Megan the Tahoe

[Fosscore]

Sounds mean.

 

[gtrslngrchris]

Went to the salvage yard today and picked up a clean rear hatch. I stripped the glass and plastic trim and walked out with it, a non-Bose rear sub and a rear hatch pillar trim from a Suburban that has a lock/unlock button on it that I'll wire in since my Tahoe doesn't have one.

Walked out with all of it for $83 and change

 

[gtrslngrchris]

Replaced the tail light bulbs in the Tahoe today finally with LEDs but was lame and took no pictures. I did however do a custom homelink install in my friends' '06 Silverado though since I had an extra homelink overhead console and his truck was without.

Crappy pic but you can see it's setup so the driver can see and use it but the passenger won't.

Tied into the overhead console circuit just like the factory so the buttons even light up with the rest of the interior!

LOTS and lots of hot glue was used here....... A lot....

 

[Tonyrodz]

I love stealthy! I have a home link laying around, too bad I don't have anything I could use it for.

 

[05Single]

Replaced the tail light bulbs in the Tahoe today finally with LEDs but was lame and took no pictures. I did however do a custom homelink install in my friends' '06 Silverado though since I had an extra homelink overhead console and his truck was without.

Crappy pic but you can see it's setup so the driver can see and use it but the passenger won't.

Tied into the overhead console circuit just like the factory so the buttons even light up with the rest of the interior!

LOTS and lots of hot glue was used here....... A lot....

Nice, so convienent to have.

Good work on the hoe so far, mods seem promising from you, can't wait for more!!

Next time use this instead of gobs of hot glue
http://www.tahoeyukonforum.com/threads/two-great-products.90861/

 

[05Single]

anything else ?

 

[gtrslngrchris]

anything else ?

I've been distracted a lot with the girlfriend and work and life in general but I'm back to it a bit, although not with as many pictures as I intended.

About a month ago I found a deal on Nitto 420s in 285/50/20 so I picked those up for $480 shipped and had my friend mount them. I love the way these tires look and grip on my Duramax and they drive even better on the Tahoe since it doesn't weigh 7500lbs. After the new tires I finally installed one of my new sets of headlights and turn signals (I have a second set to retrofit my Mini H1 projectors into) to clean up the front end a bit and I dropped the factory keys as low as they would go to help with the fender gap on the shorter new tires.

After a few weeks of that though it was finally time to do some real work again so on Saturday I replaced all 3 transmission cooler lines as one was seeping and then I installed my NorCal 3-4 drop in the rear and the DJM A arms and new shocks in the front along with Moog tie rods. I sort of lost my new front and rear sway bars while I was working on everything or those would have gone on as well but that won't take long to remedy later on.

The Tahoe drives amazingly well with the drop! Even without the sways the cornering is so much more dramatically flat and while the rear is definitely a bit more stiff it isn't so much that it bothers me and I think swapping shocks would help a bit. I still have a LOT of work planned and hopefully there will be many more pics next time but I got caught up in the doing of the things and less so in the recording of the things.

Soon to come:
Remove the fender flares
Body work done on the rear quarter, hatch painted and swapped, bumper chrome color-matched
Pull and repaint all the wipers and roof rack and rear corner bits so they're a nice matte black again
6.0 swap (I have a line on an LQ9 that I'm hoping to get soon)
TransGo shift kit and Corvette servo (Hopefully this will help my 180k mile trans hold up a bit longer, especially with the 6.0)

 

[Tonyrodz]

I've been distracted a lot with the girlfriend and work and life in general but I'm back to it a bit, although not with as many pictures as I intended.

About a month ago I found a deal on Nitto 420s in 285/50/20 so I picked those up for $480 shipped and had my friend mount them. I love the way these tires look and grip on my Duramax and they drive even better on the Tahoe since it doesn't weigh 7500lbs. After the new tires I finally installed one of my new sets of headlights and turn signals (I have a second set to retrofit my Mini H1 projectors into) to clean up the front end a bit and I dropped the factory keys as low as they would go to help with the fender gap on the shorter new tires.

After a few weeks of that though it was finally time to do some real work again so on Saturday I replaced all 3 transmission cooler lines as one was seeping and then I installed my NorCal 3-4 drop in the rear and the DJM A arms and new shocks in the front along with Moog tie rods. I sort of lost my new front and rear sway bars while I was working on everything or those would have gone on as well but that won't take long to remedy later on.

The Tahoe drives amazingly well with the drop! Even without the sways the cornering is so much more dramatically flat and while the rear is definitely a bit more stiff it isn't so much that it bothers me and I think swapping shocks would help a bit. I still have a LOT of work planned and hopefully there will be many more pics next time but I got caught up in the doing of the things and less so in the recording of the things.

