2014+ Leveling Kits

[53boy]

On 1/2/2020 at 6:39 PM, BassCatsBeerandDeer said:

Ladies and Gents, 

Wanted to give a big shout out to everyone who contributes to these forums as well as thank you for those who posted there mods and set ups. A ton of my questions regarding my truck were solved right here as well as helped me decide on my suspension route! Hopefully my contribution will assist another curious soul like myself as to what they can run for performance, clearance, looks and minimal costs!

 

2017 Z71 5.3 with STAMPED control arms.

 

- Swapped my rough country level blocks (2'" level) for a 4 pack of Bilstein 5100s. achieved 1.8" of level in the front and retained the same height in the back so a slight level with some rake.

 

- Swapped my stock 275/55/20 Goodyear SR-A and rims which equates to a 31.9"  tall and 10.9" wide tire for a set of Nitto Ridge Grapplers in 33/12.50/18's and Fuel Assaults 18x9 -12 offset, putting me barely an inch outside the wheel well

 

- To begin with, I trimmed the felt liner maybe 2-3"s and slightly bolted it back to remove ANY rub, as well as slightly trimmed the front of the air dam to ensure zero rub, which was achieved successfully!! I have excellent clearance at all angles, zero rub on any components including my dreaded UCA problem even while running through my deer hunting field. 

 

- The Bilsteins and NIttos feel BadA$$ for lack of better terms, much much more smoother than my Ranchos and I feel the 12.50s gripping much better than my 10.9s. Not to the point where it feels laggy or bogged down but much more comfortable and smooth. The shocks are night and day, seriously! As far as acceleration goes, I noticed zero difference when I stomped it to hop on the freeway, as well as saw minimal loss in MPGs. These are all concerns that I had when deciding with a bigger tire set up. 

 

- For those who want to run a nice big mean tire with a slightly aggressive offset and look, this is an ideal set up for cost and performance with minimal trimming and mods. I'm sure I missed  something here so please feel free to ask questions or request any pictures of mods or gear and thanks again guys for contributing and answering the questions I had!

Bilstein 5100 shocks alone will raise our trucks 1.8” in the front? 

[ccleroy]

2015 with a 2” Level and 285/65/18 Atturo Trail Blade XT’s

[Pig Sooie 4]

2018 Chevrolet Silverado LTZ with 295/55/20 Nitto Ridge Grapplers and a 2 inch rough country leveling kit. I know a lot of people like aftermarket wheels but i love the stock LTZ 20s. Thinking about possibly doing the 2.5 kit on the front and the 1 inch block in the rear.

[Bensjamming]

1 hour ago, Pig Sooie 4 said:

2018 Chevrolet Silverado LTZ with 295/55/20 Nitto Ridge Grapplers and a 2 inch rough country leveling kit. I know a lot of people like aftermarket wheels but i love the stock LTZ 20s. Thinking about possibly doing the 2.5 kit on the front and the 1 inch block in the rear.

Any rubbing issues at all? I played it safe with 275/55/20 with 20x9 wheels with a 0 offset and don't have much room to spare when turning on level ground. Especially don't want to be in the woods somewhere end up tearing the wheel wells apart once the suspension has some articulation to it but think I could have gotten away with a little bit bigger tire with a RC 2 inch leveling kit installed

[Pig Sooie 4]

2 hours ago, Bensjamming said:

Any rubbing issues at all? I played it safe with 275/55/20 with 20x9 wheels with a 0 offset and don't have much room to spare when turning on level ground. Especially don't want to be in the woods somewhere end up tearing the wheel wells apart once the suspension has some articulation to it but think I could have gotten away with a little bit bigger tire with a RC 2 inch leveling kit installed

Some times at full turn to the left it will rub but it has to be fully turned. I never really have it locked anyways. I am sure the two inch leveling kit helps with that. I have been really pleased with the set up.

[53boy]

Have a question guys. 16 Silverado 1500 , planning to put on motofab 2.5 level, looking into ready lift control arms , anyone running 275/70r18 on stock 18” rims have rubbing issues? 
 

Also ready lift or motofab control arms? Motofab has been out of stock for a while though 

[BleedBowties]

I have a 2017 1500 4x4 i just purchased and it has bout 3 1/4 inches from front to rear, measuring from center of wheel to fender well. Way too much rake for my liking, it has factory 22" wheels. Just want to level front and put wider tires on or possibly switch to 20" wheels and tires? Any suggestions on which leveling kit and how much bigger can I go on tire size for both scenario's? Tire size on it now is P285 45r22. thanks in advance

[ducklawyer]

Saw this today. Couldn’t tell what size level but had 285/65r20 K02’s. I didn’t see markings on the UCAs but it did have the fender liner zip tied back. Was a sharp truck.


