FIRST EVER AUSTRALIAN CHEVY ZR2 TOURING RIG — All 4 Adventure Season 15 BUILD REVEAL!
[Music] This year, Jase is introducing a brand new vehicle to the All 4 Adventure fleet. This American-built truck has just landed in the country, and Jase is keen to pick it up from the dealership and start this epic transformation from stock-standard import to a tough touring rig fit to tackle Australia's toughest terrain. Yeah, this looks like the place.
Oh yeah, look at that. I reckon that's it right there. Have a look in there. What does that look like? Have a look at this absolute weapon. Now some of you that have been watching on social media, you would have seen me standing beside one at the Brisbane 4x4 show and you'd be sitting there going, what's going on here? Well, you were right if you said Jase was going to hook into one of these American trucks.
Alright, let's get a good look at this truck. It's in stock form, sitting right here on the showroom floor. Now the thing I notice the most about it, it comes standard with a two-inch lift. So it rolls off the factory floor with a two-inch lift already.
Now it's got some absolutely kick-ass suspension under it stock as a rock, and it's renowned for that. This new ZR2 has got performance-tuned suspension which they took from the racing industry. Okay, they've been racing these trucks over in the States, Baja, all that and they placed it into an on-road street-legal vehicle. Now the thing I like about it is this huge 6.2-litre V8 engine, LS3.
Mate, this thing's going to have some serious boogie. Now you'll notice the colour and I seem to be running into this colour a little bit. I've had this colour before, but I'm going to be playing around with colours. I'm going to be playing around with aftermarket accessories. I've got all the gear lined up to chuck on this thing and we're going to build it into possibly one of Australia's best Chevy off-road touring weapons.
The other thing too, it's got an allison 10-speed transmission. So a bulletproof transmission attached to over 400 horsepower LS3. All I need now is to get the bloody keys. I wonder where the keys are.
You look like the guy with the keys. Here you go, mate. Here to pick up the big boy? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mate, I've seen it parked here. I'm assuming this is mine. This is all yours, mate? Yeah, I thought it was. There's the keys. Go and have plenty of adventures and lots of fun. Yeah, yeah, 100%.
Have a look inside this beast. This thing is absolutely mental. Mate, I'm excited, I'll tell you now.
I'm just going to press the button here. Look at that. This thing is nuts. Mate, 6.2 litre, just over 400 horsepower.
Stock is a rock, mind you, of American V8 muscle. I cannot even tell that this car was once a left-hand drive. And that's when you know the conversion is being done to an absolute precision level. It's got like full adjustment here in the steering wheel I'll bet you, because I like lots of steering wheel action.
There we go, look at that. Oh, it's got paddle shift. Yes. How's that? Plus, minus, paddle shift. That's for racing, by the way.
We're going to do some racing with the V8. Mate, what an absolute weapon of a truck. I cannot wait to get my hands on the gear that's got to go into this thing. So all the gear, ready to rock and roll. Everything from roof rack, bull bar, snorkel, canopies.
We're putting tyres, rims, suspension, sides, you name it. We're going to be chucking some stuff on this gear, and we're going to convert it into, well, not really convert it, but we're going to transform it into one of the sickest touring trucks that you're ever going to see. It's going to be insane. Cannot wait. Cannot wait. Jamie, how you going, mate? Yeah, good, mate, how are you? What do you think? Yeah, looks sweet, eh? Yeah, it's a new flash ride, this one. Yeah, it is.
This is their new, new truck. Yeah, there's that ZR2. Yeah, that ZR2, yeah.
Yeah, it should be good. It's a bit of a wicked machine. Yeah, so we've got to run those twin snorkels.
That's what I was thinking. Mate, you read my mind. So basically, because this car is so new, you're going to have to, what are you going to do? Pull the bumper.
I've got a guy coming tomorrow to do a full scan. He'll scan the whole car, we'll rip the bumper off, do the full scan on what we've got to do to clear with all our bull bar, etc. And then we'll get him to do the under bonnet as well so we can see what clearances we've got for the snorkel and work it from there, mate. So you're thinking some twin pipes coming down? Yeah, twins coming down.
We'll have to probably get rid of that ZR2 badge, which might be a little bit of a pain for you, but that might be the only thing we'll have to change. Bumper on the front. You reckon there'll be enough room for that little trick that I want to do? Yeah, for sure, mate.
I reckon we'll try and mix that in there for you. So hopefully that'll all work out well. That's gold, mate.
Mate, it's hustle and bustle around here. It's busy as. Yeah, it's stuff going on everywhere. Plenty going on. Yeah, that's awesome.
