Our project tow vehicle can stop on a dime and has some gorgeous wheels to boot but it needs to be lowered just a hair to give it the right look. Above is some things you are provided with this 2 (front) 3 (rear) lowering kit from Belltech Suspension. The kit also comes with shocks which we will install. A Part 2 will also take place to show how we put on Belltech Swaybars.

Raise the Tahoe and place it on jack stands under the front crossbeam. Remove the tire. Disconnect the vehicle speed sensor(VSS) from the Tahoe at the frame rail. Remove the tie rod from the spindle. Now remove the brake caliper (you can keep it attached if you support the caliper), caliper bracket, and brake rotor.

Remove the nuts for the upper and lower control arms.

With a jack placed under the Spindle, hammer the side of the spindle near the control arms until it “pops” off the control arms. The jack will now support the weight of the spindle.

Remove the three bolts that will separate the spindle from the hub.

Once the three bolts are taken out you can remove the hub from the factory spindle as shown above.

Here is a comparison of the spindles. The Belltech one is on the right and our factory GM one is on the left.

Now you can install the hub onto the new spindle.

To replace the shock you are going to have to support the lower control arm with a jack. Remove the lower shock bolt, then lower the jack. Now remove the upper bolt and the shock will come out.

Place the new shock into the Tahoe. Tighten up the top bolt. Do not do anything to the bottom mount yet.

You may now take the new spindle and place it on the jack. Pump the jack up so that the spindle goes into the ball joints. Hand tighten the nuts onto the ball joints.

Move the jack to the left side of the lower control arm. Jack the control arm up until you can insert the lower shock bolt.

Now tighten all suspension bolts. Be sure to reconnect the tie rod!

Reconnect the VSS, and reinstall all brake components. Attach the tire, lower the vehicle and torque the lug nuts.

THAT WILL COMPLETE YOUR FRONT INSTALLATION. NOW FOR THE REAR INSTALLATION. 

Raise the rear of the vehicle. Place jack stands on the frame. Now place the jack under the differential. Slightly raise the differential. Now remove both rear shocks (the upper bolt is most easily accessible from the inside of the frame rail). Lower the differential.

Remove the factory rear spring.

Install the new springs; be sure to reinstall the upper and lower grommet.

Install the shock relocation drop bracket. Note the bolt loosely placed in the photo. This is how the bolt is to be installed in the original lower shock location

Install the shock. Place the upper bolt in first.

Jack the rear differential again. Thread the lower shock bolt.

Tighten all bolts. Lower the Tahoe and Test drive.

These are some after shots with the lowering kit. As you can see we have a much improved stance all around on the car and added a 1.5 inch lifted hitch for ease of towing. We have some Belltech Swaybars and other installation goodies around the corner so stay tuned!

The last time we checked in on Project Tahoe’s lighting situation, we had drastically increased visibility inside the truck by replacing the factory interior lights with LED counterparts from V-LEDs. This time around, we’re tackling the exterior lights to greatly increase night visibility. Towing long distances often means driving through areas with little to no street lighting and being able to see clearly in low visibility conditions is absolutely vital. That’s where V-LEDs comes in, as we’ll be replacing exterior lights with V-LEDs, and our headlights with HIDs by V-LEDs.

We started out with the taillights. The taillights are simply secured using a few phillips screws. Once you remove the screws, the lights should pop right out exposing the sockets. To remove the lights, simply twist the bulb housings out, and remove the bulbs. The bulbs at the beginning of this article are taillight bulbs, showcasing the stock bulbs compared to it’s V-LED counterpart.

Moving to the front of the Tahoe, we come to the headlights which will be receiving a V-HIDs upgrade. This V-LEDs HID kit contains everything you need for a painless plug-n-play installation including Bulbs, Ballasts, and a relay harness for compatibility with your factory harness.

Removing the headlights on our Tahoe was incredibly easy. The headlight and daytime running light assemblies are secured using two metal posts. By lifting these posts out, we’re able to pop out the housings to access the bulbs.

The headlights are equally as easy as the taillights. Simply twist the bulb out of the socket, and replace it with the LED bulb being careful not to damage the bulb while inserting it into the housing.

