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

[Rocket Man]

So, I decided to go with an MTX Thunderform enclosure which MTX says won't work with a Denali. This has to do with the fact that there's the stock Lux amp mounted in the way. I found here on the forum, that that amp could be mounted in the compartment that's built into the panel. Then the jack that was mounted back there needed to be mounted under the hood, where a second battery would go, and the tool kit went under the 2nd row seats. I ended up with a JL Audio 10" sub and a Soundstream Picasso nano 450 watt monoblock amp. It sounds real real good. And it's complete stealth.
I followed this member's install. ( the member's name is justplayinn) Keep in mind this is for the Denali's only. The Thunderform enclosure is for a 10" sub and they offer the allowable dimensions for it on their website.

From member "justplayinn":

I ordered the thunderform hoping it would fit in my 2001 Denali... I hated the box in the back and wanted my cargo space back...And it worked!! Here a few pics i took on the install

factory Bose sub and amp

after all removed

replaced the MTX sub with the Polk MM1040

cut a hole in the cubby and moved the factory Bose amp

with cubby bracket installed

 

[Rocket Man]

Here's my finished amp and speaker. The amp came with a remote gain control and combined with all the adjustments in the Sony HU, I have unlimited control over the entire system. I also later replaced the 4 door speakers with 2- ohm (Bose Lux amp compatible) JBL 628's. The hybrid system sounds great. I feel I'm using the best of both worlds, with the stock amp driving 8 satellite speakers ((2) A-pillar tweeters, (4) 6 1/2 door speakers and (2) rear pillar speakers, and the Soundstream amp driving the 10" JL sub.

 

[Rocket Man]

I also started working on the interior of the truck. First was the front seats. The bottoms were pretty worn so I ordered replacements from Richmond Auto Upholstery and followed their instructions to install them. And since the seats were going to be out, I decided to replace the dirty carpet. I looked at samples and finally decided on a color that was a bit darker than stock but wouldn't clash too much with what was on the backs of the 2nd row seats and bottom of the console. Here's a few shots before and after of the seats.

 

[Rocket Man]

Here's the new carpet. I also ordered a bit extra carpet and did the bottoms of the front door panels. The carpet was not too bad, cutting it was a ***** due to the mass backing I ordered it with. I opted to just cut slits where the bolts came through so the areas around the seats looked cleaner, instead of making cutouts like the factory stuff had. I was able to get the nuts started and then tighten things down. It came out real clean. I ended up buying a matching rug that fits the rear cargo area perfect. I needed the cutouts because I use my 3rd row seats occasionally. At this time, I also removed the speaker grills from the door panels and painted them with matching SEM 17163 paint.

 

[Rocket Man]

On the exterior there were a few things I wanted to fix up. The wiper arms were faded as well as all the black plastic on the running boards and rear bumper. I bought all new OEM wiper arms, then I removed all the faded plastic and at first I tried restoring it using the heatgun method but that only worked on the smooth areas. Where there was bumps, raised areas or other irregularities it turned it more white. I ended up using Krylon Fusion semi-gloss black paint. It came out nice and a year later it still looks great.

 

[Rocket Man]

At this point it was looking better inside and out. I bought some Esky rear appliques and had them color matched. Here's an exterior shot from that time. This was almost exactly a year ago, I believe.

 

[Rocket Man]

One other exterior item was bothering me- the exhaust tip. The Denali tip is fine, but mine was not looking so good and I wanted something that went with my black/ pewter theme so I bought this black chrome tip and installed it.

 

[Fosscore]

So much win in this thread. Great mods to a killer looking Denali. Nice work man.

 

[Rocket Man]

At this point my cats got clogged up and as I was looking into replacing them, I made the decision to use high-flow ones and right about then I started moving away from making the Denali look better to making the Denali faster and better-handling. I replaced the muffler along with the cats. I went with a Flowmaster 50 series which was pretty loud but fortunately I didn't experience a drone problem. I also installed a Spectre CAI and got rid of the terrible stock air intake. The Spectre isn't the best or most expensive CAI but it works well and I get a bit of an intake growl. Forgive the dirty engine bay in these pictures.