Next step, while you're building the bull bar and the snorkels, I'm going to take it off, and we'll go and get the canopy set. Yeah, that'll work out well, mate. We'll try and do a pre-fit on an existing bar to see what our parameters are, and then we should be able to go from there.
No dramas. Well, mate, you did a really good job on my last truck, which was my F250. So I can't wait to see what you guys come up with on this one. Yeah, and looking forward to it, mate. It's something new.
That's awesome. I'll leave you with it. No worries. And I'll come back a couple of days and grab it, and then we'll keep the build going. Sounds good, mate. Mate, that's awesome.
So the team gets to work. With the help of this 3D scanner, a super- accurate 3D model is created to ensure the perfect fit for this custom bar. In order to help the scanner read every little contour, all high-gloss and shiny surfaces need to be dulled down using this white spray. Yeah, so this is my Faro laser scanning arm. It's got a laser scanner attached to the handle here, and we've got a ball probe here. And I use this for two reasons.
I use it to capture holes like this. I put it in there, and I touch it four or five times inside the hole, and it makes a perfect circle out of that. I also use it for when I move the arm. So what I've done is I've hot glued these targets onto the car.
I put the ball probe in there, I touch the button, and I record where that position is. And I do that to several targets like this. And then when I've finished in this area here, I move the arm over here, and I touch those points again.
And then I'm back in the same coordinate system, and I can move around the car like that. So this is the section that I've scanned so far of the car. You can see it's very detailed. So once I've scanned the whole front of this vehicle, I'm going to export that as an STL file, which will be imported into the CAD software that they use here.
And that will be used to design a new bull bar. So this is Chris, Jase. He designs and does all our components on the computer. So he's got that scan up on the computer there now, and we just started to set the bar on there and see where all the parameters are, so we can see how the winches are going to mount, to see how the mounts are going to go. A little bit of change that we've got to do on that front end, because the Chevy chassis is slightly different. So we've just sort of gotten all the measurements that we need for your clearances.
Have they changed it with the ZR2? Yeah, a little bit different. The 25 and the 15 is very similar in the actual body size, but the actual chassis is just slightly different. So we've been able to adapt what we've already got, but just we'll make the changes to suit.
So that's the beauty of CAD, mate. We can do what we need to do. So we've been able to utilise the centre piece out of the F250 bar as well. So that's made a lot of work that we don't need to go back over.
So that's been a real godsend for us. Yeah, that's awesome. We'll just start the work from that. Mounts and winch bracket has to change, but we should be able to get some good info from what the scan gave us to keep things moving. So you've got, this is your light? Yeah, that's a light bracket there.
You've got heaps of space up underneath so we can get into the bolts and stuff, like slice it all out. Yeah, so we're going to go through that, sort that, if you flip that back around, Chris. So there's a bit of a section in here.
We've got to model a small bracket. Chris has been working on that this morning to actually get that, the infill that and make it look quite good once it's all finished. And snorkels are good? Snorkels are fine. We've got all the inside of the guard where you can see where all the access is. So Jaden's been working on that, all the materials here.
So as soon as we get it back from your canopy going on, we'll drop that back into the workshop and get those snorkels sorted. Pretty good access in there, so we'll be fine. All right, well, I'll get around to Norweld and get those guys cracking on the canopy.
Yep, sounds good, mate. No dramas. Looks good. I like it. Thanks, mate. Norweld, so this will be the first time that this truck is going to start getting stuff fitted to it. I'm going to take some tray off the back, the tub off the back and whack a whole full-size deluxe canopy on the back.
I can't wait to see how big this canopy is because I've got no idea what the dimensions are. Nothing. The fact that this is a full-size 1500 dual-cab American truck, the canopy is going to be absolutely huge. Come and have a look at this thing. I'm guessing it's the bright blue one.
It'll be the bright blue one for sure. Yeah, it's definitely going to be that one. I think it matches. Look at that. Wow. Oh, that's nuts. I like that. Here we go.
The big reveal. Holy crap. That's massive. It's a big old canopy. That is huge. Oh, yeah, apparently I'll be sleeping in by the looks of that.
I'll be able to put bunks in. Mate, that is nuts. It's going to be a cool looking truck. I can't wait. The team at Norweld get to work. Due to the extremely tight turnaround time with this build, they have to work in stages.
Stage one is fitting the tray. Then Jase takes the Chevy across to Outback Armour for some serious suspension work before returning it to Norweld to finish the canopy. Outback Armour have got it, putting the suspension on, which I'm keen to see how that's going, so we've got to get it off the hoist here, and from here, we've got to get it over back over and get the canopy on, and then I'm going to get it to my place on the weekend so that I can do some work myself, rooftop tent, awnings. I've got to get some Campboss gear on it.
