Jordan836

Ya thats the thing if the money to gains ratio will be decent. My tranny guy usually treats me pretty good so I dont think hed charge me to much to put it in. If not I have a few friends that are plenty capable of doing the swap too. I was looking at the Circle D 278mm one which on their website they say its great for a daily driven truck the only thing is if that gains wouldnt be all that different compared to the trailblazer converter for the set up I currently have then since the trailblazer converter is alot cheaper I wouldnt feel so bad buying it then taking it out down the road to replace is with a better one when I have mods that need a good converter. The trailblazer converter im sure has its limits but if I could run that 278mm circle D stall with the set up I have now and also have it work decent when I decide to do a cam swap then id consider the Circle D converter. Basically im just wondering if the trailblazer converter is good converter for the basic bolt ons.

Ive been doing a little research on the Trailblazer converter and I just had a couple questions. As of now my SS just has LTs custom exhaust intake a tune transgo HD-2 shift kit corvetter servo Sonnax billet 4th servo and a forward accumulator piston its my daily driver at the moment so I dont want to eat into the mileage very much until I can get another vehicle to make my DD. I do have plans down the road for plenty more mods which I know will require a better converter but will the trailblazer converter help with my set up right now? Ive been seeing them online for pretty cheap so I figure if it will make a good difference then ill just get one. I dont really want to spend big money on a converter until I get more mods that really require one so this TB one caught my eye. Basically will it help with some of the get rid of some of the dead spots in the power?

I had a single dynomax bullet glass pack on before I had my magnaflow on a 3in pipe with longtubes and no cats and it sounded ok cruising around slow but when you get on it its insanly loud like overly loud and obnoxious and very raspy and as soon as the truck is kind of lugging around the drone was so bad it made my head hurt it sounded/felt like I had a 20inch subwoofer in the back seat as high it could possibly go it was terrible and I felt bad driving up my street at night time because it was insanley loud. If its your daily driver id consider running a magnaflow and maybe put something like a dynomax bullet infront of it with a cut out in between the 2 so when you want it really loud open the cut out and when your driving around and not wanting to attract unwanted attention to yourself run it through the magnaflow.

Where in CT are you from? Im in CT as well. As far as exhaust the best sounding exhaust with stock manifolds is a corsa but those systems are pricy and you cant buy just the muffler unless you find someone trying to get rid of just the muffler which is usually pretty rare. If you dont want to dish out the money for a corsa then get a magnaflow muffler and have a exhaust shop weld it in place of your stock muffler. As far as an intake you wont really notice much difference between brands as far as power wise for the most part what I did is buy a spectre intake from summit for $140 bucks which is the exact same thing as the AEM brute force intake just with a different filter, but on mine I swapped out the spectre filter for a good K&N filter and it works perfect. As far as a tune do like people said get a tuned PCM from Wheatley or Blackbear I personally use Nelson Performance and Im happy with it but ive heard nothing but good things about Wheatley and Blackbear so those 2 would probably be your best bet. Out of those 3 things youll notice the tune the most. Depending where in CT you live I can reccomend some places that would do a awesome job on welding your exhaust up and what not too!

Perfect. Thank you

Im thinking about changing the front diff oil in my 03 SS because ive been hearing a howling noise that sounds like its coming from the front and I just want to make sure everything in there looks good since I have to make the drive from Florida to Connecticut in a couple weeks. I was jus wondering what everyone uses or oil and how much oil the front diff actually take so I know how much to put back in and also how big of a container I need to drain the old fluid into. I also noticed it looks like I have a leak right where the front drive shaft goes into the front diff so I also just want to make sure theres enough fluid in there to get me home so I can have my shop do it instead of having a shop do it down here who I really dont know.

What motor do you have in the truck? Im sure hoping your planning on swaping to an LS based motor. I think youll have a hard time making big power with that stock motor that comes in the older trucks.