Pull out the housing below the headlight housing. This contains our daytime running light as well as the turn signal. We twisted the bulbs and effortlessly replaced them with VLED bulbs. Pictured above is the parking/turn signal bulb ready to be replaced in the housing. Once this is done, both housings can be replaced, and the pins dropped back in securing them to the vehicle.

Installing the relay harness is easy. Simply ground the black wire, and attach the red wire to your battery lead. The remaining wires plug together only one way making this part a no-brainer. Plug the battery relay to the ballast, and the ballasts to the bulbs. Secure excess wiring and the ballasts to the vehicle using the attached zip ties and double sided tape.

The bulbs in the foglights were also due to replacement. We received an additional V-HIDs kit for our foglights to match our headlights. Installation was identical to the headlights. Simply twist out the factory bulb, and replace it with the HID bulb while making sure to not damage it while inserting it into the fog light housing.

Plug the bulb into the ballast, and the ballast is plugged into the factory fog light plug which will now act as a switch to turn on/off the HID fog lights.

Be sure to secure any extra wiring, as well as the ballast securely to the vehicle using the supplied zip ties and double sided tape. Failure to do so could result in damage to the HIDs or fog lights.

And that’s it! Quite possibly the simplest installation, and the results are staggering. Improved visibility means safer nighttime driving, and V-LEDs delivers unparalleled quality and ease of use.

The brake installation on our Project Tow Vehicle was put together in two videos (front and rear) and feature step by step instructions on how to improve your braking! The kit just fits inside our 24 inch Giovanni Wheels (smallest wheel option is a 22) and the PFC kit installs clean, simple, and fast. The parts they ship you provide everything required to get the kit together.

Another video installment will be coming out shortly showing how many feet the brake kit shaved off the 60-0 brake time of the car. The kit performed so well it put us in performance car territory in a huge overweight Chevrolet SUV. Stay tuned for the brake test video which should be coming out soon!

The guys at V-LEDS loaded us up with lights to give our Project Tow Vehicle a complete overhaul of LED lights. This huge pile of lights sitting on our tow vehicle hood is everything we installed to complete our LED light conversion.

First off we disconnected our Optima Battery so we could safely replace and work on all the lights in the Project Tow Vehicle.

The factory dome light is on the left side of this image and our new V-LED dome light is on the right. The installation is simple as the factory light pops out of place with a little pull and the new LED lights snap right into place.

This is our dome light that sits behind the driver/passenger seat complete with all three LED lights. This was completely done almost instantly. The factory dome light just snaps back into place and the interior is 100x brighter and easy on the eyes.

The vanity mirror is an equally simple process to replace the lights. Here is a photo of the V-LED light installed on the front fold down mirror.

The front map lights put some completion to our interior overhaul of LED lights. The interior change over was a great move and really helps interior visibility. You can definitely read a map now with the new LED map lights. Our next V-LEDS piece will highlight our HID headlight conversion and our LED taillights which finishes up our LED conversion.

We got our Giovanni Wheels (24×10 +20) Calisix style and our Toyo Proxes together and ready to be installed on our Project Two Vehicle. The car looks great but really needs a lowering kit and some brakes which should be right around the corner for the project Chevrolet Tahoe. The 305/35/24 inch Toyo Tires ride great and really improved the overall handling of the vehicle. The two products really complimented each other along with looking great installed on the car.

Optima sent us this yellow top D34/78 battery to install in our Project Tow Vehicle. It is a dry cell battery so it can be mounted anywhere in your car. We opted for the factory location since we don’t need any additional engine space. 

It is a deep cycle battery with 750 cold cranking amps and 870 crank amps. We need the side posts for the Tahoe installation. The battery does feature both top mount and side post batteries.

The battery was a quick and simple installation. For long haul trips now we have no worries or concerns about battery failure. We will also be adding tons of electronics soon and this will provide a nice assistance in keeping everything running with ease.  The battery is a Yellow Top: (Part #8014-045)

We brought the car down to Magnaflow Exhaust’s installation facility in Orange County to get our performance exhaust installed. Everyone there was super helpful and we got our exhaust installed in record time.

Once they got the car on the lift we had to remove our old factory exhaust. Removing the factory exhaust will make room to fit the Magnaflow system on the car.

