Build Hummer H3 Build

Talking to some friends I may be going down the electrical rabbit hole.

If it was low on fluid it would rev up, not just sit there at idle. right?

Remember when my battery exploded acid all over the place in April? Maybe its now rearing its ugly head at the wiring under the fusebox. I will look into that.

Bumpin it up. This happened before the last run but never posted about it.

Lots of changes….I have spare fenders I got from a junkyard a year ago. While I decide on if I should get them professionally painted, or paint them myself, or do something else with them I decided to work on my old fenders to see what I should do.

My current fenders are cracked, scraped, and basically hammered. The only way I could see them coming back to life is something that can cover imperfections. Even with sanding, I have scrapes that are so deep to get a flat surface I’d probably sand through half the damn plastic.

I bought a plastic welder on Amazon, then I bought a kit of raptorliner. I am thoroughly impressed with raptorliner. I’ve used the spray can ones and haven’t been impressed. This kit comes with a “Shultz” gun that you hook up to air and spray. I am not sure if I can use thinner through the Shultz gun or if I need an HVLP gun to add thinner so I didn’t add any but I did bump the pressure up to about 80 psi to get less of a rough texture.




Daylight shots




Unfortunately on my last run I already hit 3 of the 4 rear fenders. I had them lined up nicely again but they got hurt. Raptor liner says it needs to cure for a week before real abuse and I hit them after 3 days. I will be refinishing the hurt areas.

Another project was getting rid of the ugly mess of turn signal holes. I needed a very specific turn signal that I didn’t think existed but I found them on a Japan website of all places. I think I will VHT night shade them to get rid of the bling factor. I have one mounted, still need to do the other side. The YouTube video tells the story.







Lastly, I finally got my 42s! I will be keeping my 43in Mickey Baja Pro XS but I will have a “streetable” 42 and then my giant wide AG tires.

Please do not think the 42s are THAT much bigger. I think they will be but this is 18 psi on a heavy rig vs 20 psi with no weight on it and the 42 is closer in the picture which also throws things off but they are 42x13.5R20






I still have a host of cosmetic things I want to do, like repaint my half doors, fix the fenders I damaged already, paint the cage, finish the other turn signal light, but it’s all on hold as I need to troubleshoot the issue I mentioned in the last couple posts. Anyways, this thing got extra ****ed up in the past few years pushing it harder and harder on trails it doesn’t belong on so I am trying to make it look decent again.

Cool updates and nice “street tires”

Something tells me the "street tires" will still out perform the ag tires.

Hey those tires actually exist.

I would have bought them like 18 months ago if they came out when they said. I'm curious about the 44 for the snow

pennsylvaniaboy said:

Something tells me the "street tires" will still out perform the ag tires.

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You think so? They tread blocks arent squishy and soft like the Baja Pro XS. I also think the width on the Baja pro XS is a double edged sword. I lost a ton of turning radius which hurt me but they are so wide they essentially made the distance between the inside of the tires much smaller so I would get hung up less and I think less PSI on the ground helps make the rig act lighter. Who knows how true that is but I will test the theory!

YotaAtieToo said:

Hey those tires actually exist.

I would have bought them like 18 months ago if they came out when they said. I'm curious about the 44 for the snow

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Yeah, I am not sure why they were so delayed. They have them in stock and ready to go now. I think they started shipping them in June/July of 2024 but originally said the release date was like early 2023. I am excited to test em out.

06h3 said:

You think so? They tread blocks arent squishy and soft like the Baja Pro XS. I also think the width on the Baja pro XS is a double edged sword. I lost a ton of turning radius which hurt me but they are so wide they essentially made the distance between the inside of the tires much smaller so I would get hung up less and I think less PSI on the ground helps make the rig act lighter. Who knows how true that is but I will test the theory!

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Everything has a plus and minus. I'm not big on wide tires for rocks, but I can see how they have certain advantages, especially on a heavier rig.

Biggest difference imo will be bias vs radial. They just act so different, especially aired down. I kinda like the ballony characteristics of bias for rocks, makes the rig ride better and just conforms better. Down side is sidehilling and turning, they're less stable.

