[HUMMERcustoms.com/TAZ]

I have heard of the Kansas guy and is supposed to be very good. Just a year and a half ago, give or take, he charged just $14,000.00 for the engine change out. Costs have gone up though and if you ask for almost a complete conversion the way we look at doing it with no engine change out just roughly $40,000 to $50,000 with power adders and your rig will get you a major custom conversion whether a road look or go to off road function plus interior upgrades. It is hard to and really impossible to do a broad price guess for larger custom work. We do just what you ask for when we sit down with you in person and go through a check list of what you want and stick to it unless you decide on changes. Then that is where cost starts going up bad. Reason being is we may have just had an area R and R'd then a person decides they do not like this whatever they chose and they pay double for the R and R again. The really bad thing is deciding to add more and it being in an area we just finished and have to go back in to make major changes or a better upgrade when we suggested it in the first place.

Simply customer causes allot of higher cost. Go in with what you want written down so we can write it up compare it to your written list and we both sign each others job lists. Ours will be with pricing after we check with vendor to make sure nothing has increased in price or sometimes have gone down as well. We try very hard whether it be an H2, a rice rocket, a crotch rocket, and well come to think about it even a golf cart and a bicycle to be careful on pricing. We are even more careful to be sure we are all on the same page as what customer is asking for. Professionalism is what we apply to every customer whether a $50K job or a $500 job.

On the guy in Kansas switching chassis to a 3/4 ton would be to just save time I guess. The H2 already has a boxed in 3/4 ton chassis along with starting in 2005 added a ladder chassis frame put under the H2 that is less likely to fail than the regular 3/4 chassis. It may be an easier way to get just a few inchs in length to get Duramax in as I understand it is very tight fit. Chassis was the next yearly in 05 improvement along with more HP which was just a tuning of H2 software of fuel management. That HP was already there to tap along with a few more like digital upgrade phone service along with better OnStar service in once poorer areas. There has been a few things which GM has tried to upgrade H2 some each year.

Just one angle of looking at conversions etc. I want to visit with the guy in person. I have been thinking about going over and visit with him about doing Duramax changes for us. I think I can still get new Duramax with auto tranny from a company that takes them out of mostly ambulances and a few other type rigs to put gas burners back in the rigs. Go figure why city officials do what they do. He said if I could give him notice he could have 1 set back for me. I planned to just have one bought and when sold buy replacement. This is what I wanted to discuss with him to hold cost down. I hope after a few months of tests my health things will get corrected and I can get up to 80% full power.

Well enough of info sharing that I had of the system conversion more in general. I know for fact Dragons "05" 2500 GMC Duramax turbo runs 400HP and 800 ft. lbs. of torque dyno'd. Shop named rig "The Tow Pig". It hauls our various mall queens to shows. It is a monster.


TAZ

Originally Posted by bmrtire

Johnathan Goodwin @ H-line conversions did mine. He's the Kansas guy. There is much more to a conversion than just dropping it in the bay. In fact, Johnathan removes the body, puts in a completely new 3/4 ton chassis with the Duramax/Allison. He did the LBZ vnD in mine (07) 6-speed allison - drive train and changed the rear gears to my needs. I would never go to anyone except Johnathan because he is completely honest plus a genius. Conversion, propane kit, new GPS, KMC Rockstars on nitto grapplers, hydraulic reserve coilovers, paint front grill, smoked marker lights, AMP bars (electric step bars), color - change to paint inside and out. About $75,000. Oh, power box increase for HP. Total of about 680 horsepower. Unreal torque. Other things he did that I can't remember right now.