AWD 99 2 Door Tahoe Build

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Jnunez74

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So back in June, I decided that I was going to take my 2 door Tahoe and do a frame off restoration.
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We didn’t have the best area to work in, so a make shift bowl was set up to sand blast in. A 110 gal compressor was used with the a 100lb blaster. It took a far more that one would have liked, but I was pleased with the amount of rust that had been purged.
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This is as many pictures as it will let me post, but I will continue when I have a bit more time
 

Jnunez74

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So back in June, I decided that I was going to take my 2 door Tahoe and do a frame off restoration.
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach


We didn’t have the best area to work in, so a make shift bowl was set up to sand blast in. A 110 gal compressor was used with the a 100lb blaster. It took a far more that one would have liked, but I was pleased with the amount of rust that had been purged.
You must be registered for see images attach


This is as many pictures as it will let me post, but I will continue when I have a bit more time
After it was blasted, I decided to spray the frame with Eastwood Extreme Chassis Black satin.

Frame modification were necessary though. In the rear, an inch and a half was added between the leaf spring mounts and the frame. This was necessary bc the frame narrows on the 2 doors in the rear, so the perches are angled on the 10 bolt that was in it, but not on the 14 bolt we put in.
The front was a different animal altogether and required us to fab all now mounting locations, I can go deeper into that for whomever is interested. Other parts that are different from stock are as follows,
The shocks in the rear, lower control arms, CV axles, knuckles, hubs, and whole brake assembly off of a 05 2500 HD. Rear diff is out of a 03 2500 LD. Front diff is a 9.25 out of an 87 k2500.
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For the power train, ended up picking up a Gen VI 454 and got it bored .030 over for a total of 460. Put AFR 325cc enforcer heads with a lunati EFI cam. For the EFI, we went with the Proflow 4 direct injection system from edlebrock. The transmission is a 4l80, with an Edelbrock TC. Transfer case is an AMG 242 HD out of a HMMWV because I wanted to have AWD and that was the cheapest option available at the time with the highest torque rating.
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Interesting side note, I don’t know who All has put high flow pumps into these trucks but I ended up modifying an OE carriage to accept a daeschwerks pump.
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While the body was off the frame, I had my painter come and paint the firewall before we lowered it back on. The paint color is Red Velvet from the 2021 Chevy pallet
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More to come when a get a bit more time
 

Jnunez74

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Got another free moment to share a bit, so following the painting of the firewall, the body was put back on the frame and the real challenges began. To start with, the transmission crossmember had to be relocated farther towards the rear to allow for proper mounting of the transmission and Tcase.
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Once the drivetrain was properly fitted and secured, the next challenge was had.
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you can see in that picture how far out the camber was. The geometry of the front suspension was not ideal in anyway, as no adjustment could bring the top of the tire in far enough to allow for alignment. After some head scratching it was decided that shortening the uppers would give us the necessary adjustment, so they were shortened by an inch. This was done by a local machine shop and the results were as desired. More issues came with the driveshafts as these component’s utilized e different Ujoints. After trying to find conversion joints to utilize the stock shafts, it was decided to just get new shafts cut and skip all of the conversion nonsense.
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For exhaust, we trailers the truck to New Orleans and had Custom Muffler install dual 3” stainless pipes with Borla Pro XS mufflers. Eventually the goal is to do side exits before the rear tire so I had them turn it down before the rear diff.

For cooling, I couldn’t find any affordable options for radiator and fan combos that were reasonably priced so we opted to make our own assembly. A cold case radiator was chosen and paired with a Jegs dual 16” fan kit. From these two, I drew up a cad file of a shroud and had it made by our sheet metal guy out of aluminum.
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I wanted to utilize the trans cooler on the radiator but my Transmission shop insisted that I use a stand alone system, so I strapped 2 40k coolers to the front of the assembly to handle keeping the 4l80 and 242 cool.
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More to come
 

Jnunez74

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Different direction than I would take, but this is looking really cool so far. Interesting in seeing how that color comes out.
Yeah… it definitely has been interesting, the main goal was to do something that hasn’t been done before. I am currently a Mechanical Engineering Student and figured this could be a good way to stick my head in the door of auto engineering
 

Dravec

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I think meant that you should have LS swapped it vs the 454 route
If you're talking about my comment, it was more about the AWD conversion (although it  is cool) and the paint color (also cool). I personally aspire to build a "454 SS tribute" someday with a '96-'98 c1500 and a Vortec 454.
 

Jnunez74

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If you're talking about my comment, it was more about the AWD conversion (although it  is cool) and the paint color (also cool). I personally aspire to build a "454 SS tribute" someday with a '96-'98 c1500 and a Vortec 454.
beautiful part about the AWD conversation is that is isn’t all the time. I installed a 4x4 posilok kit to be able to unlock the front for cruising. As for an LS, I’m still not sure how I feel ab my decision lol. An LS would have probably been easier/cheaper to achieve 550hp but I really wanted the torque. Tryna have this thing be a nightmare for diesels from a dig
 
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