I'd be curious how they compare in snow. Radial usually wins in snow, but more side wall with the 17s and a wider tire may put them close.

06h3 said:

Yeah, I am not sure why they were so delayed. They have them in stock and ready to go now. I think they started shipping them in June/July of 2024 but originally said the release date was like early 2023. I am excited to test em out.

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It's good for me since I currently have a set of 42s for 17s and no one else even makes that size. So at least I can buy one of these worst case if I destroy a tire.

YotaAtieToo said:

Everything has a plus and minus. I'm not big on wide tires for rocks, but I can see how they have certain advantages, especially on a heavier rig.

Biggest difference imo will be bias vs radial. They just act so different, especially aired down. I kinda like the ballony characteristics of bias for rocks, makes the rig ride better and just conforms better. Down side is sidehilling and turning, they're less stable.

I'd be curious how they compare in snow. Radial usually wins in snow, but more side wall with the 17s and a wider tire may put them close.



It's good for me since I currently have a set of 42s for 17s and no one else even makes that size. So at least I can buy one of these worst case if I destroy a tire.

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Going to 20s was 2 fold. A) I found a hell of a deal on 20in beadlocks. I was looking for better beadlocks, 17 or 20. I think we will see more manufacturer's go with 20s for tires bigger then 40s in the future so it kind of worked out. The other reason was side hilling. On off camber stuff id be almost riding on the rim. It was sketchy. I didnt think about them being bias ply and being part of the issue. Good point on that.

06h3 said:

Going to 20s was 2 fold. A) I found a hell of a deal on 20in beadlocks. I was looking for better beadlocks, 17 or 20. I think we will see more manufacturer's go with 20s for tires bigger then 40s in the future so it kind of worked out. The other reason was side hilling. On off camber stuff id be almost riding on the rim. It was sketchy. I didnt think about them being bias ply and being part of the issue. Good point on that.

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Oh, I'm totally with you on 20s in that size. Not just sidewall stability but availability.

There is like 3 companies making 42s for 17s that are available. Where 2 of those are available in a 20 also, plus at least 3 more only in 20.

Grendel Chkn I went down the rabbit hole a little further in wiring diagrams and traced the VSS steps

VSS Page 1 the VSS wires from the back of the NP205 LT GRN/BLK (#822/LO Signal) and PPL/WHT (#821/HI signal) They go to the 4L60 TCM at pins 16 and 41. From there I assume (correct me if I am wrong) they leave the TCM via the computer data lines 2500 and 2501.

That brings us to page 2. Computer data lines go from the TCM to the Data link connector on the left side of the dash and the PCM through C3 plug.

That brings us to page 3. Pin 39 at C1 plug on the PCM is wire 817 DRK GRN/WHT (not 821 or 822) is VSS. So now the VSS went from 2 wires to 1.

It says that goes to the sound system. That brings us to page 4. So that 1 wire goes from the PCM to the radio. Radio to the instrument cluster.

So, my question is, how can I bypass everything going straight to the instrument cluster with 2 VSS wires when some magic happens bringing the signal from 2 wires to 1? I dont believe one VSS wire is a ground and the other is a 5v ref that is a direct wire to 817.

If not, how did you do yours Grendel

Edit:

I left all the 4L60E VSS wiring in place, as the good General intended it. Yours worked before the 6L80E swap, in any doubler ratio. BTW, low is ground, high is 5v reference to the speedo. The only signal that needs to make it to the BCM/Speedo is the 5V reference.

I added the 6L80E stuff, as it doesn't use the VSS, but 3 internal sensors and those all go to the TEHCM and then TCM.

Sounds good, this was all done via my tuners instructions. Had I known, I would have done it differently. He asked me to cut the VSS wires at the Np205 side and hook them up to pin 10 and 11 on the 16 pin 6l80 plug. On the tcm side in the engine compartment I cut the vss wires and the high speed data wires from the 4l60 tcm and connected them together. This is what my tuner said to do to avoid running new wires down the entire harness so the VSS wiring got sacrificed for the high speed data connection. He had me take what would have been unused wiring from the old 4l60 setup and join them with other wires on multiple pins to avoid running wires down the entire chassis so this was done a few times.

