it right will keep the immediate low end at current levels while giving it all that extra power with a drop of the foot. That's why it's on the "probable in future" list with this new trans which can handle that. :thumbs:

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Awesome build, love the look of it.

just wanted to chime in on the 4.56 v.s. 4.1. debate. i pulled the trigger and ordered the 4.56 and had them installed in my South African build V8. was a noticeable difference going from 4.1 to 4.56 and running 35" tires with the HP Tuners flash on the PCM. so much so that my tires are almost due for replaceent and I'm now thinking of going to 37" on the stock 16" rims

Cool, thanks for chiming in.

Oh, I also wanted to point out that if you run 37's with the 4.56's then you're more or less equivalent to the stock 4.10's on stock 33's. I think that's still decent gearing but I'd be really careful to avoid any kind of shock loading on that combo with the stock diffs.

I'm really chomping at the bit to get WANAVEE back. It should be done by Monday but I didn't think it would take this long so I don't have as much time to do some extra things myself that I planned on before the wheeling trip. They got really backed up with work and employees taking time off so it is what it is.
I wouldn't have been able to do as much as planned anyway because my health issues have really been flaring up this week, and of course those are the reason I can no longer do my own major work. *sigh*

More details to come.

I don't have time to post as many details as I want to because I still have a lot of prep to do for this weekend (had to take today off too) but I wanted to share some updates.

I got WANAVEE back Monday night. The new trans is running beautifully, other than an occasional mild clunk when going from in-gear to park. Everything externally checks out. It's intermittent as well, which is strange. I'm going to call RPM Transmissions today to see if they have any idea why that might be happening. It's very mild and doesn't seem to affect function otherwise.
I need to ease up the shifts in the tune because WOW does it ever grab and pitch up the front end on WOT shifts. Part throttle shifts are okay, but could use some smoothing as well. It's much snappier than before because it now has a combination of a shift kit as well as the BBP tune settings which weren't eased up for this trans. It's great for drag racing, not so much for trail riding. Putting the shift settings back closer to stock will help.
The worst part for the moment is that in 4LO the shifts jerk so hard even at gentle throttle that I'll either break something or get myself stuck, so that is a huge priority to get sorted before this weekend. I have lots of options in the tuning software to rectify that. Shouldn't be too hard, just have to spend some time on it.

Now for some pics.

I was thinking Paul at World Tour was going to make a bolt-in front hitch for this, but he welded directly to the frame. I didn't specify, so oops. I guess it doesn't matter too terribly much as I don't plan on removing it anyway. It's 3/8" steel so it's not going anywhere. I specified for it to come out right in the middle of the bumper through a square hole, which he did nicely. Once fabbed, he prepped and coated it in corrosion resistant primer and painted it in corrosion resistant paint along with that whole area inside of the frame rails:







Derale trans cooler and 180* bypass are mounted in this pic as well:





Not a good pic here, but I now have a DOI skid plate, a real unicorn. Not the full kit but the main trans/tcase section. I traded it to Rodzilla for my stock wheels. Thanks Rod! It's used and was a bit rough around the edges so I had Paul send it to the sandblaster then put a three-stage corrosion prevention paint job on it. Now I have more protection and more ground clearance! No more hanging up on the stock ladder-style UCP:



Hitch-mounted license plate in the new hitch, and Raptor Lined bumper and brush guard. The metal bumper, brush guard, and mid and front skids were also sandblasted and everything was prepped properly (including the plastic "bumper") before the Raptor Liner went on. This ought to handle a bit more abuse than the Plasti-Dip up there! This was the plan all along for the front:





I'll have more/better pics later but I've got to get busy to prep for the weekend so I probably won't upload until after the trip.