Kbuskill's 2008 Burb LTZ "MOD" Thread

[08HoeCD]

Love this thread already. Subscribed!

 

[Fosscore]

Build thread FTW!! The peer pressure has pushed a few down this road....see poster #5. lol

 

[PG01]

Build thread FTW!! The peer pressure has pushed a few down this road....see poster #5. lol

Hey, what about #6?
Lol


Wait, its not a build thread... carry on

 

[kbuskill]

I believe my tail light mods were next on the list so here is a link to that thread in case anyone wants more info on it:

http://www.tahoeyukonforum.com/threads/2008-suburban-custom-tail-light-mod.92274/

And a couple videos to show the results.

Then I picked up a ready to mod Esky 3rd HMSL and spoiler from Lee @goodinblack for a song

When I received it the spoiler was black... imagine that... so I had to paint it with the WDT 3 stage paint to make it match the Burb.

I decided before I ever bought this from Lee that if I ever did the Esky 3rd, I was determined to do it differently from everyone else's. I know what your thinking, "having a full width modded Esky 3rd is already different" , and you are right... there are but a select few (in the overall grand scheme of things) that have it, BUT I wanted to be in the .0001% club.... lol

So I decided to integrate turn signals into it while still allowing for the brake function... kind of like the "line of fire" LED strips under the tailgate of a truck... certainly NOT an original idea, BUT definitely an innovative and original execution in my opinion.

Since that video I have actually replaced the top brake light bulbs with another set of the strobing bulbs I have in the "new" lower brake light so I guess I need to get another video.

 

[kbuskill]

Ok... I think I lied.... but not on purpose... I actually think the next mod after tint was the installation of my Rosen CS- GM1210:

https://www.adcmobile.com/product/cs-gm1210-ca/

The reasoning for this is because I absolutely HATED the original GM Navigation unit that came in our '08 LTZ.... I don't know how much better the newer factory Navi is but I seriously doubt it could be any worse. The sound that came from the original head unit through the Bose system sounded flat and boring.... when I am jamming out to Johnny Cash I need to hear some bass... and the maps and Navi interface were awful and no Bluetooth in '08. There is probably more bad I could say about it but I will move on.

I went with the GM1210 after a lot of research. I liked it for many reasons. For one, it had Bluetooth, so that was an automatic upgrade. One of the main reasons I like it is because it looks stock... I know, crazy right?....
Remember earlier in my thread where I said "less is more" and "Chopper Clean".

I didn't want to come out and find my window busted and a big hole in my dash along with cut wiring and broken dash pieces, you know the routine. Plus I have had all the fancy doodads and gizmos through the years and I'm not trying to impress anyone any more... I've gotten to the age where as long as I'm happy with it, that's all that matters.... OH, and the wife.... HWHL remember...lol

Horrible pic, I know, and that's ok because everyone knows what a factory Navi looks like... which this isn't, but if it were off its hard to tell the difference.

Here is another pic just to show what the Nav screen looks like... Bear in mind, I live out in the sticks so there isn't much around to show up on the screen. Even so if you have ever messed with the factory Navi you should be able to appreciate the difference.

I just want to say right here that I am very well pleased with my choice of head unit. It sounds a heck of a lot better through the factory Bose amp and speakers now with the new stereo pushing it...
can you hear the low and steady bass line being put down by Johnny and his band now?
Yes I can

The other great thing about this unit is it is completely P&P without any additional adaptors or modules to purchase and install. All the factory options still work including steering wheel controls, XM, on star, etc. and now it actually sounds like it has a sub in the console... not a big one mind you, but certainly much better than before.

I also decided that since my truck had 2 cig lighter plugs in the dash, because in '08 the USB plug was not an option, I was going to change things up a bit.

I installed the factory USB port and matching cover on the passenger side and on the driver's side I kinda did my own thing.

I measured and researched and hunted and procured a 3 way toggle switch that just happened, by chance, to fit exactly in the original cig lighter cover and housing. I hooked the lower side up to a 5 pin relay that is mounted under the dash in the kick panel where the wiring block is located. The relay was required to maintain the factory functionality of the rear camera coming on when you put the truck in reverse (5th pin = NC) but the other pin ( 4th pin = NO) allows me to power up the rear cam while driving forward or anytime the truck isn't in reverse. This allowed me to NOT have to power the rear camera CONSTANTLY, which would cause premature failure, just to be able to view it while moving

The top portion of the switch is wired to the front camera I installed in the lower portion of the grill. It is nice when parking.

I did have to grind just a bit off the inside cover to clear the switch. I should have probably done a little better job of cleaning it up and smoothing it out BUT it stays closed 99% of the time. It's cool to because if you have either camera selected, when you close the cover it automatically turns it off.

 

[kbuskill]

This chronological thing is getting out of hand... let's face it... if it happened past yesterday, I probably forgot exactly when it was.

So at some point in the past I decided that I wanted to get rid of the big, heavy, bulky muffler. Ironically those are all descriptive words I use in a positive sense when describing other things .... but in this case they are bad because it's a muffler.