So let's have a look at the progress. It won't be done, but I reckon it'll be getting close. So let's see how they go. All right, let's have a quick look. I haven't actually seen it with the tray on yet. Ooh, it's starting to take shape.
Well, the engineers have had awesome time working on this run. Have they? - Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay, okay. One of those engineers is Simon. He brings Jase up to speed with where things are at.
Yep. And depending on the measurements, modify the leaf pack that's going to go into it. Yep, gotcha. Just to achieve the right load capacity.
Yeah, right, load capacity for it, yeah, gotcha. All right, so it's all happening. All right, a couple more finishing touches. Rear springs will be on, and we'll get the hell out of here.
It's going to be awesome. All right, well, I'll start organising the canopy. It's got to go on next and that'll start to weight it down and hopefully we'll get that rear suspension perfect.
Well, they're working hard on it. It'll be done very soon. Can't wait to see it. It's going to be a beast. No dramas. All right, well, I'll keep going. Thank you.
Okay, suspension is sorted. Now, back at Norweld, it's time to fit the canopy. Wow, let's get a look inside. Man, that looks really good.
That looks sweet. Look at that colour. - I know, it's so nice. And I'm going to wrap it.
Always. Let's have a look inside. So it's got a full tray on it as well. Yep, yep, full tray so you can take the canopy off if you need to, still chuck whatever you want on the tray and then chuck the canopy back on when you're touring.
Perfect. Not that I'll do that, but you can if you wanted to. Excellent. Yeah, look at that. That is awesome. Yes. No, that's a good setup. I like that.
Definitely. You can still keep this one locked as well. So it's got an extra... It's almost like a gun safe, isn't it? Yeah, so it's 1200mm so... There you go, yeah. So like a gun safe where you've got, not only you lock the canopy, you can lock the gun safe drawer.
No, that's awesome. I like it. Excellent.
No, that's excellent. We've got a lot of work to do now because I've got to get this... Is this a canvas? Yes. No, this is awesome. Thank you for getting that done so quick.
No worries. Our pleasure is always due. We're always on a tight deadline.
It's like out of control this year. But yeah, no, that's cool. No, that's awesome. I can't wait to get it home and start, you know, putting the little finishing touches on it.
Yeah, I was going to say, what's next? Yeah, well you've got the new Rogue system in here as well. RedVision Rogue. Yeah, how cool is that? Yeah, it's got Manager30, yes. Yeah, coupled with the 1250? Yeah. Yeah, that's all.
The BC 1250? Start from there for you too. No, that's awesome. So basically, when I start the car, I'm going to be able to get 80 amps of charging because the 1250 couples with the Manager30. So that's 50 and 80. Yeah, it'll charge like there's no tomorrow. 400 amp hours of lithium. 400 amp lithium.
Redarc lithium. 2000 watt Redarc inverter. Yeah, it's got all the fruit. The most independent setup you can get, really. Yeah, perfect. All right, so there we go, guys. I'm going to grab this now, and I'm going to head home.
And the weekend, I'm going to put the finishing touches on it myself. Okay, Stewie and a couple other crew helping me. We're going to put it all together. It'll come together with those little finishing touches that I want to put into it. And then it'll be off from there to McCormacks and let the games begin. There is so much stuff got to go on.
All right, let's go. Thank you. - No worries. Awesome. I'm out of here. - Sweet. There we go. Roof rack time. So the first thing we've got to do when we get, now that I've got it at home, is I'm going to mount up the roof rack.
We'll put the Backbone on, which has already been colour-coded. Backbone, lighting. I won't put any accessories on it just yet. And then we're going to start working on the canopy as well.
So we've got a few days ahead of us and start smashing out this little sucker to make it. Put all those little finishing touches on it, like I keep saying. Tweak it the way I like to tweak it.
All right, so roof rack. That's the first thing. Instruction manual. Or destruction manual. That's easy. That's easy. That's easy. That bit's easy. This is the part. These are the Backbones that are going to go on.
They come up good. So McCormacks already colour-coded those for me. That's the colour of the wrap I'm going to go with. Metallic deep blue thing. Anyway, whatever the swatch says.
First thing I've got to do is whip this thing. Flick this thing up. And then I've got to drill holes and put nutserts into this sucker. 170 from there to there. Now I'm only going to penetrate three millimeters. That'll be interesting.
Drilling into a very expensive car. You notice I'm drilling very slowly because I do not want to stuff this up. So now I've got to nutsert the little sucker. Hopefully my nutsert gun is going to do the job.
