GXPJAY

Hi Everyone,

I've been lurking here for a while and have actually owned my truck since Jan 2010, I bought it used with 30k KM. It's a 5.3L 4x4 Z71 and it now has 125k KM. I didn't do anything to it except a Corvette Servo, front level with Billstein 5100's and a AFE air filter up until April of this year. Finally paid the thing off so now it's time to mod

I will go through the plans and then post a bunch of pics since a lot of this has been done already, the rest is happening very soon. The main component will be a Cartuning Turbo kit, they are big in the Grand Prix Scene I had their kit on my 98 Grand Prix and they used my 06 Grand Prix GXP for Prototype of their GXP kits. They make kits for the Escalade/Yukons 6.2L and they will just adapt it to fit my 5.3L, more on that later. I do not work for them and am not getting this for free, just in case people think I'm advertising, I have a of confidence in Cartuning and them being local and they also do the tuning it's a no brainer for me.

Goals for the truck are to get more power to the wheels (>500whp) and be faster and quicker in the 1/4 mile (<12.1 @ 122) compared to my previous Turbo car which was a 06 Grand Prix GXP. Dyno Video Track Video

This should be pretty easily doable I think right? Both are 5.3L but FWD was brutal

Ok, Plan:
-Lower Truck 3/5 with Belltech Kit - Done
-Get new rims, 20's or 22's - Probably won't be until next year
-Install Hellwig rear sway bar - Done
-Debadge - Done
-Install Brian Tooley Spring kit - Done
-Install MSD DashHawk, AEM FailSafe and AEM TruBoost Gauges - Done
-Have a Cartuning Escalade Turbo kit installed to fit my 5.3L, will likely be a Precison 7275CEA turbo, their kit is low mounted right after the factory Y pipe, full front mount Intercooler, Alky kit, pump for oil return, injectors/Fuel/tuning basically all the bells and whistles needed - Happening in the next week
-4L80E swap once 4L60E blows up, I have the trans already, ordered 32 spline Tcase input shaft, deciding on what company to go with for Converter and still need to get the trans rebuilt with the HD2 shift kit. hoping to have this all prepared for the inevitability of the 4L60 blowing up so I don't have too much downtime

That's pretty much it, here are some pics:

What it looked like when I first bought it, Jan 2010.






This is what it looked like before I lowered it, just leveled with the Bilstein 5100's and you can see I had just picked up a new Traeger Smoker that morning, lol







This is the Belltech kit I used, Part#647SP which technically isn't for the 4x4, shhhhhhhhhhhhh



Can you tell I like Skis?






This is what it looked like right after lowering.


Here is the Brian Tooley Spring Kit I got and some install pics, my engine bay is DIRTY.




Old Springs


New Springs


Installed a MSD DashHawk so I can monitor KR, Oil Pressure etc., also installed the AEM Failsafe gauge which is really neat and the AEM TruBoost. You might wonder why I have basically two boost gauges well I owned the TruBoost already and the Failsafe from my buddy whose an AEM dealer was only $40 more than the AEM Wideband so I figured why not, I'll display AFR on the Failsafe and Boost on the TruBoost and I can at least control boost from inside the cabin which is a nice feature. I used the Mount for the Edge unit and did some custom mounting for the AEM's.

GXPJAY

This is what it looks like as of today, fully de-badged, side mouldings removed, lowered and I painted the front emblem so that the intercooler comes out when it's back there.









I'll answer any questions and keep this updated as the weeks/months go by with this project, can't wait to get boosted, it's been 4 years since I've had my GXP so 4 years without boost has been really brutal.

Jay

GXPJAY

Lots of interest in this project I see...lol

I just ordered my Yank Pro Truck Converter for the 4L80E taking advantage of the Fathers Day sale they had, went with 3200 stall, didn't go with the Multi Disk because this is my daily driver, I don't street race and I might go to the track once a year so I wanted it to be a little smoother and don't see myself locking the converter at WOT.

There was an opening in the calender so dropping my truck off at Cartuning tomorrow and they will install everything but the turbo and then next week it will go back in to install the turbo, finish all of that and tune it. I'll post pics later this week of what it looks like half installed.

Man I can taste boost I am very anxious.

TIM Z

iTrader: (12)

I've been lurking haha , you def have the mods in place / coming to make a badass street truck !

AlljackedupZ71

It's coming along nicely!! Keep up the work.. wanna see some BOOST.

Bfhdave

Awesome Truck build GXPJAY. I'm subscribed

Choda

iTrader: (1)

Awesome build. Similar to mine. Subscribed

Good luck man. How hard was the drop kit? Did it come w everything and direct bolt on?

ACLR8R

iTrader: (2)

Any updates on the turbo kit?

GXPJAY

Well, there's been a "tiny" bit of a delay as you can see, lol but I'm here with updates.

Choda that drop kit wasn't too bad to install, but there's a bunch of cutting involved for the flip kit so good to have a die grinder, angle grinder and my air hammer helped. Took me a weekend.

Ok well 2 weeks ago I dropped the truck off to get the turbo on, they started with the intercooler which fit as expected, installed the Meth Kit and turbo oil feed line but then they ran into a snag, on Cartuning's Escalade kit they bolt the turbo to the Y pipe where the exhaust normally connects and then they have a 90deg elbow towards the frame and back to connect to the exhaust (picture below) however for some reason while this fits an Escalade it did not fit my truck, the turbo was way too close to the frame and couldn't get a 90deg in there. So either my 2007 uses a GMT800 frame or the GMT900 Truck and SUV frames are different, I don't know.



So, they then decided to do a new front mount setup which meant they had to order parts etc. so I dropped the truck off last night, hopefully in a week or two I'll have it done and I'll provide an update. This will be a custom setup from scratch.

In the meantime though I've done a few things, changed the factory 17's with something a little nicer (nice intercooler shot here, yes I drove around with an interfooler for a while )

GXPJAY

Also have everything ready (minus crossmember and axles) for the 4L80E swap. I figure we'll just modify my crossmember when we're doing the swap and I can't find another NNBS 4x4 4L80E swap so I'm going to wait to measure for the front and rear axles when the tranny is in.

Yank Billet Single Disk PT3200 converter




Picked up this 32spine input shaft for my transfer case, again I "think" this is the right one from all the reading I did but will only know when we crack the T-case and put it in, it fits the output shaft of the tranny lol



here it is with the SnowPerformance -6AN fittings and the Tcase fluid



And here's the 4L80E freshly rebuilt, just a regular re-build with shift kit



My plan is to see how far we can go with the stock 4L60 (corvette Servo, stock converter) and then do the 4L80E swap and see how much it affects WHP on the dyno and times at the track.

That's all for now, hopefully I'll have updates soon with some turbo pics!

Jay