I didn't want anything obnoxiously loud because after all it is an LTZ. I didn't want my $50k+ luxury vehicle to sound like Bubba's ol' mud truck.

My main reasoning behind wanting the muffler changed actually had more to do withweight reduction and possible MPG improvement than sound, the sound was just an added bonus.

So I took the Burb down to the local exhaust shop that my buddies own and perused their selection of mufflers and tips.

In the end I had them cut off the original muffler and replace it with something like this:
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/122053356385
I don't know if this is the same brand or not but it looks identical to mine.

Here is a pic of what it looks like inside.

I decided to leave the factory resonator in place, this is the part where you start booing and throwing tomatoes, I did this because this is our family vehicle that we take on long trips and the last thing I wanted to hear is an awful drone to go along with noisy kids... lol

I also kept the factory chrome tip.

I am very happy with the results of this combo. It is not loud at idle but it sounds like it has some authority. When accelerating like a normal sane individual it has a nice sound but definitely not too loud and no drone at any speed. When you romp on it is when you can really hear the big girl breath... it's not raspy mud truck nasty... it just has a nice growl that sounds like it means business. I like it and I'm happy, what more is there to say.

More recently I installed an Airaid MIT intake tube that I acquired from my brother when he sold his Silverado. I am not going to post any pics because we all know what they look like and on top of that I don't think I have any pics of it in my phone.

The only thing I may have done slightly different than some is I added some self adhesive foil backed fiberglass heat shield, (which is actually for wrapping starters) that I happen to have laying around, to the bottom of the intake tube where it crosses over the radiator hose. I did this to possibly eliminate or at least prolong the intake tube from getting heat soaked.... I know it's probably useless and probably doesn't amount to a hill of beans and that the air is moving through the tube so fast that it really doesn't have time to absorbany heat etc. etc. BUT I had the scrap pieces laying around from a different project (motorcycle related) and i figured, why not, its not gonna hurt anything... so I did.

At some point my brother picked up a Diablo sport I2 for his Silverado and I purchased an extra license from Diablo for $150 so that I could tune the long body as well. He has since sold his Silvy so I now have a Diablo with 2 licenses... win win.

 

[adventurenali92]

I’m lovin’ the esky third mod! I remember reading your thread about it a while and thinking damn I’d love for my esky third on my 2006 to perform like that! Lol. Hell I’d even love if it my esky third stayed on at night as a running light like my tails do haha.
Edit: nice job in the burb! And that nav but looks great! Looks like it came factory and that’s the best part!

 

[kbuskill]

I’m lovin’ the esky third mod! I remember reading your thread about it a while and thinking damn I’d love for my esky third on my 2006 to perform like that! Lol. Hell I’d even love if it my esky third stayed on at night as a running light like my tails do haha.
Edit: nice job in the burb! And that nav but looks great! Looks like it came factory and that’s the best part!

The parking light idea with the third brake light would be a super easy thing to do... it wouldn't even require opening up or modifying anything in the light. The "hardest" part about it would be determining the correct resistor to use in order to achieve the desired brightness for the "running" lights, ideally about 50% brightness compared to the brake lights.

All you would need is a couple diodes and a resistor wired up to the positive wire leading into your 3rd brake light and then to run an additional wire from the parking lights up to it to feed the other side of the circuit you would build from the diodes and resistor.

When done it would look something like this.



Pay no attention to the fact that it says turn signal. The functionality is the same. You are essentially taking a single filament bulb, or in your case a series of LEDs, and making it/them into dual function. The blue wire in the pic would hook to your existing power lead that feeds your 3rd brake light. The yellow wire would go to a 12v source, in your case the parking like positive lead from your tails (either side,should make no difference). I obviously cropped the pic to avoid confusion as it originally showed two circuits for two bulbs but you only need to build one side to make yours function. I am not certain if the specs for the diodes and resistors would be appropriate for your application because I don't know if it would dim it enough for parking lights or perhaps to much. It would really just be a trial and error thing with either swapping or adding additional resistors until you reach the desired brightness for your running light. I hope this helps you, or anybody who might be wanting to do this.

I will say that I thought about incorporating the running light feature into mine as well but decided against it for a couple of reasons.

1. It is probably against the law.
2. It might make people think you are slowing down or that your riding your brakes or that your brake switch on your pedal is messed up.
3. Coming from the world of riding motorcycles, choppers to be more specific, lighting is an especially important safety feature. I am ALWAYS of the mindset that the best, most effective brake light is the one that wasn't there before. In other words the one that wasn't lit before you pressed the brake pedal. I would rather have a single running light on my bike and have 2 more light up when I press the brakes as opposed to having 3 running lights that get brighter. The odds of someone rear ending you while in motion are slim compared to when you are slowing down or stopped in my opinion. Evidently the NHTSA agree with me because you can bet if they thought it would reduce the number of rear end collisions they would force the manufacturers to make the HMSLs into parking lights as well.

My 3 cents.. lol

It's your truck, do whatever makes you happy.

 

[kbuskill]

Ok back to the regularly scheduled program.