Everyone else I know with a 6l80 swapped H3 has the same issue with the speedo in low so they must have done it the same way I have it,

Anyways, I will run wires from the VSS hi wire to pin 39 on C1 and ground out the VSS lo wire somewhere and change the way it looks for speedo input in HPTuners

I guess people just don't want to run wire? Odd. It wasn't that hard.

Grendel said:

I guess people just don't want to run wire? Odd. It wasn't that hard.

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I think 98% of his clientele aren’t irate type people and need as simple as possible. Admittedly, he’s done some tuning for me in the past and he just told me what to do and I listened. Since this swap I bought HPtuners and learned a bunch myself because things like tap shift weren’t working, TCC lock up was way off, etc. Everyone I know had incorrect speedos in low because they are taking it off the trans and not the VSS (H3s have 4:1 t cases and 6l80s only have 2.72:1 programmed) but I’m glad you had a solution. Thank you.

I didn't catch it was to avoid additional wiring earlier. But would telling it that it's 2wd and moving the pickup to the tail shaft avoid a bunch of the confusion surrounding low range? Maybe that's already been discussed.

Late to the party but sounds like you got it figured out.

I know my thread has been jumping around in like 20 directions lately. I think this is a by product of doing 2 major changes in 2023, a 6L80 swap and going from leafs to links out back. Naturally, I get it running and then try to dial it in through trial and error so 2024 has been wheel, complain about something I don’t like, talk about changing it or options to change it, then either change it or put it on the list to do but improve something else.

So I know we were just talking about speedo stuff but a few pages back I bitched about my lower link bracket on the rear suspension and just got to changing it.

This was the proposed change.



So I got to cutting and started mocking up



not a perfect comparison but I’m hoping the 2 or so inches helps but pair that with them being inboard hopefully they snag less and also slide more vs hitting a steep control arm bracket that would stop me in my tracks.



Of course nothing is easy. On the pass side everything is fine but the driver side I thought I’d be able to snake the control arm bracket inboard of the frame right next to the gas tank. It does fit but it pushes the fuel tank over to an amount im not comfortable with so I cut the bracket in half, cut a section out and made it about 1.85in wide vs the normal 2.625. This would allow it to fit in between the tank and frame rail. I still have plenty of misalignment.



Hoping I don’t die while I “machine” misalignment spacers down to a total width of 1.85in



Here’s the driver side next to the tank.



Added in some gussets to close in that bottom part.



Now I have to replicate the width of the bracket on the pass side even though it isn’t needed from a space standpoint but needed from a keeping it symmetrical standpoint.

I hope this mod is worth it!!!

Roll axis should go down slightly, anti squat and link angle stay the same, while I went up in bracket height the added length offsets it. I hope this is worth it because it’s been a **** load of work!

Edit: I am doing square control arms because I want to see if they are stronger, I saw argument after argument on pirate from years ago on if 2in .25 wall DOM is stronger or weaker then 2x2 .25 wall square. No one could definitively say. I know I bent 2in DOM easily and continually bend them so I figured I’d do my own test. Worst comes to worst I bend em just like my regular DOM tubing

No idea who was saying 2" dom is stronger than 2x2 Sq. There is a significant amount more material in Sq and you have geometry on your side. Sq will be weaker only if it gets a hit directly 45* corner to corner, but that's almost impossible in a 4 link.

Now there may be a difference in the alloy that I'm not aware of, but I'm betting it's minor.

I've wondered how 2x3 would stack up if running one end welded.

Just to jump in on strength I think the argument I had seen before is round DOM will bend and spring back to straight better but both will completely fail near same point. So just throwing a number out of my ass 500lb hit will bend both a tiny bit and round will spring back and square won't but 600lb hit will permanently bend both.

Other strength thing I have seen before is sleeving 2 thinner wall tubes is stronger than one thicker wall tube, so in your 2" .25 wall example it would stronger to have 2" .125 wall sleeved with 1.75" .125 wall (or whatever fits best).

