06 E350 Van Build - Eric3187

tgreening

Expedition Leader
Sound: there is the slight whistle at the tail pipe, and a little throatier at idle. not much louder inside the van so thats good. under heavy throttle it sounds fairly good, no drone at any RPM, sounds pretty "tough"


overall thoughts, i might just say cut out the factory muffler and add a straight through 3.5" muffler of some sort and call it a day.


If you delete the muffler and run a straight pipe that whistle will turn into a jet engine. You don't notice so much in the cab, but if you're the car next door, it's fairly obnoxious. It surprised the heck out of me after I did the straight pipe.
 

86scotty

Cynic
for the time being i will have the amp hooked up to the starting batteries as i do not have a house battery setup yet, does it matter which battery i use to connect the positive cable to? probably a dumb question, but ya never know

It really doesn't matter but I would closely monitor the one you attatch an amp to if you plan to enjoy your music while you're camped (or not running). I ran power to my amp from my house batteries but I did that for simplicity. It was a much shorter run of large, expensive cable.
 

Eric3187

Adventurer
It really doesn't matter but I would closely monitor the one you attatch an amp to if you plan to enjoy your music while you're camped (or not running). I ran power to my amp from my house batteries but I did that for simplicity. It was a much shorter run of large, expensive cable.

Ya, this is just a temporary setup until i do the complete interior build out and purchase house batteries.

After driving around the past few days in flip flops ive noticed lots of heat from the floor and doghouse, so this coming weekend i am spraying the doghouse and complete floor with Lizard skin Sound Control and Ceramic Insulation. Ive heard only positive results from the few people i know who have used it. At that time i am going to wrap the downpipe as well to try and cut down some of the heat.
 

Eric3187

Adventurer
Cleaned and gutted the van in preperations for spraying the Lizard Skin Sound Control
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First Coat sprayed, this is coverage done by 2 gallons, with the second coat being another 2 gallons.
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Tomorrow morning i am spraying the Ceramic Insulation and let it cure all day and while its stripped will install the components into the doors, run speaker wire and reinstall the door panels. Monday after the Ceramic Insulation has fully cured will be putting in the BedRug "carpet" to cover the cargo area and give it a more finished look even though this is only 6-7monts temporary when the full interior build out starts
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My father also got bored in his retired state and is building door panels for the side bardn doors, no pictures, but both doors will have the cut outs in the empty area to store some things and wrapped in marine grade carpet from when we redid a boat
 

philos

Explorer
Looks good so far, you may want to give the bed rug a good vacuuming before you install, there's little bits of foam from the machining that hide in the loop.
Can't wait to see the door panels too!


Sent via flux capacitor
 

Eric3187

Adventurer
in my hurry to get things done and back together, i had forgot that the body bolts that i had removed prior to spraying the lizard skin were extremely corroded so i am at a stand still until i can get new bolts tomorrow, hopefully Ford has them in stock, or just replace with a grade 8 from the hardware store.

Also, i have some body bolts which are extremely rusted and will not break loose, ive soaked them with PB blaster, hammered on them with an Impact and made sure the nut was not spinning, whats the easiest way to break these loose?
 

tgreening

Expedition Leader
in my hurry to get things done and back together, i had forgot that the body bolts that i had removed prior to spraying the lizard skin were extremely corroded so i am at a stand still until i can get new bolts tomorrow, hopefully Ford has them in stock, or just replace with a grade 8 from the hardware store.

Also, i have some body bolts which are extremely rusted and will not break loose, ive soaked them with PB blaster, hammered on them with an Impact and made sure the nut was not spinning, whats the easiest way to break these loose?

Not sure where/around what your bolts are located but....a torch. Apply quick heat, get a wrench/socket on that puppy and have at. Most of the time the heat will break it loose.
 

cjken

Explorer
Just be careful not to melt the rubber body bushings.
Most of mine came loose with heat.
I did have to torch through 2 of them, but mine is a 95 so it had many more yrs of corrosion.
 

Herbie

Rendezvous Conspirator
Another +1 on the hot-wrench, but I'll add this: A short burst of high(er) heat is better than a longer blast of low heat.

Switching from my "just ok" piezo-ignition torch head to the striker-required but much hotter torch head gets me better results with less chance of peripheral damage to nearby stuff...
 

Eric3187

Adventurer
here is the door panel my pops has been working on, there is a box that is also carpeted that will be mounted as well. this weekend he will be cutting out panels for the second barn door, and both rear doors while i finish up cutting speaker brackets and mounting the front components.
Still waiting on new body bolts and will try to apply some heat to the bolts prior to cutting off the head of the bolt and hammering it out the bottom.
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I have also reinstalled the front vynil floor mat and fully insulated doghouse (factory deadener, lizardskin sound control, Ceramic insulation, factory fiberglass) and a sheet of fatmat on the back side of the housing where the inside part slides on, fired up the van and its noticeably quieter, at idle its still loud-ish, but under load its great! conversation with the passenger, and taking a phone call (handsfree of course) will be no problem.
 

Eric3187

Adventurer
door panel is complete, rear door panels are cut and getting ready for carpet tomorrow. I cut out new speaker adapter plates out of 1/2" to give the speaker some clearance, mounted tweeters in the door panel, and will finish the front doors tomorrow morning.

I also installed some foam board insulation on the roof between the ribs/bracing 3/4" board. extremely annoying to cut with a razor blade. and its wedged in pretty good and taped with foil tape. in the Houston Texas heat, the inside of the van is now very bearable temperature wise, with roof mounted vent to create airflow, it would be spot on.

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Eric3187

Adventurer
Can you share the ceramic spray you used and where you found it?

Thinking of an upgrade...

sure thing, it is called Lizard Skin, which i found out is made in my home town of Houston. http://www.lizardskin.com/ there is a "find dealer" link on their page.
i can defintely notice a great sound reduction inside the van, and the temperature inside stays fairly constant, it can get warm inside, but much cooler than it was without.

Today i finished up replacing some body bolts that were stuck and got the BedRug installed on top, and Wow, it is quiet inside now, with the van idling (6.0 diesel, no cat and 4" downpipe back) laying on the floor of the van, i can barely hear the exhaust.

The only thing with lizard skin is that it must be covered with carpet/vynil/wood/bedliner as it will wear through if walked on and such.

Progress from today.
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My dad is building all the door panels while i am at school or at work, and he is going to be wrapping up the last rear door panel tomorrow so it is slowly coming together now.

with my stereo, i have 5 1/4" components which are 2ohm speakers and the amp is pushing 100w to each, holy smokes, they are super crisp and clear, and get very loud, every guitar note and vocals are clearly audible at 75yards away.
 

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