That's it. So if you can see that there, that's what squashes up. When you pull on it, you're doing these ones.
That squashes that bit up. So it's like flares out like a pop rivet. It's almost like it's the same principle. Oh yeah. All right, now I can bolt that down.
You beauty. There we go. Now what I did do is I cut, see the little strip in here.
I did trim all the little bits off that strip I took out and placed it in here, here, like that. Just cut it into sections. Fits back in perfectly. All right, well, I'm done. I'm done for the arvo or it's friggin' dark already.
I'm going to crack a beer. I'm going to crack a beer because I reckon it's beer o'clock. And tomorrow's another day. I've got a few crew coming tomorrow. Stewie's going to be helping out, Mitch. And see if we can get this sucker...
what I want to get done in the next couple of days. All right, so this morning, before anyone else gets here, I thought I'd crack on early. I've got to get awnings on this side.
I've got to get a Campboss 270 with RTT Access. On this side and then the other side, I've got to get a Rhino Rack Sunseeker. But I've also got to mount the Campboss Rooftop tent as well. That's the priority this morning on the canopy. Stewie will be around shortly.
We'll do some carpet. And then we'll start wiring up the rack and then get that on with spotlights and stuff like that. So it's not too, we've got a busy day ahead of us and a lot of stuff to put on.
Before we do anything, I've got to get this rooftop tent set up. There's a few little bits and pieces. I've got to put roof racks on it. I've got to put the brackets on the side, set up all the little bits that bring it all together when you're installing one of these.
So it's not just a matter of bolted on. We've got to put it together first. We've got to put the roof rack. Here he is.
Hey, mate. I didn't think you'd turn up to at least 12 o'clock. Very lucky getting me on a Saturday morning, mate.
Hey, mate. That's the go. You're coming to give us a hand, eh? Yeah, we're into it. Oh, we're into it, all right.
Well, as they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Bodie's son, Griffin, puts these racks together like a pro. Ol' Mitchy's here. How you goin', mate.
Many hands make light work, but safety first. You've got to wear your safety boots in the shed, mate. Next up is the Boss Shadow XL by Campboss. This lightweight but sturdy awning is easy to set up and allows access to the roof of your car if needed. Oh, yeah, that's good.
Up I go into my rooftop tent. Perfect. That's where we want it. So, all right, let's get some trestles. We'll put it on the bench here. So we're just going to bolt up the Sunseeker now. So the RhinoRack 2.5 Sunseeker is going to come out and we're going to bolt it straight
to the rooftop tent. So there's some channels on that edge there where we can bolt it up. He's got some torque, that thing. So I just lift it up first. Yeah, that's good. All right, let's set her up.
Perfect. Look at that. Is there a TV? - TV, this one? Oh, yeah, TV, you're going here, mate. Look at this. Yeah, that's me TV. You want to go and get the remote control? Press the OK button wheel on your remote. Ooh, English.
Oh, how good's that? So before we put the roof for our car, we've got to mount all the lights, side lights, front lights, so two spot lights using all these brackets. And then run all the wires, run these wires down one side. That one cuts across to the far corner. Side lights run into the canopy. And the front lights run down the back and all the way along the chassis back up into the cab. So they get separated.
40, 40, what have I put together? 35 and 35? 35, yeah. Oh, because that's your distance. That's your distance, see? Wack those in, you want the little tool for it.
Use that. Where does that sit there? Does that work for you? Yeah, that works good, eh? That's magical. And then the other 41 will sit up on the front of the rooftop tent. How cool's that? It's going to be the most technically advanced...
technically advanced ZR2 Chevy in Australia. It's going to have so much fruit on it, this thing. So we've got the two lights in the back and we've just fitted into place. We're going to start running this wiring from the front lights back down inside the Rhino Rack and mount them all up together at back there. Have them all wired together so they come down nicely. So we'll do that now and we'll chuck this up.
[singing] Hey, hey, hey, I want to be a rock star. Oh, yeah, I'm going to make this thing rumble. Look at that. Two twin speakers. Two 500... that's a thousand watts. I'm going to need a power station to run it.
Now, just doing this for a test. This is not my wiring job. All I'm doing is just a quick test, fire it up, link them together, see how they sound, see how the LEDs go and all that sort of lighting jazz because this place is going to light up like a disco. Here we go. Let's go, power, lights, action. That's pretty good. - Yeah, it's pumping.
That's pumping. I haven't even put a sub in yet. I don't think you need it. You don't reckon? I need more lights. I think I need more lights in this canopy. So roof rack's going on tomorrow. We're going to whack some more bits and pieces in here.