Interesting takes on both. I figure it’s worth a shot. Hell, I went through like (5) 1.5in .25 wall tie rods before I said I’m tired of this **** so I tried 1.5in solid stressproof and the thing is still straight 2.5 years later.

Even if this doesn’t work I may end up with chromoly or something. Whatever it is, I am less concerned on the link strength and more concerned on this new link setup working better then the old setup in terms of clearance

350TacoZilla said:

Other strength thing I have seen before is sleeving 2 thinner wall tubes is stronger than one thicker wall tube, so in your 2" .25 wall example it would stronger to have 2" .125 wall sleeved with 1.75" .125 wall (or whatever fits best).

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That's not correct either. What you've created is a slip plane in between the two materials by doing that. Unless you can bond those two materials together, at some force they will slip between themselves. The thicker one piece .25wall tube doesn't have that issue.

You see a lot of overlay plates in fabrication and they have the same slip plane issues. Those parts tend to make more sense though as the builder is usually trying to reduce weight, but build up material in areas for wear or strength and unless you can machine parts out of billet its way more cost effective to do overlay plates. We are seeing more parts CNCd out of billet now though.

Yeah I mean I have 0 idea on it. Just 2 sides of argument I have seen before. I guess plug welds to keep two pipes together at even spacing to combat the slip? I think the idea that was something about surface strength of the two tubes vs strength of the thickness of the one? dunno it was long time ago lol

350TacoZilla said:

Yeah I mean I have 0 idea on it. Just 2 sides of argument I have seen before. I guess plug welds to keep two pipes together at even spacing to combat the slip? I think the idea that was something about surface strength of the two tubes vs strength of the thickness of the one? dunno it was long time ago lol

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No worries, I just remember discussing this in one of my college classes way back when.

When you think about it, you could plug weld the two pieces together, but the areas between the plug welds could still slip. So you add more plug welds and decrease your distance between the welds. Obviously if a few welds increase strength, then more welds and less distance should further increase the strength. So decreasing that distance to infinitely small and having an insane number of plug welds would be the best scenario for strength in that part, except now we've created that .25 wall tubing we were avoiding all along. Might as well just go .25 wall off the bat.

I could also be full of BS.

Got it back on the ground last night. The link angle is literally identical. Just gotta put the gas tank skid back on, make sure the axle is square and then I can test it. I hope this is way more slippery. The 2nd pic isnt the best but the best comparison I have.

Looks like it should work more better for sure.

With all your revisions I wonder if it's easier to talk about the heat unaffected zones

Alright, this is a rabbit hole I have gone down too far. Sway bars.

I have almost 50k miles on the SAS. That’s wild to think about but I have plenty of data now. Most of that time is with no front sway bar/no rear sway bar or no front sway bar/ just a rear bar.

Linked up front and leaf spring rear seemed very manageable with no sway bars on road. The leafs provide so much self centering, progressive spring rate and natural bind it really helped keep things in check. I never really ran sway bars off-road on either end.

I had quite a bit of time with a rear sway bar only with that setup on road and it didn’t seem to change much. It helped a little but not drastic. I think the leaf springs just picked up so much slack in the sway control department.

I did have a very short time with a sway bar up front on road, I had the rate so soft (like 20-30 lbs) it didn’t do much. It made a difference on road but probably not worth the time/cost. While I said earlier I didn’t wheel with sway bars off-road, I did wheel with it on one time and even with the soft rate I hated it.

Then I linked the rear. Being 3 linked front and rear, there is literally no bind. I needed a sway bar bad. It was almost unmanageable. It felt fine once moving and sweeping corners were manageable but slow sharp corners left it feeling like a floppy noodle.

For years I thought a sway bar was a band aid to ****ty suspension. After listening to many shock tuners I started to realize it isn’t, a sway bar is PART of your suspension, not a bandaid. Sure, I do not have the perfect geometry and changing the geometry could help sway control, but given the parameters I have given myself (like not going in the cab with my coilovers) I am in the camp of it is what it is. I forgot what U4 racer said in an interview that they did upper rear trailing arms for X amount of benefits but it’s downside was more sway due to geometry constraints so they upped the sway bar rate. Top notch guys are doing things like that through constraints so I figured it was acceptable.

