Rocket Man's 02 Denali Build Thread AKA "THE BEAST"

[Rocket Man]

And since I had the steering wheel off, I noticed the lights for the steering wheel controls didn't work, so back to this forum I went. A bit of reading later and I learned how to replace the bulbs. I was an electronic tech back in the day, so soldering wasn't a problem.

 

[Rocket Man]

Around this time I started looking at the front end and started changing things here and there. I wanted a bumper grill that matched the main grill. Anybody who has tried to find one knows what I went through, after Denali Down Under stopped making these. I found one, one of Eugene's last ones. It was black powdercoated so I had it PC'd in a chrome look. Later on this will go to black again after I go to the Dark Side. Much later. I also found something else that's about impossible these days- an Escalade cowl piece that doesn't have the cutout for an antenna. It was NOS and a dealer in the Midwest charged me 3 times retail for it. I think the mod fever was hitting about this time.

 

[Rocket Man]

My Arnott suspension arrived and I installed it. And the compressor wouldn't start up. After some troubleshooting I found the ground lug corroded and that fixed it. It fired up and...jacked the rear up about an inch higher than it was after I just paid to lower it. Damn. The links for the ride height sensors were too long, so I read here about making my own. You just unscrew the plastic ends and cut allthread or bolt thread to the appropriate length. I experimented with different length of rods until it sat at the lowest height I could get it. Only problem is when I jacked it up a few days later and the suspension was hanging, the rods pulled out because they were too short. So I added just enough that wouldn't happen, and ended up about 3/8" higher than I wanted but now it worked. I could tow my trailer with my 26's and they wouldn't rub. Well, the back was fixed anyway. I had only begun cutting the front fender liners at this time. And rolling the inside of the fenders (after a big bump and the tires pulling the inside lips of my fenders out).

 

[Rocket Man]

And then the dreaded " Srevice Ride Control" message came back. But everything was working fine. So back to the forum. I decided to take it to a shop to read the codes in the Suspension Control Module since an OBDII doesn't read those. It pointed to the front shocks, which had Arnott's "spoofers" for the electronic damping. I contacted Arnott, who sent me another set under warranty. That fixed it for awhile. The light was off, system was working and I was happy. More on that later. Happiness with the Autoride is fleeting at times. Here's the spoofer which is a resistor that plugs into the factory connector and mounts to the top of the front shock.

 

[Rocket Man]

And back to the forum I went, where in the tech section, I found out I could make my fog lights stay on all the time whenever I turned my headlights on. Sweet. Then my HID kit came, and I installed them in my newly acquired projectors. And with the auto headlamp function came the death of my ballasts. I had noticed that with the auto headlamps enabled, the HID's would be trying to fire up at the same time the starter was drawing the voltage down and I kept blowing ballasts. So there in the tech section, I found out how to disable that. I no longer have ballast problems. Then I found out how to keep the low beams on when I hit the high beams so the HID's would not turn off and then take time to light back up when I went back to low beams. Then while I was at it, I found out how to run the DRL's full time when the headlights are on. Or off. Sweet. Oh, and I found out about HIR bulbs for the high beams. So now I had what was known as the 4 hi mod, 6 hi mod, and what I call the 8 hi mod with DRL's included, with auto headlight disable. Then I started replacing everything with LED and colormatching them. Here's a couple pictures of the fueblock with the diodes and jumpers for the DRL and foglight mods. And a couple shots of the lights all on.

 

[05Single]

Very nice. About time you shared this info lol

 

[Rocket Man]

I look back now and realize how much I've done. And keep doing. It never ends does it?

 

[Rocket Man]

I decided to install a DD head unit in the dash but the '02 has a 1 1/2 DIN as stock, so I found out I could buy an '03-up dash bezel and radio cage and convert it. Off to Ebay and soon I had what I needed. I had to remove a metal brace behind the stereo but everything went well. I used PAC interfaces for the factory wiring connections and steering wheel controls, with all wiring soldered and heat-shrinked. That took care of the head unit.
I also installed a back-up camera at this time.

 

[Rocket Man]

Then I had a hole where the factory CD changer was. I couldn't find anything that just mounted there so I took the brackets off the old CD changer and fabbed them to a single-DIN pocket. It slides right in, in place of the factory changer. And it looks factory.

 

[Rocket Man]

Next I needed more bass. I was running everything off the factory Lux amp, which is the best GM had at the time and is actually not bad. The Denali had the Bose Acoustimass enclosure in the rear driver side quarter panel. I looked into upgrading the sub itself but due to Bose's proprietary system, that was impossible. here's the stock enclosure, with the Bose 4 x 7sub. It has a port where the bass comes out of with a 7th order bypass (I believe) enclosure. The actual sub is mounted in the interior.