Originally Posted by
1project2many
You're having trouble with the L31 ignition? Maybe you've already mentioned it... Biggest problem we see is moisture in cap. Insert a hose nipple in one vent in distributor and connect to ported vacuum and problems go away. On LS powered vehicles the coils tend to fail around 150k miles. Then its chase, chase, chase after that unless you replace the set. For low cost maintenance the distributor is nice.
Ramjet / HT383 cam that I installed in the bus is working well. We're seeing much improved fuel economy. Should have switched years ago. Might install more cams this winter if we have the time. Had to spend some time with idle corrections to prevent surging but otherwise minimal changes were done. 302 in Suburban also had surging issue... again, changing spark values for idle speed correction solved problem. Suburban is providing 20+ mpg on highway when not towing. Better than our 4.3 powered '95 Blazer ever was.
I'm sure that full floating axle will be fun. Big brakes will be nice, too. One of these days I should take measurements to see if the '09+ rear disc hardware is a bolt on for the older vans.
Edit: I see the CC test replaced stock pcm with an 0411. I'm not sure I'd attribute all the gains to the ignition as they did.