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What have you done to your K2 today?

block8head

By block8head
in Modifications & Accessories

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RKeeper1
RKeeper1

Hauled this precious cargo home for the first time from the NICU after 40 days!   Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Mileguru
Mileguru

I installed this thingy on the top of my 2017 6.2L. Not really sure what it does, but my truck goes really fast now.  

pgamboa
pgamboa

Found an hour of free time yesterday and installed GM - Illuminated Door Sills. Love the way they look! Of course, made a how to video. The box didn't come with instructions and tried searching he

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Jacoby Enthusiast

Jacoby

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, 300 Blackout said:


Because I like to make things complicated.

Well I can’t argue with that. :D

  • Like 1
Imcrazy Senior Enthusiast

Imcrazy

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, cbrsilv15 said:

I wish I had time to do this to my truck.  I've had a ceramic sealant waiting to be applied for a year and a half now.  lol.  I just did a full paint correction on a red 95 Monte Carlo yesterday and doing a 65 Cutlass later today for a carshow next weekend.

It is a time suck, especially on the truck...  Started around 10:30am with washing, finished up around 4:00 pm with a quick lunch break but, I was pushing pretty hard to get it done quickly as we had a couple of things on the social calendar for that evening.. Typically I try to wash & clay the night before, then polish & seal the following morning...

 

I've thought about ceramic coating but, have not done the research yet.. I drive my truck for work ( company pays $450 a month + $0.20 per mile) and I rack up about 25-30k a year between work and personal use so I think the ceramic coating would be nice because I don't get as many months between needing sealant applied due to the miles I drive.. Not sure if I would trust myself to apply the ceramic or not, might consider having a pro do it...

Imcrazy Senior Enthusiast

Imcrazy

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, STRMTRPR said:

.. Used an old school rodders trick to blend the tail lights with the truck.

 

20190706_135925.jpg

What?? Did you drive thru a salt mine lol?

  • Like 1
Shakeydeal Enthusiast

Shakeydeal

Posted
Posted
6 hours ago, STRMTRPR said:

.. Used an old school rodders trick to blend the tail lights with the truck.

 

20190706_135925.jpg

Now that looks like ass. Sorry, somebody had to say it.....

  • Like 9
  • Haha 2
CajunFries Enthusiast

CajunFries

Posted
Posted

Just picked up this Diablo Trinity T2 EX from eBay. Going to give it a shot. Hopefully I dont have any trouble installing tunes or anything.

 

 

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5b8882a48e1e3ae1edde56b057ec43a3.jpg

  • Like 2
300 Blackout Enthusiast

300 Blackout

Posted
Posted
Welp, finished the sway bar install (after the new nylock nuts showed up. (I had to get a 10 pack from amazon). I gotta be honest. After messing around with it for adjustment, it still doesn’t fit like it should, and I don’t like what it did to the nice ride of this truck at all. (I know that’s surprising.)

 

For the end links to be “as vertical as they can be” (quote from the instructions) you have to set it to the stiffest (inner most holes) and you have to have the end links (also adjustable) lengthened almost to the point where they come apart. But there’s a jam nut to lock those up so it’s not that I think they’d come apart, they’re just not long enough imo. Then to have the bar itself “as close to level as you can” you have to roll the axle mounts back toward the rear of the truck so the bar will clear the angles on the diff. (It also helps to level out the bar arms horizontally but not enuff.) and the further you roll them back the less vertical the end links become. 4ab62caf4dc287d1b2362f9ee438037e.jpg

c77f4d307f001f7c32aa9c8f489bb942.jpgde3e641f51d1443e285107ca26d82be5.jpg

 

So i got it to where it was as close to both of those I could. And having it on the stiffest setting made it feel like I took off the nice new 5100’s and didn’t put any shocks back on. [emoji1361] the body roll was reduced tho. But that’s a no-go setting. So I changed it to the softest setting (outermost holes in the bar) and it just felt like I put the ranchos back on. Body roll was still reduced but it really stiffens the ride a lot more than I’m interested in. Stuff that the truck was just gliding over was rattling the whole back end over and on start offs and acceleration on crappy stretches of road had the same axle hop it had before any of the suspension upgrades.

 

So, my verdict is: not a fan.

My solution is: I’m going back to the RAS I had on my Tundra. It works like a dream, doesn’t stiffen the ride at all as the suspension remains independent, (and I know it’s a solid axle, but you’re not connecting it to the frame at all) but mostly what I loved was the better traction and no more axle wrap/hop that it helps with. The only less attractive thing is it’s $200 more than I got this sway bar for.

 

So, to that end, imma just send it back to amazon for a refund. Disappointed, but now I really know I like the RAS a ton better. My tundra had bilstein 4600’s and it made that truck ride great. This one already rode nicer than that truck with the ranchos, so I’m sure it’s the better road to take.

I just finished installing the Hellwig 7735 rear sway bar and have some similar observations, along with some things that I did differently that seem to have helped.

 

First, I share your frustration about how I expected it to fit and how it actually fit. In every possible scenario, I just don’t see any way that the rear most portion of the sway bar could be both perpendicular to the links and parallel to the frame with the links attached to the rear most mounting holes.

 

Second, I agree that Hellwig really needs to modify their instructions. It’s not that they are poorly written, they really aren’t that bad. It’s that they need more pictures and the pictures need to be spread out throughout the pages of the manual to coincide with the steps. It gets really old, really quickly when you have to flip back and forth to the referenced picture for whichever step you’re in. Arrows certainly would be helpful too.

