Under-the-hood mods.

[zach2011]

I think I'm about done with modding the appearance. I like for everything to look stock so I've gone about as far as possible with all the exterior things.

• LTZ chrome parts (grille, handles, and rear bumper step pad). I've got chrome side moldings but they are not OEM, yet they strongly resemble Denali moldings.
• Escalade roof rack, mirrors, and 3rd brake light.
• G4 LED tail lights

As for interior, I've gotten all I can think of.

• Denali switches/wood.
• Captain chair swap.

Now, I'm beginning to get really interested in performance and vehicle health mods. I want to get everyone's opinions on these things. I'm DEFINITELY going to get a BlackBear tune. But that's all I know of so far...

So send some ideas my way.

 

[Cartwright]

How much are you looking at spending?

 

[zach2011]

I don't really have a specific budget. I just wanna do the same thing I did for my appearance mods - start building a list of things that I'll save up to buy eventually. It'd just be nice to have some things in mind.

 

[Cartwright]

Intake, Exhaust, Converter, Cam, Tune, ect.

 

[turboeclips]

Volant CAI and a flowmaster exhaust to begin. then maybe a supercharger

 

[Cartwright]

Volant CAI and a flowmaster exhaust to begin. then maybe a supercharger

Flowmasters are ewwww. Go for a quality Exhaust

 

[kickitandholdit]

put your money back in your pocket. when you get drunk its all fun and games but you end up with a hangover.. for example you add a bunch of power mods its all fun and games driving fast till you spend thousands on a new tranny. so if your wanting to do a bunch of performance stuff be prepared. imo if i could start over i would do QUALITY exhaust but not to loud cause it will get annoying (i love my flowmaster super 44s they are perfect) and i would be finished. plus if you spend all that money in upgrades your most likely to never get that money back out. tahoes are heavy and just arnt gonna go fast without thousands of dollars. if you really want to go fast buy a little 5.0 mustang or something for a toy and put your money in it.

 

[2 E L O]

put your money back in your pocket. when you get drunk its all fun and games but you end up with a hangover.. for example you add a bunch of power mods its all fun and games driving fast till you spend thousands on a new tranny. so if your wanting to do a bunch of performance stuff be prepared. imo if i could start over i would do QUALITY exhaust but not to loud cause it will get annoying (i love my flowmaster super 44s they are perfect) and i would be finished. plus if you spend all that money in upgrades your most likely to never get that money back out. tahoes are heavy and just arnt gonna go fast without thousands of dollars. if you really want to go fast buy a little 5.0 mustang or something for a toy and put your money in it.

Agreed. I did a few things to improve the "drive-ability" and enjoyment factor of my Tahoe but it's never going to be "fast". You can do a few things to improve the efficiency without creating conditions that are going to promote wear and tear like kickitandholdit said.

Go ahead and do a CAI, muffler or cat-back, a Corvette servo/4th gear super hold servo (if you tow often), and then maybe a tune. Be careful with a tune, though. Blackbear tunes seem to be great but it'll be interesting to see in a few years how peoples' trucks are holding up after removing all or most of the torque management.

 

[Conor]

Flowmasters are ewwww. Go for a quality Exhaust

+1. Flowmaster sucks.lol But seriosly, there are only a few mods to the engine that are worth doing in my opinion. A nice exhaust and CAI to start and then a Black Bear tune. That is a great place to start, if you really want to put some $$ into it, get a super charger.

 

[2 E L O]

I couldn't agree more about Flowmasters. They're nasty. I have a Gibson dual-swept cat-back system and it sounds just absolutely incredible. It's tame and mellow under normal driving conditions with no drone. At idle it's got a nice little, mellow snarl....but when you stomp on it and it wraps up she absolutely screams. I have gotten sooooooooooooo many compliments about the sound.

I also have a love for Dynomax products. I have Dynomax mufflers on my old Mustang and they're incredible, as well. I think your best bet is Gibson (and very affordable), Dynomax, or Magnaflow.

 

[bigblue]

my out look on trying to make a tahoe "fast" is they are too heavy and no matter what you do to them they are going to be slow. I would just do apperance things to make it look good, and a tune and maybe exhaust, and roll the shyt out of it

 

[eandj23]

+1. Flowmaster sucks.lol But seriosly, there are only a few mods to the engine that are worth doing in my opinion. A nice exhaust and CAI to start and then a Black Bear tune. That is a great place to start, if you really want to put some $$ into it, get a super charger.

why's everybody hating on Flowmaster!!?? had it on my 96 Yukon and now its on my 07 and i couldnt be happier, signature sound OH YEAH BABY!

 

[InTruckDesign]

If your going for a mild build then intake/exhaust/tune and stop there...if you are going to go further beef up the trans. before adding anything else.

 

[viximaging]

yep I thought about heavily modifying the kon.. yeah that didnt last long..

 

[Conor]

why's everybody hating on Flowmaster!!?? had it on my 96 Yukon and now its on my 07 and i couldnt be happier, signature sound OH YEAH BABY!

Flowmaster is for sound only. There are very minimal performance gains from it because it is a baffled muffler. To get anything out of a muffler it needs to be a straight through non baffled muffler. Like Magnaflow, Borla, Corsa

 

[blueflamed03]

I like the sound and perfornace of Flowmaster actually, if I could gain 2 HP with a muffler change, I personally wouldn't. Most IMHO don't sound as good as Flowmaster.

 

[kickitandholdit]

im not a big fan of flowmaster but i tried the super 44 and im impressed it actually has a clean quality sound. i cant even count how many times i have had people ask what kind of exhaust i have and who did it

 

[zach2011]

Well, for my first under-the-hood, I shelled out $200 for an Optima Yellow-top battery.

 

[BC Lightning]

All I have is a K&N drop in filter, custom tune, and 2 Optima red top batteries, yellow tops are good if you're going to drain them down, but not worth the extra $$ if you're not.

I won't put any extra performance mods in my Hoe because, well I enjoy not having to worry about something f'ing up!!! I did the tune so I could get longer 4cylinder mode, extra trq for when I'm towing my boat, and overall better gas mileage.

If you want to add performance mods, save up and buy another car for that reason, to mod. I have daily driven heavily modded cars/trucks and it gets old very quickly always having something break and needing a ride for weeks or months, case in point, I just blew the built Ram clutch in my Z06 (there's another $1,300)

If you're going to do exhaust stay away from Crapmaster!!! They are only good for 5.0 Mustangs

 

[Rich E]

I have a Flowmaster system, the one that splits out to each side of the truck. It was not too expensive, easy to install and looks and sounds good. Nice deep rumble!