I've got to paint that solar panel at some stage. Stu has done an awesome job on the carpet and Mitch has done a good job on the roof rack here. Very cool. So I think it's time to sort of slow the hell down, man.
I'm sweating like a mongrel dog. Those two speakers just done my head in then and trying to get them up in there, but I got them. Got them done and I eco cast them and they're ready to go. Slide back. Hold there. Yeah? Yeah. That wasn't too painful.
It's actually quite a light rack, even with the lights on it. That's the beauty of it. Very lightweight rack, but strong as hell. Man, there's some lights going on. It's a tall car too.
I like it. Some good lighting. Okay, so to make this Chevy, okay, this truck what I was talking about before, making it high-tech, this is what's going to make it high-tech. Now, I guess you're wondering what the hell this is. Mitch is probably wondering what the hell this is.
Pie plate? No, it's not dinner plate. It's not a breadboard. It's not for cooking, and it's not for solar generating. This thing here is going to give this truck high-speed satellite internet access and mobile coverage. Right, so that's the router. I've mounted it from the ceiling.
Got a special bracket, hangs from the ceiling. So the router, that'll send the signal all around the vehicle and basically you just hook into it like a Wi-Fi. It's that simple.
Cables all hooked up there. That's my bulkhead fitting, clips into there. That's good and then goes through out to the dish. The Chevy build is coming together.
After a weekend of hard yakka with the crew putting on all the bells and whistles, it's back to AMVE for the custom bull bar fitting. Look at that. That's a big, big, big bit of gear. Hey, mate. How's it going? - Good. Looking flash. - Yeah.
They're light, aren't they? - Yeah. Yeah, that's the beauty of them. Once you get the steel, they're bringing the winch mount up now. They're gonna tack the steel mounts up. Yeah, gotcha. It'll add a bit more light to them, but still light as.
Yeah, light. Considering what we're putting in it. Yeah. Got to put the cradle on the front there which is all made of steel that bolts on. That's what holds all the winches. And then the bar gets bolted to that.
This is a custom bull bar for this brand-new Chevy. The team at AMVE are working meticulously to ensure that it will fit the truck's contours 100%. Once they are happy, the bull bar comes back off for the finishing touches. All right, we're out of here. We're off now to the wrappers. I think it's Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent.
We're going to do some wrapping. And mate, it goes to the wrappers and get that sucker back here. And by then we'll do the final fit up here. All right.
Jamie and the boys will do the final fit up. And then hopefully off to McCormacks. We've got exhaust. We've got long range tanks, man. We've got some stuff to go on yet. Let's go.
Hey guys, I'm here from Campboss 4x4, and I want to show you the new Campboss 4x4 270 standard. Now it's the 270-degree awning, which does a full wraparound. But it's lightweight and compact.
Check it out. It's got the heavy-duty bag that all our awnings have. There's no doubt about that. Which makes a big difference when you're trying to protect your awning from the elements. Three little straps hold it together, and mate, watch this. It is that simple.
Comes with the a-frame arms just like all our awnings. Has the lights built in. And the set-up is literally seconds. Pulling tight like we always do. Full size LED lights, orange and white and dimming. And comes with our awesome colours, orange and grey ripstop canvas.
Now it's a full a-frame arm, so they're aluminium arms, and they're powder coated. Each arm comes with a pole that you can use if you want to, or you don't have to. But if you're going to set it up in the wind, then I suggest to use them. A very convenient awning.
It's light, it's compact, and it's made from Campboss 4x4. Now if you get a chance, go onto Campboss 4x4 shop online or check our your local Campboss 4x4 dealer. Anyway, back to the adventure. There's a long drive.
It was a long drive, mate. Bloody traffic this morning. Good to see you, buddy. Yeah, I know. I know you were waiting for me. So it's not going to fit in your shed by the looks of that. It's not going to go, mate.
It's not going to go. It's going to go in the big shed. I reckon we'll have to move some stuff there. Yeah, we'll wheel it in there.
So you've got the colour I sent you. Got the blue. - What do you think? She's going to look pretty shmick. It's going to look different, isn't it? I'll just show you the line so you know which lines you've got to do. So all this comes off.
But you've got to, this stays. So you've got to wrap that. But this all gets wrapped up through there. We'll whip the roof rack off. And we'll do the roof. All the sides, obviously.
Go right through the canopy, right around doors. You've got a good line up through here as well. But yeah, other than that, I think, mate, go to town on that colour that we picked. Excellent. Yeah. Have you done that colour before? No, mate. - That's a first.
New exciting colour. Well then, awesome, mate. Thank you. Awesome.
I'll leave you to it. - Thanks, mate. Wow. Wow, look at that. How good is that? Mate, that is, that's nuts. Like, I knew it was going to look good, but this is like next level. Look at the colour in it. There you go.
You've got a sneak peek of the colour that's going on to this truck. So obviously, last time I left this, this was like a gloss blue, that real sort of bright blue that I've seen before. And now I've sort of taken that out with this sort of like a bluey, purpley, satin. It's awesome. I like it.
It's, it's really cool. I wonder how they, I wonder how they go on in here. I think Luke could be around here somewhere. Mate, you've done a good job on this.
Yeah, man. Good job, by the way. Make sure you tell your team that they've done an absolute crackin' job. Look, that just looks mint. Don't you think? So much better than the old glossy blue that was there before.
The colours just pop. Yep. Definitely. Yeah. - Definitely. It was a big, it was a big call.
I reckon this is going to turn some heads, mate. All right, I'll leave you to it. I'll get crackin'. No worries at all, mate. Yeah, make sure you tell the crew that they've done an awesome job, mate. Too easy.
An awesome job. Well done. Lovin' it. It's even got the logos on it. That's a cracker. Well done, mate. Well done. Good job. Absolutely awesome. Man, that looks mint.
Wow. Well done. Absolutely well done. That is just mental. That's five-inch, yeah? Yep. No, that's just awesome, mate. You've done an absolutely magical job.
Magical. It's got to go straight over to McCormacks and basically start to finish off all the wiring. Very, very close to finishing. Jamie here at AMVE 4x4, mate, they have done an absolutely exceptional job on the double snorkels and this custom bar, which is very, very cool. So we'll need a bit of tweaking now on the suspension, which will be fine, because Outback Armour did say that once you've got the weight on the vehicle, bring it back and then they'll tweak it to suit.
But other than that, mate, we're getting so close now. So I'm going to jump in this truck now, take it over, and mate, let's get the finishing pieces done. All right, so this beast of a tank is going to go into the Chevy. Now the Chevy, you get this, the Chevy runs at about 83 odd litres, okay, standard. This tank here is going to give me an extra 100 litres, 183 litres in this tank here.
Now, this going in won't decrease our underbody height. So it'll maintain all those ground clearance levels that you get from the standard tank. It's just going to be longer and bigger and tougher. There's no doubt about it. This thing is made out of aluminiumised steel. It's got baffles in it, the swirl pod in it, and it's just built to take a beating.
All right, this looks serious. There's no doubt about it. So this is the Manta exhaust for the Chevy. Now, the whole reason why we're changing the exhaust system from standard stock to this after- market system is one, so we can get better flow, okay, because we've got a bigger exhaust and also so that we can get a little bit more power. So that, you know, those exhaust gases escape better.
And the most important thing of all is we get that note, that V8 LS3 note. So to start off there's the two extractors there. So it comes straight from the engine, the manifold of the engine bolted straight on. And then from there we head right to the back.
Lower down, lower down, lower down. There we go. Woo-hoo. Look at those puppies. I reckon I could get a shot off on that.
Boom. You'll be right holding it there for an hour? - How long? An hour. It looks like knots in cotton.
I'm holding it. Should have been a plumber with arms like that. All right, so the next step is to stick these things on. Now they call these extractors. So obviously when you run diesels, we don't bother about putting extractors or anything like that on. But when you run a petrol, this is unleaded, then a set of extractors will help it flow a lot better.
Because as you'll notice, there's one, two, three, four outlets coming out and then merging into one. And that's what helps with the flow, so. Getting all the lights together now. Put the lights in here, both sides. And then work out what we're going to do up on this bull bar. Ooh, yeah, look at that.
Laser, that's that little thing in the middle there. LEDs on the outside, then it's got this laser beam in the centre. That's for shooting down the road.
And shoot stuff with it. Not really. It sounds good. Oh, yes.
Look at that. Fits like a dream. All right, so basically we've got to try and fit these control boxes in here. And I can see a bit of space in behind here.
Right there is where we can fit them up. So they'll go in behind there and we can get these winches working. Control boxes are going in. Now it's time to hear the new exhaust system. Oh, yeah. That's it.
That's what you want to hear, the rumble. Yeah, that sounds heaps better. That's awesome. You can really hear that throaty V8 now. That's awesome. Can't wait to get that out on the tracks.
Especially when I get it under load. Thank you. Awesome. She sounds good, eh? It rumbles. Got a bit of rumble going on there. She's burning all the oils off the exhaust. You can see a bit of smoke coming out.
