Too much reading and no pics, sorry.........As for the stiff ride, that was all taken care of last week. The kings were revalved softer and the secondary rate stops were moved up to about 1/2 inch from block heigth which is over 2 inches further up than before. The stops were only about 1/2 inch away making the ride soft(222 rate) and when you hit a big bounce the lower (500)would come slamming in.Down south motorsports helped me choose the proper valving. Since i sold my winter wheels i bought another set of goodyear military mtr's on black steel wheels. I will use my stock chevy center caps and lug nuts on those.
Now that its all fixed i've been looking to add more power. At 1st i was going to do a head, cam, intake etc swap. That would of made me about 100 hp, it would of come to with quality parts and me doing the labor to about 4k. Now the intake alone is 900 of that and the heads to bump up compression were about the same. I was about to do it and what ruined the idea was riding in a supercharged stock 6.0 that has been done for years with 8-9psi. the truck has 175k on it and runs like a clock. That has about 140-150hp added with a tvs1900. Needless to say i needed a magnacharger instead, i had to have one . Yes a little more money but it will help me in about every way with power that i need. Im going to do a new oil pump since the pickup o-ring is bad. While i'm in there it will get a new timing set also and since the intake will be off too im going to do new knock sensors. I also picked up a nice set of taylor wires, sparkplugs and a fuel filter. Since my fuel pump is pretty new and is a good gm pump that part should be good. That stuff will all be done at the same time. This will be the complete kit, has the heat exchanger, pulleys belts, added fuel pump etc. its about a 7-8 hour job for a normal person. Here is a link for one..
http://store.blackbearperformance.c...--03-13-48L-53L-03-07-Classic-60L_p_1243.html
Since the new straight axle 4 link was done i wanted to redo the exhaust since at about 4 inches of uptravel it hits the left side crossover. The hd trucks are dual exhaust back to the muffler so i purchased a set of stainless works long tube headers and the dual connecting pipes. That will give me nice flow on the exhaust side to help with the supercharger. I am also looking now for a complete exhaust system to complement the rest of the parts i bought. The corsa or the magnaflow kit looks really nice, but im not sure yet.
http://stainlessworks.net/2003-2006-chevy-gmc-6-0l-4wd-truck-offroad-headers
With all of that added ill need the tune for the charger, headers and also turn off the rear 02 sensors. I purchased the blackbear autocal package, that way i can down load my stock tune in the handheld then email it to them. They will make the adjustments needed, ill load that in the pcm and go back and forth a few times till its all taken care of. Usually it takes about 3 times to get it where it needs to be. The links i posted are examples, there are better prices i have found after a few hours of searching. After all this is done in about a month, i am off the second week of august, i hope everythings here by then. Probably also going to start collecting the parts to refresh the 4l80e with a little extra beef for the new added power. So with having the front axle, rear axle, all the suspention, transfercase, driveline, brakelines,fuel lines,tranny lines, power steering lines, pump, box alternator and just did the ac compressor plus stuff i forgot etc.. done within the past year this thing should be pretty darn awesome. Later on this year i will also be doing some body work, not that it really needs any. A few weeks ago i picked up an 06 hood and grille. The lower rockers and my steps are getting linex sprayed on them and anything that needs to be painted to get it up to par will be done. Then it should be done for awhile....