I have the 4100 and its an awesome radio but it is 2 years old and one thing I wish it had was navigation. If I were you id go with the AVH4200 like stated above because its the new model of the 4100 but im pretty sure it has the option for the navigation. Youll need the PAC module to bypass the bose which plugs in behind the dash. Then if you want the steering wheel controls youll need the SWI module. Any audio installer will know everything you need.

No problem, any time. It sounds like that guy is good at tuning so im sure youll knotice a good difference!

Ya with no cats and LTs youll notice a good difference as long as its tuned, if its not tuned theres a chance it will run worse and youll get terrible economy. As far as advice on headers it depends on what you want to spend. If you live anywhere were there is snow you will want some sort of ceramic coated header people say stainless wont rust but stainless does rust it just normally doesnt rot it will pit and discolor. I run the pacesetter ceramic coated LTs and I dont have any issues with them at all except on the passanger side one of the pipes just barley hits the frame so depending how the truck is positioned it rattles, but I live in Connecticut for part of the winter and there is no way I was going to get not coated headers.If you decide you like those go to Texas Speed and Performance Ive bought 2 sets from there and its the cheapest around. I paid $426.00 shipped to my door. But if you get pacesetters make sure they are ceramic coated no matter what because the painted ones will rust like nothing they are just a regular steel header! Unless ceramic coated. Another choice is OBX which you can usually find for around $495.00 which are knock offs of the old dynatech headers and dynatechs are one of the best headers you can buy. The only downside with this is they are not ceramic coated but they are stainless steel but they will discolor and theres a chance depending where you live that they will eventually rust. Now another choice is the Speed daddy headers on ebay which are the exact same things as the OBX headers but I think they are around $300 but they are also non coated stainless steel. With either the OBX's or the Speed daddy headers youll have to either modify or find a way to protect your plug wire from hitting one of the header pipes. The thing with both these headers though is they bolth come with Y pipes and you stated you were going to use the stock pipes so then youd have a Y pipe sitting around. Unless you bought the OBX's specifically for the 6.0s which are basically they same as the stock pipes just with dummy cats. One of the cheapst ways to do it is if you live somewhere where there is no snow try the speed daddy headers on ebay and just set the Y pipe to the side and just use the headers and have an exhaust shop weld everything up for you unless you weld yourself. If I were in your shoes Id buy the pacesetter ceramic coated LTs and connect them to the stock pipes and be done with it. But whatever you do make sure you get a good custom tune other wise it really wont be worth it. The tune makes a huge difference!! And youll need it to turn off the rear O2 sensors.

If I were you I would do LTs and a full custom exhaust and electric fans and a tune. Underdrive pullies are good but I think they take away from some of your charging power so you might want to upgrade your alternator. Im not totally sure on that but im sure someone will chime in.

You can use a drive shaft from another extended 2wd silverado, youll need the whole set up with the center carrier bearing too. But the 2wd 2 peice drive shafts are pretty weak If I were you and was doing all the work id upgrade to a custom stronger one. A friend of mine had a full chromoly drive shaft made for his silverado and it was to outrageous as you might think. Then as far as upgrading the rear end you will have no problem keeping the stock 10 bolt but id install a better carrier like a tru trac ive seen those hold some good power and everyone ive talked to that has the tru trac likes it alot. You can use the stock G80 for the time being but they are really weak and probably wont last long with the truck being 2wd. And like sinr98 said it wouldnt be a bad idea to have someone go through the tranny you were looking at just to give you a peice of mind that it wont break. But all those 4l60e's and 4l65e's really arent the strongest trannys by any means and that will always be a weak link but if its built right and taken care of theres a good chance it might last quite a while. At the very least if you have someone go through it install a transgo HD-2 shift kit corvette 1-2 servos and a billet 4th servo wouldnt be a bad idea either along with aluminum accumulator pistons. Look on summit for the shift kit its the cheapest ive found it and I got the other stuff from oregonperformancetransmisson.com they usually have good prices.