Soon to come:
Remove the fender flares
Body work done on the rear quarter, hatch painted and swapped, bumper chrome color-matched
Pull and repaint all the wipers and roof rack and rear corner bits so they're a nice matte black again
6.0 swap (I have a line on an LQ9 that I'm hoping to get soon)
TransGo shift kit and Corvette servo (Hopefully this will help my 180k mile trans hold up a bit longer, especially with the 6.0)

I've been distracted a lot with the girlfriend and work and life in general but I'm back to it a bit, although not with as many pictures as I intended.

About a month ago I found a deal on Nitto 420s in 285/50/20 so I picked those up for $480 shipped and had my friend mount them. I love the way these tires look and grip on my Duramax and they drive even better on the Tahoe since it doesn't weigh 7500lbs. After the new tires I finally installed one of my new sets of headlights and turn signals (I have a second set to retrofit my Mini H1 projectors into) to clean up the front end a bit and I dropped the factory keys as low as they would go to help with the fender gap on the shorter new tires.

After a few weeks of that though it was finally time to do some real work again so on Saturday I replaced all 3 transmission cooler lines as one was seeping and then I installed my NorCal 3-4 drop in the rear and the DJM A arms and new shocks in the front along with Moog tie rods. I sort of lost my new front and rear sway bars while I was working on everything or those would have gone on as well but that won't take long to remedy later on.

The Tahoe drives amazingly well with the drop! Even without the sways the cornering is so much more dramatically flat and while the rear is definitely a bit more stiff it isn't so much that it bothers me and I think swapping shocks would help a bit. I still have a LOT of work planned and hopefully there will be many more pics next time but I got caught up in the doing of the things and less so in the recording of the things.

Soon to come:
Remove the fender flares
Body work done on the rear quarter, hatch painted and swapped, bumper chrome color-matched
Pull and repaint all the wipers and roof rack and rear corner bits so they're a nice matte black again
6.0 swap (I have a line on an LQ9 that I'm hoping to get soon)
TransGo shift kit and Corvette servo (Hopefully this will help my 180k mile trans hold up a bit longer, especially with the 6.0)

That trans will def be on borrowed time!

 

[gtrslngrchris]

That trans will def be on borrowed time!

No kidding, I already feel like it is but it just seems to have no problems so far. That said, I forgot to mention I bought an HPtuners license on my boss' VCM so I am learning to tune it myself now and will definitely be blowing it up in short order so I'll be needing a 4L80E with that 6.0 when I get it!

 

[gtrslngrchris]

Last night I checked out and picked up my new LQ9 6.0L for the Tahoe and then took it to the car wash for a good degreasing and scrubbing

It's now drying in the garage until next week when I can borrow a cherry picker and do the swap. It's from an '06 Escalade with 143k on the clock and appears to be in great shape.

 

[Tonyrodz]

Last night I checked out and picked up my new LQ9 6.0L for the Tahoe and then took it to the car wash for a good degreasing and scrubbing

It's now drying in the garage until next week when I can borrow a cherry picker and do the swap. It's from an '06 Escalade with 143k on the clock and appears to be in great shape.

What's your plans? Cam, headers?

 

[gtrslngrchris]

What's your plans? Cam, headers?

Already have headers on the 5.3 and they'll swap over. Cam is likely but not until later on. I need to decide after I have the motor installed whether or not I can live with it N/A or if I need boost. A boost-ready cam won't be near as fun if I end up staying N/A.

 

[gtrslngrchris]

On Monday my roommate decided to take my intake manifold off and clean the crap out of it because it was pretty crusty and nasty and this is what he found underneath. Oddly enough the runners didn't look too bad.

Not too bad when I found leaves and pine needles and more under the intake of my C5 when I swapped to a ported LS6 manifold but still needs cleaned up a bit. Of course we went overboard a bit and polished the fronts of the heads

After we finished prepping the LQ9 to go in it was time to start taking things out. It all went pretty easily and my 5.3 valley was MUCH dirtier and the runners were pretty much completely crusted.

We got a late start due to having to drive to go get the engine stand and hoist we're going to use but a little before midnight we finished up with only needing to unbolt the trans and drain the coolant to pull the engine so we decided to waste a couple minutes seeing how underwhelming an LQ9 can look on a pallet.

P.S. Because I didn't post any of my suspension job here's a random shot of my new PRETTY lower control arms

 

[Tonyrodz]

On Monday my roommate decided to take my intake manifold off and clean the crap out of it because it was pretty crusty and nasty and this is what he found underneath. Oddly enough the runners didn't look too bad.

Not too bad when I found leaves and pine needles and more under the intake of my C5 when I swapped to a ported LS6 manifold but still needs cleaned up a bit. Of course we went overboard a bit and polished the fronts of the heads

After we finished prepping the LQ9 to go in it was time to start taking things out. It all went pretty easily and my 5.3 valley was MUCH dirtier and the runners were pretty much completely crusted.

We got a late start due to having to drive to go get the engine stand and hoist we're going to use but a little before midnight we finished up with only needing to unbolt the trans and drain the coolant to pull the engine so we decided to waste a couple minutes seeing how underwhelming an LQ9 can look on a pallet.