So, I called TK1 racing and told them what I had, with weight slips, setup, etc. he wanted me in a pretty stiff bar. Admittedly, I think that bar would have been perfect to control most sway on road. In the end I went my own route because I felt it was too stiff.

I tried 2 different rear bars and many hole variations between the bars to get a lot of data. I have a bar that is probably just manageable on road, but doesn’t overpower you off-road. I want this bar to be on 100% of the time so I went as little as possible but as much as barely necessary.

I’ve put a little over 1000 miles on the setup with just a rear bar linked front and rear and it’s great rock crawling, ok in the desert and manageable on road, ideally I want more though. I don’t want to add more to the rear because I worry it will be too stiff and not work well. I have had a front sway bar for a few years now. It seems to come and go. I hate disconnecting off-road and reconnecting on road. It’s just a pain in the ass so I usually just leave it off. However, when I did my 100+ mile drive to the rubicon I connected. Even with lots of winding roads it handled beautifully on road. I felt it had just enough control. My sway bar rates were 50ish front, 150ish rear. Even with the soft rate of 50 up front I don’t like it off-road, I feel on steep climbs there isn’t enough weight to get it to overcome the twist. I feel the rear always has enough to overcome it.

So I have my rear bar to be on 100% of the time, my problem is I want a front sway bar on road, I see benefit to having it in the desert and I don’t want it rock crawling….and if I have to touch one more wrench to take it on and off I’ll throw the wrench through a window.

Here’s where I went down the rabbit hole.

SDI racing E link. Badass technology. Automatically engages and disengages based on settings you pick from the cab. I spoke to them at sema, no universal kit yet. I’d need a universal kit. They only go up to 10in of travel I believe (can’t remember exactly) so the last 4in of travel when flexed out will have engagement of the sway bar. For $1000, still engaging at the end of travel (may or may not be an issue but a tough gamble when it’s $1000) and no universal kit says table it for now.

Then I looked at these. It solves the annoyance of disconnecting and reconnecting by getting out and basically flipping a switch, overpriced for what they are in my opinion at $450, and limited to 10.5in of stroke will I break these weak looking things when yanking on them through the last 3.5in of travel?


I thought of these, also apex but much cheaper at $280 but still only 2in of travel per side so 10in of travel of interference.


I looked at a couple dual rate sway bars…ORO, teraflex, and G2 all have them but spending the money to hope it fits is too big of a gamble, especially when I don’t even know what rates the low rate is, I’d want it almost non existent.

From there the last thing I looked at was a JK rubicon sway bar, I thought I’d buy a “broken one” for cheap, they are usually never broken but have some easily fixable issue. Slap a manual dial or air actuated version from off-road evo on there and cut it down. I’d then have a machine shop bore a hole in it to accept my existing Currie bar. Cut the Currie bar and have it press in then weld in on each side, then have a bar that’s on and off. I’d lose a ton of clearance with that big housing and idk how welding cast to a sway bar would go.

Soooooo…..after the rabbit hole I found my solution (or attempt, as it’s still TBD.) Toyota locking hub.








I tore apart the hub (**** those hub gear snap rings) welded the hub gear to the Currie bar, yay, I wasted $240 if this doesn’t work!!

Reassembled it back together. Made an arm to attach to it. Now it locks and unlocks via a dial. I still need to make a new passenger arm as that arm is ugly. I still have some changes to the arm on the driver side with the hub but as a whole I’m closing in on this. I have 2 concerns that are listed in the video.



The guy who I stole the idea from said his is like the up and down play and has had no issues.

I'm guessing the bar will now fail after some fatigue

I'd be a little worried about it cracking where you welded it, but I guess there is only one way to find out

What spline is the bar? That hub was used in a ton of Japanese applications, (like almost all 90s 4x4s from Japan) I wonder what the odds are one of them matches.

Is there a way to normalize the weld and surrounding material? That way you can reduce the chances of the bar fatiguing around the weld due to the change in material properties.

I know some folks on the old board used to build their own bar with Toyota torsion bars. One side was splined, but you had to weld a hub onto the other side, never saw many reports on how the hub would fail.