That'll be all gone in a couple of days, mate. You'll burn it all off. Oh, yeah, I'll be burning it. Don't you worry. You just rooster tailing mud with just a bulk up.
Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, that's it. Bulk up, yeah. So I got hold of a 2023 ZR2, which is a Chevy Silverado. Now this is the latest and greatest truck.
Now it's pretty awesome. It's got some cool features just as a standard truck alone. But I've taken it one more step and turned it into Australia's toughest ZR2 Chevy touring truck. So without mucking around, how about we check it out? And I show you what's gone into this build. Now it's pretty cool. There's some really cool stuff in it, some high tech gear, some normal gear that you would put into a truck.
And of course, it's set up for touring this great country of ours. As always, I love building touring trucks. Now, first of all, we started at the front of this truck.
Now, as always, when you start at the front of the truck, you've got to work out what sort of bull bar that you're going to put on it. And being so new, I had to build something custom. So spoke to Jamie down there at AMVE.
And I said, mate, I need something cool, different and tough because it is a tough truck. It's a good size 1500 truck. So there's the bull bar on the front.
Now this one's got a little bit of a twist on it. Now, I don't know whether this is the first it's ever been done. I reckon it might be. But this bull bar here, it looks heavy, but it's not, by the way, it's actually made of alloy. It's quite lightweight compared to its actual size. But have a look at this.
I've gone and put two winches into the bull bar. Have a look at that. So two XTM winches are sitting in this bull bar. And the best part about it is you can actually take the winches out without taking the bull bar off. We've also got some lighting on the front here.
Now we've got an XTM laser spotty. And a light bar. You'll see the laser light bar as well. To incorporate more lighting, obviously I've put some light bars, 41 inch. I've gone triple 41 inch light bars on the roof.
Now we've got a heavy duty Uniden aerial. Don't leave home without your UHF. And that's a heavy duty one there. It mounts up there nicely.
Now to lift this whole beast up, Outback Armour have designed a suspension system for it. So it's fully adjustable, heavy duty. All right. And it's a roughly about a three, three and a half inch lift, which is basically two inches above the two inch standard. We've got tires and rims as well. We've got set of nice ROH rims here.
Okay, they're pretty cool. Tyres, we've got some Black Bears. Now these are 35s, be 12 and a half. Mate, can you believe that? That's pretty much the stock tyre size.
It's a big truck. Big wheels, mate. Big feet. If you look around this side, if you stand at the front of this truck, the thing you're going to notice is the twin snorkels to make it more symmetrical.
Okay. My wife would probably agree with me on that one. She goes, you've got to have it symmetrical. So we've got twin five-inch snorkels.
Because this thing's gonna breathe. It is an unleaded car. So it's a petrol car, but it's still going to handle water crossings as such.
Because the air intake is obviously above the waterline. All right. Coming down the side, we've got a Rhino roof rack. With colour coded Backbone. So this is a Pioneer platform here.
And that's where I've mounted some of my light bars. I've got some shovel on there. I've got some Maxtrax on there as well. Using that new Rhino Rack mounting system. Got full high speed satellite internet while I'm mobile on the roof rack. And that's plumbed.
By the way, that is plumbed into the canopy. Okay. With a wifi router in there.
Let's keep going down the side here. So we've got heavy duty Norweld canopy. This is a tray. Okay. So it's got a tray base. And then a canopy bolted to it.
So Norweld tray and canopy. Heavy duty, top of the line. Got everything that, everything that opens and shuts in it. We've got plumbed water on this side.
So gravity fed on that side. We've got pressure pump water on the other side. The kitchen side. Okay. Toolboxes on the side here. I won't show you inside the canopy just yet.
Let's go around the back here and have a look. You'll notice I've got a rear winch mounted as well. All right. Check that out.
So rear winch. Another XTM winch. It's triple winched. Double snorked triple winched. Also got this cool Manta exhaust system. Which makes this thing sound bloody awesome. I'll tell you what. So Stainless Steel, 3A4 grade Stainless.
So not only does it look good, but it also makes it rumble. And you can hear it. A couple of spares on the back. Twin spares. Up on the roof here, I've got a Campboss rooftop tent.
There we go. Flash as a rat with a gold tooth in this rooftop tent. Oh yeah. Still in there. This is going to spin you out.
So in my rooftop tent, I decided that if I was going to have high speed internet, why don't I have a smart television? All right. So there you go. Imagine being in the bush and watching your favourite Netflix or Primetime Prime Video. Or you name it. I've always wanted to do that. I've always wanted to do it. And there it is. It's got a full size 270 Boss Shadow with RTT access. And there we go.