 

Third, Hellwig needs to give specific parameters as to which mounting angles are acceptable and which are not. The minimum amount of threads inside of the link would also be useful. I think when they say things like “as vertical as they can be” it means different things to different people. Give me a range of what is acceptable. Also, if I have to choose between vertical links or a horizontal sway bar, which one should I choose? Split the difference? If acceptable tolerances were included, it wouldn’t make me feel so uneasy that things aren’t perfectly straight.

 

Now, for the positive. So far, I love what it has done for the handling of my truck on the stiffest setting. I’ve only driven it for 20 minutes swerving around parking lots, over speed bumps and potholes but in that short time I was able to notice some clear benefits. Hard turns at low speed cause only the front outer corner to squat. I can clearly hear a difference in the tread noise and it’s obvious that the truck is planting the tires better. Reduced body roll is a welcomed benefit since swaying back and forth gets a bit tiring. Potholes still suck, but the don’t suck any more with the sway bar vs without. The reduced body roll may even make them more tolerable.

 

Some things I did differently. I unbolted my brake lines in order to make room for the axle mounted u-bolts and saddles. By doing this I was able to rotate the axle mounted bushings more towards the rear of the truck (higher on the axle tube). This helped to keep the outer arms of the sway bar more parallel to the frame.

 

This did push the bar back some, however, the links are straight up and down in the stiffest setting (my frame mounted u-bolt ends both point directly towards the ground). My thought is the stiffest setting should be where everything lines up. When softening the ride, the increased angle of the links will only soften the ride even more. In effect, there will be more variation between the softest and the stiffest settings. Not a bad thing for a truck that never had a bar to begin with.

 

In my opinion, it’s just about the best $225 I’ve spent on the truck’s suspension, right up there with my Bilstein 5100s in the front. It’s not perfect, and there are some quirks that Hellwig should clear up in the literature but so far it’s seems like a great investment.

  • Like 2
1SLOW1500 Senior Enthusiast

1SLOW1500

Posted
Posted

Your killing me with all this. I was yes,.maybe, no, back to yes then hell no.....now yes....

It appears to my eyes there is a right and left on the bar ends. As when the bar is on the ground it looks like the center of the bar is bent up in the middle. This guy bents up the brake line but maybe better to just lift it to the upper hole in the brake cable bracket.
Minimum amount of threads in the end links should be same as the thickness of a bolt say 1/4" with the lock nut jammed down.
I understand just seeing a video is not the same as installing it but it seems to me there is some many ways this can mount with the adjustments in the axle mount and frame mount and end link length.
First poster here was stock height, video stock height, your lifted, I'm lowered 5". So hard to say it it works for me.
This guy had a good video for pictures.



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  • Like 1
slide187 Enthusiast

slide187

Posted
Posted

So I would agree with all of that except for 2 things.

1. The bar connection point to the axle should really be directly below it as that is what it uses it’s leverage on the frame to lift. Lifting it from the rear side of the axle is less effective for what it’s trying to do. So while it fits better, it actually has less leverage on the axle than it should.

2. Not to mansplain it (haha) but a sway bar tries to overcome body roll by lifting the inside wheel (opposite the body lean) to bring the body back to “level”. Which by definition means one wheel is actually less planted, not more, and subsequently there is less traction to the wheel being “lifted,” which also creates more potential for wheel hop during when starting off in a turn.

And as far as the stiffness of the ride, I really felt that the bigger bumps I hit with the rear end echoed thru the truck more afterward than without it.

And I DEF agree that in this day and age, instructions shouldn’t look like my dad printed them on his dot matrix printer back in 1990. Haha. It should be a full color laser print with the pics in the right spots and yes arrows too. Hahah. Or just send me a pdf. But not a pdf of the black and white dot matrix print out. [emoji1787][emoji1787]

But we’re all different, (and apparently so are all our trucks with the different ways these things fit on them, which is weird haha) I just didn’t like what it did to mine when compared with the RAS.


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slide187 Enthusiast

slide187

Posted
Posted
Your killing me with all this. I was yes,.maybe, no, back to yes then hell no.....now yes....

It appears to my eyes there is a right and left on the bar ends. As when the bar is on the ground it looks like the center of the bar is bent up in the middle. This guy bents up the brake line but maybe better to just lift it to the upper hole in the brake cable bracket.
Minimum amount of threads in the end links should be same as the thickness of a bolt say 1/4" with the lock nut jammed down.
I understand just seeing a video is not the same as installing it but it seems to me there is some many ways this can mount with the adjustments in the axle mount and frame mount and end link length.
First poster here was stock height, video stock height, your lifted, I'm lowered 5". So hard to say it it works for me.
This guy had a good video for pictures.




Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk


See now that’s VERY interesting when you have the instructions from hellwig telling you that the hump in the middle faces DOWN....
d3f9bcf1fd7316dea99a5308f872a6b5.jpg


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1SLOW1500 Senior Enthusiast

1SLOW1500

Posted
Posted

Oh thank you for that post I was wondering. Seems like he installed it hump up. But he notes the clearance to the cover, exhaust, and tire.
In his install it looks like it is way to close to the tire as the axle travel would make that sway bar hit the tire in my opinion. But again maybe the hump up is the issue. I have not tire so non issue.

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