Here is the box your Magnaflow exhaust system will arrive in when you order it. The part number we are installing #15666 which is the proper part number for the 5.3L Vortec engine inside our Tahoe.

This is the new Magnaflow performance exhaust unboxed and ready to be installed in the Tahoe. It is a single pipe side exit just like the factory system on the car. The piping and hangers are perfectly crafted with this system so that everything goes on the car with OEM like fitment.

The first piece of the Magnaflow system is mounted and held in place why we connect the other pieces of the system together. The middle connection piece in this system allows you to actually disconnect it and remove it from the car with ease unlike the stock system.

Once you know the unit is all lined up perfectly you can start connecting the bolts that hold it together. Make sure you tighten these so you keep your exhaust on the car and don’t wind up dragging it around town.

Now over to the back of the car this is what the exit of the exhaust looks like. It is a nice polished piece that extends out the same distance as the factory unit but has a bigger circumference. That along with the polished element of the product really gives your side exhaust a much improved ascetic and aggressive look and feel to the Tahoe.

Another quick check to make sure everything is secured and the installation is almost finished.

I mentioned earlier how well the hangers fit into the OEM mounting points so I wanted to show some pictures of it all hooked up. You can see how the exhaust just falls right into place with the factory mounting hardware. This is something that really separates a normal exhaust system with a high quality one like Magnaflow. The last thing you want to be doing when under your car is wrestling and grappling the exhaust to move in one direction so you can slide the hanger into it’s proper location.

The exhaust is now complete and it’s time to enjoy the great subtle sounds produced from our new exhaust system. If you are curious to know what the system sounds like you can find it at the Magnaflow website with three different audio clips on this page. You can see how much better the Magnaflow system looks in this last picture compared to the factory exhaust system located in the same place on our first photograph as well. After two days with the exhaust system I just love this modification and won’t be changing my mind anytime soon.

Things Needed for Installation:
10mm Socket
5/16″ Nut Driver
Pocket Screwdriver
Pliers
Extension
Ratchet
10mm Wrench

Level of Difficulty:
MODERATELY EASY

We ran over to the AEM facilities today so we could get a Brute Force intake system installed on our Project Tow Vehicle. The Brute Force part number is 21-8000 which has a dryflow filter that means no oil required. Here are all the parts that come with your purchase of the AEM Brute Force intake system.

Our polished Brute Force intake was ready to install once we started removing all the stock plastic air box parts in the car. Since we opted for the polished pipe you can keep it clean with a simple aluminum polish. If you purchased a powder coated pipe make sure you don’t use aluminum polish and opt for some window cleaner to get the job done.

For starters you have to remove the MAF sensor attached to the air box and all the other plastic junk in the car to expose the throttle body at the front of the engine. Once you have removed everything it should like like the image below.

This is what your engine bay will look like once the factory intake pieces have been removed. Once we remove the factory lower air brace and install the heat shield we can start connecting the new AEM intake to the throttle body.

The coolant reservoir should be disconnected by removing two nuts. You won’t need to disconnect any hoses or anything from the reservoir but just rest it to the side so you can remove the air cleaner box brace and install the heat shield.

Now you attach a 90 degree coupler to the throttle body and then connect the intake pipe. Once that is secured you will want take the support tab and secure the intake to the heat shield.

You can see a polished bracket at the bottom of the intake which is connected to the heat shield. The heat shield is black and a tad hard to see in the image but the washer/nut you which secures the intake pipe tab and heat shield is seen in the bottom of the picture.

The image above is a quick assembly created with a filter adapter, the Mass Air Flow Sensor, and the reducing coupler. You can use the supplied hose clamps and one stock hose clamp that is attached to the MAF sensor. You just quickly insert the assembly on to the pipe and connect your MAF wire harness back which was disconnected when removing the factory air intake system. The last thing to do before your installation is complete is to put on the filter.

The filter is pretty large and the best way it seems to get it on the intake is to drop it cone top first into the fender well and then rotate the filter opening onto the reducing coupler you already have attached to the MAF. Once you get the filter in place you can tighten it up and be ready to hit the road.

AEM also provides a CARB  identification sticker which we placed right in front of the filter on our car. The intake is a 50 state legal product including approval from the California Air Resource Board (CARB). This certification is important to have when purchasing an intake you intend to drive on the street.