2004 6.0 NV4500 Tahoe

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Erickk120

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I would love the 14 bolt sf for the hell of it but I don't know how to feel about 342 gears vs 373s. I read your swap a while ago, with the ujoints out of the way how hard is it? 342 front diffs seem to be harder to find than the more common 373 and 410s.
 
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Dantheman1540

Dantheman1540

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I would love the 14 bolt sf for the hell of it but I don't know how to feel about 342 gears vs 373s. I read your swap a while ago, with the ujoints out of the way how hard is it? 342 front diffs seem to be harder to find than the more common 373 and 410s.

Swap is pretty easy IMO, it took me a full evening after work to complete but a good part of that was pulling the C clips of both axles to pulls the shafts and swap the brake backing plates. If I were to do it again I'd just buy new 10b backing plates and install them on the 14b axle before I started the swap, it would save a good couple of hours. The other difficult part was the panhard bar, not sure if my mounts were overly tight because someone used a big impact to tighten them in the past or if that's normal but it was a good struggle to get it to line up correctly. Next time I'd spread the ears on the mounts a tad or shave down the bushings minutley.

There are 3.73 14bs out there in fact something I didn't know before I did the swap is that 2wd 05-06 escalades came factory with a 14bolt. They also only came with 3.73s in the 14b best I can tell. Definitely, not a super common thing to find but on carpart.com there are several dozen listed some as cheap as $500 https://www.car-part.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi. Another thing to note, I've been very pleased with the G80 in my 14b so far and it had 150K or so miles when I got it and all I've done is change the fluid and beat it.


Lastly, I'm typically the guy to put deep low gears in everything for that initial grunt but the NV3500/4500 both have such low first gears I feel the 3.42s really help balance that out plus reward you on the highway with a few less RPM. However the lack of low end in a stock 5.3 and the fact you have 4x4 might make me want to keep the 3.73s idk its a toss up.
 
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Erickk120

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Thanks! that is very helpful, I'm sure that knowledge will help me decide and others who are looking to get an idea of what it will take/interested on the swap.

I will keep an eye for one and if chance presents it self will def buy one just to have it around.
 
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Dantheman1540

Dantheman1540

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Two tanks of gas down since alignment, saw 15.7mpg last tank and 15.4 the tank before. That's almost a solid 2mpg better than I had been getting before, mpg seemed to have dropped a tad after coilovers probably because the alignment was so wacked it was down to 13.5-14 average hand calculated. That's also with Sam's club 93 which might be watered down. :)

Still waiting on 2020 brakes, and muffler parts :(.

Also drug a $200 Kumasaki Bayou home should be a quick flip. Fun fact of the day, ATV batteries are way cheaper on Amazon than anywhere in town.

20210506_161402.jpg 20210506_161403.jpg 20210509_171929.jpg
 

Rocket Man

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Two tanks of gas down since alignment, saw 15.7mpg last tank and 15.4 the tank before. That's almost a solid 2mpg better than I had been getting before, mpg seemed to have dropped a tad after coilovers probably because the alignment was so wacked it was down to 13.5-14 average hand calculated. That's also with Sam's club 93 which might be watered down. :)

Still waiting on 2020 brakes, and muffler parts :(.

Also drug a $200 Kumasaki Bayou home should be a quick flip. Fun fact of the day, ATV batteries are way cheaper on Amazon than anywhere in town.

View attachment 278827 View attachment 278828 View attachment 278830
Kumasaki?
 

JonnyTahoe

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DSCF3459.JPG
Two tanks of gas down since alignment, saw 15.7mpg last tank and 15.4 the tank before. That's almost a solid 2mpg better than I had been getting before, mpg seemed to have dropped a tad after coilovers probably because the alignment was so wacked it was down to 13.5-14 average hand calculated. That's also with Sam's club 93 which might be watered down. :)

Still waiting on 2020 brakes, and muffler parts :(.

Also drug a $200 Kumasaki Bayou home should be a quick flip. Fun fact of the day, ATV batteries are way cheaper on Amazon than anywhere in town.

View attachment 278827 View attachment 278828 View attachment 278830
I think it's Kawasaki. DSCF3451.JPG
 
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Dantheman1540

Dantheman1540

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I think it's Kawasaki. I might just know a thing or two about 100 ft. burnouts and speed.View attachment 278833

Funny to talk about performance mods in a Tahoe or anything with 4 wheels really. A stock bike will smoke nearly anything, I'm just a ***** and don't want to die.
 

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