owlicks
Member
My build is in progress, but I figured better late than never with starting a build thread.
As was the case for many others, I was bitten by the overland mid-pandemic after being cooped up in the house for about a year. At first, I had my sights set on a VW Syncro. Although cool, I learned that a good one was a lot of money for a relatively old, small, and underpowered vehicle. Once I learned about Sportsmobiles, I realized that they are everything that's great about the Syncro, times ten. After many months searching, I found my unicorn: a 2006 RB30 diesel with 68k miles and all manuals/records:
Original specs:
These were well worth the price and are one of my favorite upgrades to the vehicle.
Next, we headed out to Sequoia. After some beautiful sightseeing, we headed to Fresno, en route to Yosemite. While in Fresno though, we ran into our first bit of classic E350 6.0 trouble: the van just shut down in the middle of the road. No power, no lights, no nothing:
I called up Peter at SMB West (now at Field Van) and he recommended taking it to J's Performance Automotive. They did some fast diagnostic work, determined a dead FICM was the issue, and happened to have a Bulletproof FICM in stock. This was another very worth while upgrade.
The rest of the trip was without incident. When I got home, I continued with more upgrades: a black billet grill, 35x12.5r17 Toyo M/T tires, and 17x9 Pro Comp 69 Series (nice) wheels:
Running tally of upgrades:
As was the case for many others, I was bitten by the overland mid-pandemic after being cooped up in the house for about a year. At first, I had my sights set on a VW Syncro. Although cool, I learned that a good one was a lot of money for a relatively old, small, and underpowered vehicle. Once I learned about Sportsmobiles, I realized that they are everything that's great about the Syncro, times ten. After many months searching, I found my unicorn: a 2006 RB30 diesel with 68k miles and all manuals/records:
Original specs:
- E350 6.0 diesel XLT trim passenger van (includes some nice touches like temp/compass gauge, cruise control, rear heat/A/C, and rear LSD)
- RB30 layout with pop top, side gaucho, fridge, microwave, and rear sink
- Front & rear Aluminess bumpers
- Air compressor
- 12,000 lbs Warn winch
- Sportsmobile designed Dynatrac 4x4 setup with Atlas transfer case
- Rear shower
- Rear airbags with second, dedicated air compressor
- Tekonsha trailer brake controller
- Edge digital gauge monitor
- Bulletproof EGR cooler
- BD turbo
- Amsoil bypass oil filtration system
These were well worth the price and are one of my favorite upgrades to the vehicle.
Next, we headed out to Sequoia. After some beautiful sightseeing, we headed to Fresno, en route to Yosemite. While in Fresno though, we ran into our first bit of classic E350 6.0 trouble: the van just shut down in the middle of the road. No power, no lights, no nothing:
I called up Peter at SMB West (now at Field Van) and he recommended taking it to J's Performance Automotive. They did some fast diagnostic work, determined a dead FICM was the issue, and happened to have a Bulletproof FICM in stock. This was another very worth while upgrade.
The rest of the trip was without incident. When I got home, I continued with more upgrades: a black billet grill, 35x12.5r17 Toyo M/T tires, and 17x9 Pro Comp 69 Series (nice) wheels:
Running tally of upgrades:
- Rear airbags with second, dedicated air compressor
- Tekonsha trailer brake controller
- Edge digital gauge monitor
- Bulletproof EGR cooler
- BD turbo
- Amsoil bypass oil filtration system
- Vantage Optics HID headlights & LED signals
- Bulletproof FICM
- Black billet grill
- 35x12.5r17 Toyo M/T tires
- 17x9 Pro Comp 69 Series wheels
Last edited: