GMCnewbie

Looking good. Let me know how well those Bilstein shocks ride after you complete the full swap. I went with the Fox 2.5 HTO's. I like the ride quality overall but I sometimes feel like a little stiffer ride might be nice. Granted, I also replaced the torsion bars and leafs with the Comfort Ride setup from Cognito. So that may leave my setup a little looser than others. But my ride quality is light years better than stock. So no complaints

The most difficult part I had replacing was the differential carrier bracket. More specifically, the driver's side bracket. I did one side at a time and didn't realize there was no way to easily remove or install the driver's side bracket with the passenger side fully installed. Pro tip: loosen the nuts on the passenger side bracket as much as you can without removing them completely. Also remove the skid plate. That will allow everything to droop about an inch or so making it super easy to remove the driver's bracket and install the new one. Outside of that, the rest was fairly straight forward from what I recall.

Damn! Great price considering I paid around $1,200 for a set last Nov. And mine was discounted.

I bought mine last year during the Black Friday sales thru shocksurplus.com and got maybe $100 off. It wasn't a great deal but it was the best available at the time.

Yes, I replaced all of the suspension components. As part of installing the Cognito bars, I initially tried leaving the stock keys, but the height was off. I had to install the Cognito keys to see the height gain from swapping to the ZR2 components. I did not over crank the keys as I didn't want the ride any stiffer than necessary.

It depends if the Cognito bars are in fact the same as the 4400lb GM bars. If so, I have them on my gasser and the difference is noticeable for sure. The same goes for the Cognito Comfort leafs. I have both on my truck and the ride is much better.

That makes sense. I didn't think about it as I was dealing with heat exhaustion while working on my truck and just put them in same the way the crappy stock Ranchos were. I'll change mine around one of these days.

Sorry for going dark for the last few months. Ive been traveling a lot for work and haven't had a lot of free time. I finished my suspension work and wheel install roughly two months ago and have maybe 100 miles on the truck since.

Great question. I didn't even think to check the position as I installed the new shocks the same way GM installed the stock ones. So I have mine body-down. I thought it was odd, but i figured GM engineers were smarter than myself. lol

Thanks for sharing that. I feel a little better knowing I torqued them to 110. Looks like Google AI wasn't too far off on this one.

Damn! I had these on my list of torque specs and didn't even catch this one. I totally looked past this as it called out the rear spring "unit bolt" rather than u-bolt. Oh well. I googled the torque spec for the u-bolts on the 2024 GMC 2500 u-bolts and the AI response said 110lb ft along with a number of search results. I went with 110. I don't think I damaged anything as I did a check of the stock bolts on both sides before I removed them. Both sides appeared to be tightened to roughly 110lb ft based on my torque wrench. This is by no means scientific, but it was what I had available when I was working in my truck. Edit: forgot to add I switched to the 3500 u-bolts due to the spacer added for the AT4X setup.

Yup, trying to avoid "permanent" changes to the truck wherever possible. Everything I've done so far can be "easily" swapped back to stock if the next owner wants. I'm not switching back as I love the look and ride quality of the new setup.

Cool video with good information. I'm not a fan of cutting the bumper if at all possible. That's why I'm blowing more money on a bumper extender (set of washers basically) to give a little extra space for the new tires. I really liked how they addressed the front "mud flaps" by heating them and pressing them back a bit. Much nicer look than removing or cutting them.

Great question. My guess is there's a difference and I say that simply because of the shape of the fenders between the Silverado and Sierra. But I have no clue. I shared my numbers simply to give folks an idea of what they might get from this type of swap. I was honestly surprised by how much lift my truck got. The front was initially higher (over 43") before I dialed it back a bit. Not sure if I shared this already, but I went back and swapped my torsion keys again to the Cognito keys as the stock keys didn't give enough lift.

2024 GMC 2500 AT4