 

[Rocket Man]

Next I needed a tune and E-fans so I gave Blackbear performance a call and decided since they're never over here in Oregon to do an in-person tune, I'd opt for the Autocal purchase option which allows me to go out and drive around, doing data logging, e-mail them the log, and they e-mail me the tune files which I then load onto my ECM via the Autocal. At this time I had them activate the pin to enable control of Efans. The tune really woke the truck up, especially with the new intake and exhaust components. And calibrated my speedometer for my tires.

 

[Rocket Man]

Then came Efans. I bought a harness from www.LS1fans.com and a set of Flex-a-Lite fans and installed them after the tune.

 

[Rocket Man]

Next was a catch-can to collect the oil from my pcv system and keep it from going into my intake. www.catchcans.com was my source for this, along with a trip to the auto parts store for some tubing and hose clamps.

 

[Rocket Man]

So much win in this thread. Great mods to a killer looking Denali. Nice work man.

Thanks @Fosscore !

 

[Rocket Man]

Oh, almost forgot, I bought a Corvette servo for the tranny and chickened out on the install and had a local tranny shop install it for $50. That helped when I had the tune installed and had BB remove torque management and tighten up the shifting.

 

[Rocket Man]

Next I started on the suspension. With my 2/4 drop, it was better at cornering and stopping than stock, but I wanted it to stay flatter during high-speed maneuvers and hard braking. I was having some issue with rubbing on the right rear tire when cornering hard, and after reading up on the rear suspension geometry on these trucks, I got to work. First I reversed the rear shock bolts which helped a bit. Then I ordered and installed a Spohn adjustable panhard bar which allowed me to adjust the rear suspension side-to-side. Then came a DJM rear anti-sway bar and rear offset endlinks to keep that bar from hitting the panhard bar mount. I went ahead and bought a DJM front anti-sway bar and Energy Suspension front endlinks at the same time and installed it all. Now it was handling great, flat in the corners and no nose dive when braking hard. I seem to be missing pictures from most of these mods but here's a couple.

 

[Rocket Man]

I noticed some steering play so I took it to a shop and they gave me a list of recommended parts that needed replacing. I decided to rebuild the front end for the most part. I ordered Moog UCA's, lower ball joints, idler arm, idler arm bracket, and tie rod ends, as well as an AC Delco Professional Pitman arm. I was thinking about doing this work myself but since this is my DD I decided to have a shop install it all. What a huge improvement in steering! Sorry no pictures...

 

[Rocket Man]

I also decided to help these big wheels and tires to stay straight so I bought a KYB steering stabilizer and installed it. Better steering still.

 

[Rocket Man]

I also bought some new front jounce stops but they lifted the front up a bit so I trimmed them down before installing.

 

[Rocket Man]

the whole front chrome thing had been bothering me forever but I couldn't find a grill that wasn't chrome for an '02 Denali. I looked into stripping the chrome off a new one but was told by a few chrome shops that wasn't possible. Then I tried it myself by buying a new chrome one off Ebay and trying to strip the chrome off my old one. I succeeded. In ruining my old stock grill. I tried everything that Youtube videos said would work, including a torch, muriatic acisd, and many many chemicals and cleaners. So I talked to my friend who owns a bodyshop and he said he couldn't guarantee how long paint would last. But he did a damn good job,; he sanded the sh*t out of the new one, used a self-etching primer, and sprayed and cleared it. I went with body color for the main part and black for the honeycomb and color matched the GMC emblem. I liked it. But the lights were next since they were all chrome. I ordered some Spyder black with smoke lenses in both corner and headlights, and some Lamin-X film for some new OEM fog lamps.

 

[Rocket Man]

Then I had to color match all the front LED and HID lights which took some guessing and experimenting due to the different colors of the tint/smoke on the lenses.