I am just going to post some of the maintenance items that I have done. I usually prefer to upgrade when replacing something if I can figure out a way to make it happen.

When I bought the Burb back in Jan 2015 it had 154K miles on it. I bought it from a local dealer who had sold it originally when it was new to the owner of a local construction company. It was his wife's daily driver and all service work was done at the same dealership so the service records were really good.
They traded it back into the dealership when they bought her a 2015 Suburban LTZ in WDT with all the same options... lol

I test drove it and thought there was something wrong with the u joints or driveshaft UNTIL I realized that it was just the AFM dropping into V4 mode.

I still made them put it up on a lift and let me inspect the whole underside because I don't trust anyone selling anything... especially a stealership.

So after going over the truck with my fine tooth comb I came up with my very short list of things I wanted fixed before I committed to buy. I really can't remember anything they had to fix other than the passenger side power mirror wasn't functioning correctly. The agreed to fix whatever it was and the negotiations began.

They supposedly had the truck listed originally for some stupid amount like $22,500. They were asking $18k when I came to look at it. After some back and forth haggling I ended up getting it for $15k so after tax, tag, title fees, etc. I think I was out the door for $16,700. I know it wasn't the deal of a lifetime, because of the mileage, but the truck was clean and tight and I was happy with the price so I guess that's all that matters.

Later on I realized that I had missed something that is now very obvious to me but at the time I was unaware of.

The rear bumper has been replaced at some point because it is not an LTZ bumper. It really doesn't matter to me either way. It's just a little chrome and the different ends where it meets the wheel wells. Most would never know the difference. I didn't until after doing my research.

Aside from that the truck has been great. At around 180k miles it started to develop a lifter tick if you let it idle for more than 20 mins or so. The oil presaure was never "low". It would show 40psi cold idle and after up to temp it would still show 25psi at idle. I could change the oil filter and it would stop ticking for a while but it always came back eventually. I have ran Mobil 1 oil with various good filters (Mobil 1, K&N, Wix) since I brought her home.

I finally got tired of the ticking and at about 185k miles I decided to replace the oil pump, O-ring on the pick up tube and since I was going in that deep I decided to replace the timing chain as well. GM claims their chains are good for 200k miles so I figured it getting close any way.

I went with the Mellings 10355 HV/HP oil pump.
http://www.improvedracing.com/oil-pumps-mechanical/melling-10355-high-volume-ls-oil-pump-p-487.html
This is not where I bought mine, i just posted the link for anyone that might want more info on the pump.

Even though this is a HV/HP pump it is actually a standard volume pump for an AFM motor as they come from the factory with a HV pump to supply all the solenoids and lifters in the DOD system.

I wanted the higher pressure pump because of the higher mileage, I figured what could it hurt.

I don't really have any pictures of the tear down and rebuild and even if I did, who wants to see the inside of an old engine any way so I will skip ahead to what all I did.

I needed to replace my engine mounts anyway and I wanted to remove the screen that lives below the oil pressure sensor.

I decided the easiest way to accomplish all of my goals was to pull the intake manifold to both make it easier to get to the screen under the oil pressure sending unit and it would allow me more room to lift the engine up with my cherry picker giving me room to swap the mounts AND give clearance to remove the oil pan WITHOUT having to drop the steering rack.

I dropped the pan and pulled the balancer, water pump, and timing cover, R&R the oil pump and timing chain and also the pickup tube's O-ring which to my surprise was not broken and actually came off in one piece. I also replaced the pressure relief valve that resides in the oil pan near the filter. I had purchased the new PRV and the shield that goes around it because I wasn't sure if that recall had ever been done to it. When I got the pan off I realized it already had the shield but I replaced the PRV anyway just to err on the side of caution. The LS2 timing chain I installed was an upgrade from the stock chain and fit without any modification necessary.

After all of the internal work was done I turned my attention to the engine mounts. I wanted to go ahead and get them swapped before reinstalling the oil pan to give me as much room to work with as possible. They were a little bit of a pain to get the old bolts broke loose but overall it wasn't that bad. With the new mounts securely in place I proceeded to button up the front and bottom of the engine with all new gaskets and seals. Reinstalled the harmonic balancer with an upgraded aftermarket crank bolt that is NOT a torque to yield bolt... I hate those things.

Back up top I removed the screen under the oil pressure sensor and reinstalled the sensor. I removed the TB from the intake and thoroughly cleaned all the oil out of the intake manifold....
THANKS GM AND THANKS EPA FOR MAKING THEM DESIGN IT THIS WAY!

Obviously I am referring to the routing of the PCV back into the intake which causes oil consumption issues and completely coats the intake in oil.

Anyway after cleaning everything to the best of my ability I reinstalled the TB and intake manifold with all new gaskets along with new gaskets for the valve covers as well just for GP.

After getting all the belts and hoses reinstalled and topping off all the fluids and installing a fresh oil filter to go with the new oil. I turned the key to the on position a couple times to prime the fuel rails and turned the key and guess what???

 

[PG01]

She’s a no start?.....( in your best italian accent)