still gotta clean up the paint on the roof but here’s what’s left after the rack is off. Little bit ugly but you don’t really notice it unless your looking for it

 

People say my black Tahoe on chrome 20s looks like something a drug dealer blasting Young Jeezy should own.

Did you just put the OEM roof rack bolts back in the holes? I think it looks fine to anybody but a giraffe.

I feel ya about the trans swap idc what you end up doing I'm just happy to see another SUV build going on. Especially something different.

 

They are just rounded allen head m6x1.0 bolts. The stock ones were a bit longer and not a full thread on them so I ran to ace hardware and picked these up put some rvt black on the threads just Incase and threaded them in. No leaks yet. And yeah man the transmission thing has been kind of a pain in the *** to be honest. I’m gonna run up to the Sherwood pick and pull this week and look to see if I can find any 4l80e trans there or maybe a 5 speed but that’s doubtful. I will probably end up turboing the motor before doing a Tranny swap and if it holds together awesome, if not I’ll have a backup plan by then.

I spent sometime cleaning the engine bay today while I waited for a customer who never showed up to get his cammed lq4 truck tuned. I definitely prefer to spend the time to wash and clean everything prior to digging into it. Also one of my buddy’s wants the non return rails and I have a spare set on a 5.3l manifold I just got given to me so I’ll have some stock return style rails I can run and swap the fuel pump out and at least have that part knocked out. After that I will probably do a ls9 cam and some valve springs and valve seals while I’m in there as well as tap the timing cover for return oil drain for the turbo.

not a bad looking motor for 242k miles.

Also I almost bought a reg cab short bed colorado today but somehow overcame my car buying addiction to not pull the trigger on it. Super clean truck but then I’d end up with a 8k dollar parts list of stuff to do and end up with a 6.0l in it.

 

Finally swapped on the used bilstein shocks I got from pick a part off a Tahoe that was there. Compared them on the ground to the Belltech nitro 2 shocks that were on the truck and they take about 50-60% more effort to compress down. The truck feels much better after the new front shocks are on like day and night difference. Gonna swing by pick a part tomorrow and grab the rear shocks if they are still there and throw those on the back. Also ordered some new black housing headlights for the caddy that look like the stock headlights other then the black backing. Mine are fairly foggy even after wet sanding and buffing them out. And I ordered new oil cooler lines since I have one that leaks a tiny bit. Once I get the stock one off I’m gonna cut them and see if I’ll be able to run an oil feed line from them or not using pushlok connectors. If I can it would make the feedline setup super simple to do. I feel good about putting some love into my truck finally and spending a little here and there.

 

She cleans up nice.

Those headlights should look good. Does the Escalade have the rear air ride?

 

It had it when I got it but the shocks were super blown out and I didn’t feel like messing with it. I don’t tow anything with a really heavy tongue weight anyways so I don’t really need them. I pulled the compressor off and gave it to my buddy for his express van that he wants to retro fit it on. Once I upgrade my sway bars I’ll give him my old ones as well. Also I scaled it last night and it weighed 5300lbs with about a quarter tank in it. When I put the turbo kit on I’ll run the smallest wastegate spring I have which I think is a 4lb spring and that will give me plenty of time to make sure the tune is dialed in before turning it up as well as be safer on the drivetrain. I plan on taking my time with everything so I can make sure all kinks get worked out before worrying about making power out of it. Also been thinking about getting a ls9 cam for the truck for when I do the valve springs/ stem seals in it. The whole btr kit with the ls9 cam, valve springs, stem seals and gen 4 timing cover with cam position sensor is like $375 and $20 for the extension harness for the cam sensor. Not sure if I should do a new timing chain at the same time but it wouldn’t hurt. I will tap the timing cover for the return too before throwing it on.


is there a place that explains all the short lingo for chasis like nbs nnbs obs rcsb (I think that ones regular cab short bed lol) I keep seeing that stuff but it’s a bit over my head.

 

DO NOT DO THE LS9 CAM

been there, done that. 2002 5.3 Tahoe, about 5500lbs at the time.

I even went so far as to get an adjustable timing set and advanced that ****** 4*. Terrible truck cam. Helped me make 477 through the bone stock exhaust, but it was garbage below 3k

from a dig, stab the throttle and it just made noise. Made less than a peanuts worth of torque off the line

 

Good to know man. Glad I posted on here before buying anything. What would you recommend? I have thought about just keeping the stock lq9 cam in there and just changing the valve springs. Honeslty I don’t care to rev it out any more then stock rev limiter and would prefer the best cam for low/ mid range and fuel economy.

 

I replaced the LS9 cam with a TSP 212/218 .550/.550 on 112 LSA and I couldn't say more nice things about it

however I'm a littler smaller in liters than you and lugging more weight. I have more gear, but also more tire. You will be better off with a bigger cam than that, but the 212/218 has shown good gains even on the bigger motors

tight lsa and small duration= stock converter friendly

 

My Tahoe has the high lift version of the 212/218 cam. I thinks it's on a 112lsa. Very good all around cam doesn't feel like it falls on its face at 6500rpm either.