Ya all of the AWD SS's came with a 10 bolt it will be easier to find a 10 bolt for a silverado that it will be to find a 12 or 14 bolt to fit the SS since most of those rear ends are out of the HD trucks which are 8 lug so you have to do some modifications some have drum brakes not disc brakes and some might be a little wider or narrower. Where as you can probably go to a junk yard and find a silverado with a 10 bolt with disc brakes and 6 lug axles really easily. You might just want to go through it before you put it on and make sure everything looks good on the inside. If you can find a 12 or 14 bolt out of a silverado thats a 6 lug then that would be a good rear end too,but I think that will be hard to find!

I have been contemplating the same thing because my front diff is starting to make noise too. Now I love the AWD because its traction all the time which is really fun. Now If I were you I would see what is actually wrong with the truck that is making the noise because if its a simple not so expensive fix then it would kind of pointless to spend all the money right now to convert it to 2wd. If you can get all the parts you need at a really good deal then I would say consider it. The parts youll need as stated above are 2wd front hubs I think you can also do 2wd control arms too to get rid of the torsion bars but im not totally sure on that but youll either need a 2wd tranny or take your tranny apart and change the output shaft and tail housing now the best bet if you want to just replace the entire tranny is if you can try to find a 2wd 4l65E instead of a 2wd 4l60e they are basically the same thing except the 4l65e (which is what is in the truck now just set up with a transfer case) has a 5 pinion planetary which makes the 4l65e a little stronger than a 4l60e but both are weak and if you want to get really fancy do an 80e swap and you wont really have to worry about the tranny breaking. If you dont want to go that route you can find a 2wd 4l65e in a 2wd SS and im sure theres some other vehicles it came it im just not sure of which ones but you can check your local junk yards or online somewhere. Next youll need a drive shaft you can either find one out of a 2wd silverado or have a custom one made and youll have to run a center carrier bearing. Ive seen some 2wd silverados snap the stock 2wd drive shafts and do alot of damage so a custom one might be the better way to go. Now as far as the rear end You can get away with just running the 10 bolt im not sure how long it will last with the crappy G80 differential it has in there but id just upgrade to a tru trac, ive seen the 8.625 10 bolts hold quite a bit of power with a tru trac and will be plenty unless your producing big power, obviously the 9.5 rear end will be stronger since its bigger but I wouldnt really say its a must unless you find one for a good price. You might have to do some wiring with your speedo to get it to read right but im not to sure. As far as a crossmember you might not have to do anything to the stock one but im not totally sure you might have to cut and weld it a little bit but im not sure. Now as far as traction if you want to get decent traction id get a set of caltracs that should help with traction but also it depends on how much power your putting out another important thing is tire choice too, any 2wd truck with out some sort of traction help you wont be able to put the pedal from a dead stop and get traction like you can with AWD but thats just something youll have to sacrafice. One of the main reasons Im thinking about doing the swap is just because it saves I think around 350 pounds of weight off the truck, you have alot less moving parts which just give you less things to worry about breaking, as well as economy purposes even though it wont be much and the fact now youll only be sending power to 2 wheels instead of 4. And one of the biggest reasons being to tune it. No one around here has a AWD dyno big enough to dyno tune the SS where as if its 2wd then dyno tuning wont be an issue. But basically I dont think id actually go through with the swap unless say my tranny had to come apart anyways like say if I broke it an while it was apart id just convert to 2wd and just switch output shafts while it was apart, or if I totally grenaded my front diff or transfercase then I would definitley do the 2wd conversion. But if its just a simple bearing that had to be replaced because thats what was making the noise then I dont think it would be worth it to spend the extra money to do the conversion

Slammedbowtie you have an awesome looking truck! I love both wheel set ups!

Ive seen some 10 bolts take quite a bit of abuse if you have good gears and a good differential carrier like a tru trac I dont see the 10 bolt being a problem. But a 12 or a 14 bolt would always be stronger but some might take some modification unless you find one out of another SS or possibly a 1500HD otherwise most 14 bolts youll find out of a silverado will be 8 lug and some might have drum brakes. But you being AWD youll have to run the same gear ratio front to back. What is the reason your replacing the whole rear end in the first place?

