Hey everyone! I'm excited to share my build with all of you and bounce ideas and get inspirations from everyone! As the title states I own a 2004 GMC Sierra ...

Hey everyone! I'm excited to share my build with all of you and bounce ideas and get inspirations from everyone!
As the title states I own a 2004 GMC Sierra 2500HD, with a 6.0 that i bought almost 4 years ago. All i have done this far is a K&N intake and a Superchips programmer, as well as rebuild the t-case to take care of the infamous pin hole leak. I've also debagged the truck, but that's just aesthetics.

The Superchips leaves a LOT to be desired, but at the time i couldn't afford much more. I also found out when i went to flash the PCM with it that the truck already had a programmer on it that was never divorced, so i had to have Superchips write and send me a bypass. I honestly haven't noticed much difference at all, maybe it's possible that is what was already installed? I won't spend much time yaking about the programmer, because everyone seems to already know SC is junk. I had a Bully Dog on my old '01 8.1L before and liked it a lot, but I'm planning on going custom. Either have Lew work something up for me or my wife's friend's husband does customs and did one for his 1500. If i have the friend do it, I plan on using an Edge Insight CTS2 for a monitor (and the back up camera). Or maybe go Diablo and use Lew. Haven't decided yet.
The K&N intake seems pretty good, but i wonder if theres a better option. I was looking at the Volant intakes and was wondering if anyone has experience with them and how they liked it or if you guys have any other recomendations for an intake that will be better than the K&N?

THE PLANS
Engine/Transmission
-New intake
-Headers
-3" dual exhaust dumping passenger side before the axle with black RBP 5" tips.
-Electric fan
-Oil catch can (never heard of these until i got signed up on here, but after reading how beneficial they are this will be for sure going on there)
-Maybe a mild/medium cam?
-Trans rebuild w/ shift kit and heavy duty components
-

Suspension/Drivetrain (the big one!)
*Currenty has a 6" lift with rear blocks.
-Straight axle swap, with custom fab 5 link suspension with coil overs (links will be cerakoted an accent color)
-Cognito 8" rear leaf springs to accomplish a 10" lift
-3:73 gears? (tell me your thoughts)
-Auto locking rear end
-delete the center support driveline bearing? (tell me your thoughts!)

Exterior
-22" mega offset deep dish wheels
-37" or 40" tires
-Silverado hood and baja fenders
-Silverado LED halo headlights with black housing
-Custom grille painted with black textured bedliner
-Custom front and rear bumper painted black textured bedliner
-Body painted grey non textured bedliner

Interior
-My biggest issue right now is finding new front seats. My driver seat especially is wrecked. I can't find a good dark grey faux leather power driver seat to save my life. So i may end up swapping in racing seats.
-NNBS jump seat console
-Cerakote trim pieces to match the links accent colors
-Gauges

I know that's a lot, but I have welding and fab experience and also am a service manager for a franchise shop and one of our vendors is a distributor for a ton of aftermarket performance companies like Edge, Diablo, Doug Thorley, Banks, Borla, Flomaster, etc. So between buying parts at cost, and doing pretty much all the labor and fab myself i should be able to make it happen without having to sell my house!

I'm also open to suggestions from you guys on things. Like i said in the list, what are your thoughts on gear ratios, deleting the center support bearing, etc?
I'll attach some current state photos next. Thanks for reading!

Hi Andrew...sounds like you have quite plans for a real beasts.

A lot of people here use Diablo tuners, and also have the custom Lew tune. He has a special deal for a package to save you some money if you buy direct from him.

I'm thinking you want higher than 3.73 gears for what you're going to do, especially if you go that high to run 37's or 40's...

And in my humble opinion...don't ruin a nice NBS with big giant wheels, especially deep dish wheels and low profile tires...aside from how bad it looks, on a lift that big, you're going to want more tire and less wheel for better ride and overall stability.

Pics my man! Pics!

That is quite the list Andrew. Agree with the above...you have got to post up lots of pictures of your truck on a build...from where it started and then the mods.

Most on here...myself included...just run an Airaid MIT and keep the stock filter box. It pulls outside air vs engine heated air and cleans up the engine bay of the oem goofy tube. Make a bit more noise. It does flow better which can be capitalized on with a custom tune. The catch cans are cool...but not really necessary on our vortec engines. They do keep from burning some of the oil and coating the intake though.

I just installed an S&B intake on my 2015 5.3 and the quality of the intake was impressive for the price point. I fully support wide wheels with lip. 22s and 37s or 40s will give you plenty of meat still around the tire. I am getting a custom tune done probably next weekend by Diablew, and he has already been awesome to work with.

With your stock 2500HD you should already have 3.73s
4.10 was an option on gassers.

If you do the straight axle swap (which would be awesome) and plan on running 37-40“ tires, I‘d suggest 4.56 minimum.
Thats what most people consider when going with 35s to have power and good mpgs.
You can find a tire size and gear ratio caluclator here on this forum (somebody will link it for sure) which gives you a pretty good idea what would your best choice.

I‘m very interested in your project, please share alot here!
Still not sure what to with my NBS interior haha


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Here’s some photos of where it’s at right now. Sorry, I had to learn how to add photos!

ElReeso wrote:With your stock 2500HD you should already have 3.73s
4.10 was an option on gassers.

If you do the straight axle swap (which would be awesome) and plan on running 37-40“ tires, I‘d suggest 4.56 minimum.
Thats what most people consider when going with 35s to have power and good mpgs.
You can find a tire size and gear ratio caluclator here on this forum (somebody will link it for sure) which gives you a pretty good idea what would your best choice.

I‘m very interested in your project, please share alot here!
Still not sure what to with my NBS interior haha


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Hey bud thanks for the tip! I could have sworn it was 4.10 but I could be wrong. I’ll have to check the rpo codes again to see for sure. I had thought I had a 4L60 trans but someone said it’s the 80 so I wanna check on that too.

ricka182 wrote:Hi Andrew...sounds like you have quite plans for a real beasts.

A lot of people here use Diablo tuners, and also have the custom Lew tune. He has a special deal for a package to save you some money if you buy direct from him.

I'm thinking you want higher than 3.73 gears for what you're going to do, especially if you go that high to run 37's or 40's...

And in my humble opinion...don't ruin a nice NBS with big giant wheels, especially deep dish wheels and low profile tires...aside from how bad it looks, on a lift that big, you're going to want more tire and less wheel for better ride and overall stability.

Hey Ricka, I used to hate the look of deep dish wheels but over time they kind of grew on me. I’m always going back and forth on the aesthetics so who knows what I’ll end up doing when the time comes. It’ll probably end up being a game time decision lol.

I could be wrong, but that looks like a 2003, not a 2004...just based on the headlights. Still a nice looking rig for the most part, and with some pretty nice future plans waiting on it...lol