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[Southwood Outdoors]

2018 GMC Sierra double cab, 4x4 elevation. I put a 2” rough country level on the front and

275 55r20 (stock size) Nitto Ridge Grappler tires on. I didn’t want to get crazy with mods while the truck is under warranty and I’m happy with how it looks! 

[jscottl]

On 5/21/2020 at 12:53 PM, 53boy said:

Have a question guys. 16 Silverado 1500 , planning to put on motofab 2.5 level, looking into ready lift control arms , anyone running 275/70r18 on stock 18” rims have rubbing issues? 
 

Also ready lift or motofab control arms? Motofab has been out of stock for a while though 

Running  Rough Country 2.5" front/1" rear kit 275/70/18's. Wheels are OE Spec. No rub but it is close.

[53boy]

1 hour ago, jscottl said:

Running  Rough Country 2.5" front/1" rear kit 275/70/18's. Wheels are OE Spec. No rub but it is close.

Stock control arms? Did you do anything with front or rear shocks ?

[jscottl]

1 hour ago, 53boy said:

Stock control arms? Did you do anything with front or rear shocks ?

From what I have read as long as you stay in the 2.5" and under you are fine with stock arms. The 3" messes with angles. Stock shocks front and rear.

[wildbilll]

My Leveling kit story.

The left rear shock on my 2017 Sierra SLT Z71 was covered in oily dirt from a slow leak. I decided to solve that problem by upgrading to the Rancho QuickLift 2" struts (P/N RS999198) for the front and the Rancho RS9000XL 0" shocks (RS999198) for the rear. I bought all of it from Rock Auto. $569 total.

The Original GM Rancho Shocks and Struts, aside from one of them leaking, were OK but I felt they could have been firmer.

I wanted to post here to add some information on what was involved in the install.

The new Rancho shocks and struts have an adjustment knob with 9 settings. I watched some youtube videos of people complaining about the adjuster knobs freezing up over time. I took the adjusters (they are a red plastic) off and applied DC4 to the inside (Dow Corning 4)  which is sort of like silicone sealer that never hardens and it's water proof. Reinstalled the adjusters.

I set all 4 of them to position 3.

I checked the toe in and camber before-hand with the vehicle sitting on the ground and again after using a jack to raise it up 2".

I noticed the toe in angle changed by about 3/16" additional. As truck was jacked up to 2" higher, the steering rod angles changed. This pulled the front of the wheels inward.

In my opinion, the CV angles didn't change that much, it didn't look like it would cause any accelerated wear. The upper ball joint does not appear to be at a severe angle. Perhaps if i drove this off road a bunch it would make a difference but for street operations I think it's fine.

Since I was doing this install by myself I had to disconnect the sway bar links at the lower control arms to get the new struts to go in. If there were 2 people involved I think I could have gotten them in by prying down on the upper arms with a lever against the springs. It only took a couple of minutes to unbolt the sway bar links.

There was no need to disconnect the upper ball joint or the tie rod ends. I went after the 3 strut tower nuts from the engine compartment, that allowed an air ratchet (with extensions) on the 18 mm nuts. The new nuts supplied with the struts are actually 15 mm, the same as the lower bolts.

I lowered the vehicle on to plastic trash bags that were folded in half and had grease sandwiched between the folds to make the alignment check easier.

The initial adjustment to the tie rod(s) was to lengthen them one full turn. That seemed to reset the toe to the original front to back measurements of the tire . I measured the distance at a tire groove on each.

I measured the camber angle with my phone's leveling app and it showed it was still at zero as it was in the beginning.

I didn't worry about the caster.

The steering wheel angle was off to the right a few degrees but the vehicle drove straight at 75 mph. I tweaked the tie rod end lengths 1/8 turn at a time equally until the steering angle was perfect. I think the toe angle is really close but I will take it to an alignment shop this week.

I haven't done a headlight re-aim yet but I lowered them both by one turn on the adjuster, for now.

I like how the truck looks now that it sits 2" higher in the front.

 

[theJman]

4 hours ago, wildbilll said:

The new Rancho shocks and struts have an adjustment knob with 9 settings. I watched some youtube videos of people complaining about the adjuster knobs freezing up over time. I took the adjusters (they are a red plastic) off and applied DC4 to the inside (Dow Corning 4)  which is sort of like silicone sealer that never hardens and it's water proof.

 

You should consider this to be a regular maintenance item.  Rancho has had problems with their adjusters freezing since the day they first released adjustable shocks, which has to be at least 15 years ago.  They still haven't figured out a solution apparently.

[53boy]

16 hours ago, jscottl said:

From what I have read as long as you stay in the 2.5" and under you are fine with stock arms. The 3" messes with angles. Stock shocks front and rear.

Sharp looking truck by the way, love the blue

 

debating replacing shocks with some sort of bilsteins while I’m in there putting the 2.5” level on, any input on that?