Now when I mean RTT access, then have a look here. Full access to my rooftop tent, which is pretty cool. All right, rooftop tent access. Let's have a look inside the canopy.
Oh, here we go. All right. So this is a pretty cool put together canopy from Norweld. And it's a heavy duty canopy with all the fruit inside. We've got the backboard here that houses all the battery management system, the Rogue, the RedVision system for monitoring, all that sort of stuff. Now what I've got is I've got two, okay, 200 amp-hour lithium Redarc batteries.
All right. With the RedVision display on three sides. We've got one, two, and a third one up the front so I can monitor things that are going on.
All right. And now, of course, we've got the Rogue switching system. That's that little panel there that operates all your switching.
All right. All right, so we've got a fridge there as well. We've got some drawer systems like this. We've got a few drawers and bits and pieces. You know, look at that.
It's even got the map of Australia here, which is one of Norweld's little signature setups. Now I've got a compressor system on board. Okay, so I've got a full hose reel so I can pump the tires up on this thing. So that's a 30, I think it's 20, it might be a 20 meter hose reel. So I can pump tires up on the truck and also pump tires up on the trailer.
Come around the other side. It's pretty cool as well. So on here we've got the 2000 watt pure sine wave inverter. Now that is what's gonna run my Wi-Fi router, which you can see sitting there mounted up underneath. So it's just 240 because I've got plenty of power with 400 amp hours of lithium. 2000 watt inverter, that'll run that.
Now I've got another screen over here so I can operate things like compressor, lighting. I can turn this on as well so you can get the button there and just turn this on. The other thing you're gonna notice is these, yeah, we've got some big drawers going on here with each of you going into space, but get a load of the sound system in here. This is what we call 1500 watts of bush doof. So check that out. We've got two 500 watt speakers.
Okay, with lighting, we've got this cool lighting and I've got a 500 watt sub. So you really wanna get that bass, mate. This thing's gonna start pumping.
So between all those 1500 watts of bush doof. Now that's from ecoXgear. So they've gotten, sent me some stuff and we bolted it in there like that, which is pretty cool because even the light flashes to the sound of the music. But have a look in here. So this is where obviously the command station is.
We'll call it that. Check this out. This is the command station. Now the first thing you'll notice, I've got an iPad mount here. Now the reason why I've got this, okay, is one so that I can operate all my Google Earth maps, my full drive mapping.
All right, and then the other thing, I've got another Redarc control panel. And so this mirrors all three. So all three are the same. What I switch here, switches there. What I switch there, switches here. So sometimes when you're out and you're looking for the lighting switch, can be a bit of a pain.
You know, you might be up the front of the truck, that side of the truck, this side. You can operate that lighting, okay, from any point in time. Compressor, you might wanna switch the compressor off and you're up the front there or you're down the back. Now for communication, obviously UHF heavy duty aerial. We've got the Uniden, okay, XTRAK 80.
All right, that's that sucker there. Awesome bit of kit. Remember it's got full replay function. It's got GPS. So if you're running the same unit in each vehicle, it'll pick up a GPS mark of where that other transmitter is.
So your mate's down the road, okay. And you use that via the app, okay. So you get hold of the app, and you're gonna load up the app on your phone and you can actually see where he is. And he can actually see where you are if he hooks up as well. So yeah, that's a pretty cool feature on the XTRAK 80 Pro. All right, so remember it's got Bluetooth.
You wouldn't sort of go out into the sticks and get mud and crap all over this truck, you know, unless you had some really good seat covers. So Supafit have come together and they've actually made these denim seat covers for the Chevy. It's just, it's come together really well. Now I couldn't have done any of this without the big team, okay.
There's a massive team behind the whole setup, especially Bodie at McCormacks. His team, him and his team have come together at such short notice to put this truck together. Mate, it's an absolutely awesome rig. And even down to the point where we got the guys at Signarama to fully wrap this truck as well, you'll notice.
It's a complete wrap, the existing colour underneath. You can see that's the colour when I first picked it up. So Brown Davis have gone and built a super-sized tank for this thing as well. So it's got a big long range tank.
And of course, on this side, which is the opposite side of my kitchen, I've got a Rhino Rack Sunseeker. And I've just put a basic awning on this side just to make it, you know, just for an easy setup for myself. There we go, we'll pop that one in there. And there we go, it's a little 2.5 Sunseeker on that side. Mate, I can't believe how these trucks come together.
It's an absolute weapon of a truck. And we're going to find out how this thing goes because we're going to take it out into the middle of some of the most remote places in Australia for the next season of All 4 Adventure. And I can't wait. I cannot wait to see what this thing's like out in the bush.
2023-09-15 17:11