P.S. Because I didn't post any of my suspension job here's a random shot of my new PRETTY lower control arms

Coming along nicely! Keep the pics coming.

 

[gtrslngrchris]

I would like to say that this image is where we started but the reality is that we went from making huge progress on day 1 to hitting snags on day 2. I've NEVER seen so much red loctite on bolts before like was on the driver side motor mount. Snapped two of the bolts clean off after struggling with the impact and 1/2" ratchet so if the torch doesn't get those out today I'm probably just getting a new bracket and using old bolts from my Duramax that has upgraded mounts/bolts. After dealing with that I discovered my 3 ton jack was seized and while the warranty was up Autozone guy decided to be cool and swap it for me anyway so I lost some time running back and forth. The transmission also decided to be stuck on the engine like it was holding on for dear life so that was another chunk of time separating them.

They finally came apart and as we lifted the engine out we then realized the fans were definitely going to be a problem and so we then wrangled the efans out while the hoist was directly above preventing them from coming out. HOWEVER, finally we got this!

Tada!

Next it was time to lower the front of the trans a bit and swap a C5 Corvette servo in to help with stronger shifts.

Here's a pic of the two servos pulled apart. On the top you can see how much smaller the servo is on the factory one.

The idea is this gives more "holding power" and shifts quicker and more firmly. Did one of these on an '04 Silverado a few weeks ago to test and was very pleased with the results so in it goes!

Finally we looped a tow strap around the frame to make a sling for the trans so we could push the truck out and wash off the garage floor and that's how it sits waiting for tonight to hopefully finish it all up.

Things remaining to do:

• Fix/replace drivers side motor mount bracket
• Put the damn 6.0 in the truck
• Bolt all the things on
• Plug all the things in
• Hope HPtuners has fixed my tune file so that I can properly tune the thing because right now any changes I make to the trans or engine causes the truck to choke and die under throttle so if I'm copying calibrations from an Escalade to make it run properly it's just going to die. My roommate is a GM tech and we've replaced/reprogrammed my ECM a couple times now and pulled the factory tune with HPtuners with multiple laptops and still have tables that refuse to be set properly so hopefully support can help me out sooner rather than later.

 

[gtrslngrchris]

We went and bought my friend a Miata last night before we started working and we were a bit lazy so we didn't totally finish. However, all we have left to do is put the headers on followed by plug wires and then an oil change and turning the key!

 

[about20ninj45]

We're you and to get your tune straightened out?

 

[tgui]

Great work!

Like you my trans was stuck hard to the engine. I fought that POS with a big prybar and won after a ton of cussing.

 

[gtrslngrchris]

Finished up last night by doing all the things that I forgot were left and including the ones I remembered. I had to bolt up the crossmember in front of the engine, put the heat shield back on the transmission and then put the headers on at the same time as the y-pipe. Finally it was dip stick and my new fancy plug wires time and then intake and hooking up the battery to finish it all off!

Finished!

Action shot, this is actually the second start up but the engine was still cold and on the 5.3 factory tune.

Today I took it up to my roommates' dealership and we programmed the ecm to a Silverado SS that just happened to be there. It idled much better and did not feel like you were hurting it BUT it also caused the traction control light to come on AND it drove like a dog. I feel like these are related BUT just in case we then replace/reprogrammed the ecm to the Escalade VIN that this LQ9 came from and it seemed to respond better from the pedal in idle BUT no change on power while driving and traction control still doesn't like my ecm. My assumption is that this wouldn't work normally but since I have a remote start defeating VATS it runs BUT ABS module still cares and is throwing a fit. We tried to program the ABS module with the Escalade VIN but it wasn't taking it. My hope is if I can get HPtuners to recognize my ecm and stay licensed that I can do a VIN change and then the rest of the modules will accept it and everything will be working and if all that works then maybe I can finally tune it for real with HPT!

We're you and to get your tune straightened out?

Not yet, still waiting on HPtuners support to get back to us about it. From reading it looks like they'll just edit the stock tune file I sent them so that I can set the parameters correctly but we'll see. My hope is that what I've done today will allow me to get going faster than that but we'll see.

Like you my trans was stuck hard to the engine. I fought that POS with a big prybar and won after a ton of cussing.

It was a huge pain in the ass. Of course we planned to grease the dowels before we put the 6.0 in and forgot so I'm sure it'll be fun again the next time it has to come out.

 

[gtrslngrchris]

I took some of my holiday free time to pull the fender flares off the Tahoe. I was expecting paint damage and I definitely got it.

I had to give it a wash before I removed all the adhesive.

I broke out the DA polisher and went to work. It's not perfect but it's a good 10-15 footer now at least. I love the way the truck is turning out and hopefully soon I'll take it to have body and paint work done for real.

Still haven't got it running at full power yet but I did confirm that the throttle body is barely opening at WOT. Hopefully I can get my ecm flashed back to factory soon and then have HPtuners get my tune file usable so I can actually make use of my new engine!