Well by you being a 2005 theres a good chance you already have electric fans so the flexalites would do no benifit to you. Where as someone with an 03 or 04 SS that come with a clutch fan thats driven by a belt by the engine which create drag on the engine because the engine has to turn that big fan. Where as electric fans are controlled by the PCM and not belt driven which takes the drag off the engine.

If you really want a 6 speed then I guess you can try it, I know it wont last and th rear end wont last more than a couple hard shifts. I think alot of guys in your position having an 80e around would use the 80e in your case it has to be rebuilt it sounds like but I know if I had a T56 in front of me or an 80e that had to be rebuilt id use the 80e even if it cost a little bit more to get set up in the long run it will be a better longer lasting more practical tranny. A 6 speed manual is fun to drive in a small light car but keep in mind your heavy truck wont drive/shift like a light car. I dont think an LT tranny will just bolt right up the bell housings are different. You need to find an LS t56 if you really want to do the swap. But in all honesty if I were you I would not do a T56 swap Id use the 80e. Both trannys your going to have to get tuned for but the tuning the t56 in to get the speedo to work right will be a pain. Both swaps have a decent amount of work involved but as far as the amount of time involved to swap compared to the amount of time the tranny will stay together in the truck the 80e is a better tranny the T56 will not last in a truck! Unless you drive it like a grandma which would defeat the purpose of going through the work to swap the 6 speed in. Like I said you can do what you want and I cant or dont want to tell you what to do but my best advice to you is to not waste your time with a T56 especially an LT one because those are weaker than the LS ones to begin with so I cant see that one lasting very long at all. I might be able to get some pictures from my friend who had one in his regular cab who grenaded his T56 its not a pretty site thats for sure

Oh ok now that makes a little more sense I really dont mean to discourage you but I doubt it will hold up for long behind the SS either unless you drive it like a complete grandma which would totally defeat the purpose of putting in a 6 speed anyways. The only way I could really see one holding up is if you took it all apart and replaced everything inside with the absolute best top of the line parts you could find which would get really expensive and you still probably would break something, they just arent made for a heavy truck they are made for a light weight car if it cant hold up in a RCSB silverado then I dont think it will hold up in an extended cab silverado. But I dont think one from an LT would work because the LS T56s and LT T56s have different bellhousings and id assume the LS ones being newer might be a better tranny to begin with. I think if you were to try and put a T56 in youd spend around $2500-$2800 bucks including the tranny and all the other parts you need like clutch, fly wheel, custom crossmember, custom drive shaft and im pretty sure youll have to change the yoke on the rear end to one thats a little longer, then youll need to get all the pedal assemblys most likley have to cut your brake pedal to fit the clutch pedal in there and then on top of that its a pain to get the speedos to work right with those trannys too, then like I said if you still have a G80 in your rear end youll have to take that out cause youll grenade that in a couple hard shifts and then youll want to do gears too that work better with the manual tranny. If I were you id take the money youd spend on swapping in the t56 and have the 80e rebuilt and put a shift kit in it and put that in the SS thats pretty much the best tranny to put in the SS and 80e's with just a shift kit will hold some good power, youll still have to do some mods to get the 80e to work like mod the stock crossmember which is really easy and a few other things but if you can pull out a tranny yourself itd probably be cheaper and a better idea to rebuild the 80e you already have its a way better tranny and alot more durable. Also I see in your picture that you go to the track a t56 in a truck will be a really inconsistent tranny at the track not saying that you cant drive it good but a good built auto tranny is just way more consistent. I dont want to discourage you about the t56 by all means if you want to do that swap you can try it but I really dont think it would take to long for something to break they just dont hold up behind a silverado unless they are totally babied.

I wouldnt waste money on getting 6.0 pipes for the Dynatechs you can make that 5.3 Y pipe work with some cutting and welding if you have the dynatechs id use them they are awesome headers. And dual magnaflows would sound awesome! Or you can have a shop build you a custom Y pipe or also with some welding you can hook the Dynatechs up to your stock Y pipe if you cut the cats out. Theres a few options but if you have dynatechs Id definitly use them! The maggie will like them.

