Dean's '11 Crew Cab Budget Build

If you have a good local tuner, I'd go with them. Not knocking BlackBear, they're great with LS motor's and great people, but you can't really beat the ease of access for someone local.

Just look at it this way: you go to a tune meet, get tuned, then want to add something or change something. What do you do? Wait for another tune meet that may or may not happen? Buy an AutoCal too?

Imo, local is best, then autocal.
 
I'd go with a trusted local tuner. A little more but easier to drive 1.5 hrs for a retune rather than waiting a year

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Been a while, so I felt this needed an update. Two weeks ago, as some of you know, I got ran off of the road on my way home from work. Long story short, I bent both passenger side wheels and busted the strut.

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Luckily the strut was covered under belltech's warranty and was replaced. Both wheels were bent pretty good, so I decided to go on and replace them instead of repairing them. I had the dealer check out the front end for damage and all looked good.

With all of the expenses I've had involving the truck recently (front end rebuild, wheels/tires, now this) I'm going to have to put a hold on anything else for now. Although I would love to do more with it right now, it just doesn't make sense financially.

With that said, here are some plans for when I have the funds.

Suspension - 2" belltech coils, street edge flip kit, and helper bags. If needed, I'll do the belltech camber kit.

Performance - Poss. some headers, muffler/catback, and tune from local tuner.

After going to the track a couple weeks ago with a local group, I'm leaning more towards doing some bolt on performance mods to optimize the tune when I get it. Since I already have the airaid MIT, that basically leaves the exhaust. I'm starting to toss around the idea of headers, but I've got to do some more digging. Realistically, it will be next spring before I even get the chance to do anything other than maintain it and enjoy it.
 
Got the front windows retinted today. The passenger window had a really bad washboard look to it. Went from what I think was 35% (max legal) to 20% to match the rear windows.
 
I've had a lot of time to think about the direction I want to go with the truck and wanted to give this an update.

I know the truck at 4/6-7 would look fantastic, but the more I think about it, the more I realize I really like where the front of the truck sits. The touch of rake is also starting to get to me more though. I've done tons of digging and reading on it, and I've decided to try pulling the overload leaf and see how I like it. It may not get me completely level, but it will be within .25 - .5 of it. I hardly ever tow or haul anymore, so I'm not really gaining anything by having them. If I find myself towing again, I'll add some helper bags.

Pulling the overload isn't supposed to change anything ride wise, but some people complain of axle wrap. If I get any severe axle wrap, I plan on fabbing up some long bars or assassin bars. Since I work in a machine shop, I'll mainly just have time into it. I'm already working on a rough design for the assassin bars, so I'll have a good starting point if I need them.

On to the fun part - Once I get the back end where I want it, I'm going to focus on performance. The mods will most likely consist of LT Headers, a catback, and a tune from either bluecat or ShorTuning (both local tuners). The local club I joined has mainly performance cars and I've caught the go-fast itch for the truck. It's still my daily, so the mods listed above will probably be it.
 
I pulled the overload leafs tody and measurements (ground to fenderwell) are 34" front and 34.5" rear. I took it for a little test drive and haven't noticed any ill effects yet. Previously I had a clamp holding the overload to the leaf pack, so it seems to ride a bit better from what I can tell. Here's a quick pic I took on the test drive.

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Thanks guys. There's one thing that has come up that I wasn't expecting since I'm only at 2/4 drop. Even with the mild drop, I'm bottoming out over hard road/bridge transitions. When I first lowered it, I trimmed the bumpstops. Now I think I'm going to have to cut the whole bracket off and put new ones in. Here's how much clearance I have currently.

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Made those at work, they are stainless. Also made the block ontop of the leaf pack to account for the removed overload leaf.

Ill look into the bumpstops. I think energy suspension makes some and the local auto parts stores carry them. If they are cheaper I may go that route.
 
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