Magnaflows are awesome mufflers dont get flowmasters they suck. I personally think corsas sound the best but a whole corsa system is really expensive and I dont think you can buy just the muffler unless someone is selling one. But dont waste your money on an exhaust system have an exhaust shop weld in a muffler to your stock exhaust system unless you find a corsa system in your budget then id say get that system cause its worth it if you can find it for that cheap! Sound will depend on the length of the muffler usually or like zachm89 said if you have headers or stock manifolds or if you have cats or no cats will also make a difference in the sound!

Im not to sure on all the technical info but I wouldnt even waste your time with a t56 in a truck it wont hold up for long especially a heavy 2500, a friend of mine had one in his RCSB silverado and it was always breaking and the last time it broke it was a viper spec t56 and it still broke. Those trannys are ment to be in a light weight car. Id just rebuild the 80e. Some might say the t56 will be fine but everyone I know that has done one has taken it out because they just dont last. I really cant imagine it lasting in a 2500. And if your 2500 is 4wd then the t56 wont work anyways I dont think. Plus if you do a t56 itll be quite a bit of work, youll have to make a crossmember and install all the pedals and most likley get a custom drive shaft made possibly change gears and if you have a stock G80 in the truck youll want to get rid of that because that will most likley break too. The 80e is already an awesome tranny id just have that rebuilt

If I were you id just wait to install the longtubes until you can get the tune done. Why not do it all at once that way you dont have to worry about it then youll be able to feel all the benefits at once.

Those ebay headers are a decent header but like fireman says you get what you pay for. The ebay headers are OBX knock offs and OBX headers are copies of the old dynatechs like the once pictured in the link posted the difference between the new dynatechs and old dynatechs is that primary that loops up, the only issue with that is Im pretty sure you have to either extend that plug wire or make something to hold it away from that primary. As far as leaks if you install the headers correctley and tighten them down in the right sequence you shouldnt have any leaks at the heads anyways as long as you use good gaskets OEM gaskets are best.I run the coated pacesetter headers with OEM gaskets and have no leak at the heads. The more common place to have leaks is in the exhaust it self. I had one set up on my old regular silverado where I used band clamps on all the connections and that wasnt to bad I didnt really have any leaks. But when I did the exhaust set up on my SS which also has the coated pacesetters I had a custom exhaust made after the headers and I used V band clamps and its perfect no leaks at all. And as far as coating will go if you have a bare steel header and you drive in the winter they will rust right away. Stainless wont usually rust but like people said it will pit and surface rust and discolor it will also depend on the grade of stainless used in the header how they will hold up, I think th dynatechs are a little bit higher grade stainless than the ebay headers. If money isnt an issue I would spend the extra money to get a good set of headers like dynatechs, stainless works, or American racing headers. The perfect example of you get what you pay for is Ive owned 2 sets of pacesetter coated longtubes and both sets have just barley hit the frame on the passenger side the only reason I got them a second time was cause they were cheap and they were coated, but in the spring I plan on getting a set of dynatechs to replace the pacesetters just because I cant stand the rattle from the header hitting the frame. I say if money isnt an issue spend the money and get a good set of headers and never look back.

Well I wasnt trying to be a dick I was just giving you a little advice on how to easier sell it. I know it would cost alot of money to ship that whole set up and it would take time to box it up but at that price you wont be boxing it all up. Thats a stock exhaust with a big flowmaster muffler welded in it. I was looking at it from the perspective of someone with a stock exhaust already thinking why would I pay that much money for something I already have with the exception of the muffler. And even if someone wanted to go back to stock that would probably cost less than the muffler it self its just 2 straight peices of 2.75in pipe. I was going to try to sell my stock exhaust but realized it isnt worth it because people wouldnt be willing to pay top dollar for a stock exhaust and the shipping cost it would be to ship it. But with that said thats all I have to say I wasnt looking to get into an online argument over a stock exhaust I was just trying to lend a hand selling your exhaust in a practical way. But you obviously think you have it under control so ill just step away. Good luck with your sale