buying and building my first truck

[opendiff]

i currently drive a small fwd car. getting close to 40 mpg

i drive interstate highway 60 miles a day for work

my little car isn't the best tool for the job when it comes to making my daily work commute during the winter time here in michigan

i am currently saving up a big down payment for my next vehicle. my budget is somewhere around $15k. i'm going to pay most of it as a down payment and get a loan for the rest thru the credit union

my next vehicle is going to be a 4WD truck. the 4WD part is absolutely critical

i like the GMT900 platform (years 2007-2013) i'm looking at silverados, sierras, tahoes, and suburbans

i'm the type of person to modify the things i buy to make it work better for me. because i know what i want out of things, and when a manufacture mass produces something, they can't please everyone. so yea, now i have established that i'm a huge DIY'er. i'm no stranger to the garage and getting my hands dirty working on my cars/trucks

i want to buy a chevy truck and build it for my application. my application is being able to haul ass down the interstate highway thru bad weahter and snow storms so i can get to work and return home safely. some of the roads around detroit and it's southern cities can be really bad (pot holes and cracks). so i need something that can gladly take the abuse of flying over rough road conditions

 

now onto the real meat of this thread: i want 4WD.. locking rear diff and front limited slip. is this the best combination for highway driving thru a snow storm with a foot of snow covering the road? i plan to run it in 4WD when the road is covered with snow (low traction conditions) so that means i want to be able to at least go 70 MPH while in 4WD. i'm really really interested in building my 4WD system for absolute best traction in the snow. so tell me about your differential and 4WD setups

 

of course i plan on spending a thousand dollars on a good set of meaty tires. i'll probably keep the stock rims for a while (til i find something that functions better for my application)

 

and various little things like keeping a full sized spare wheel mounted under the bed above the rear axle for extra weight over the rear wheels. and probably a toolbox in the bed (or a cap)

 

one more thing: i'm not a fan of crazy lifts that raise the truck 2 feet. i'm planning on a mild lift or a leveling kit. what do you think about air bags? i like the idea of having air bags so i can dynamically level the ride height depending on load and conditions

 

thank you if you take the time to read this and help me out!!

[Gray Fox]

You forgot to mention the front and rear winches you will need to install to get yourself out of the ditch if you are planning on driving at least 70 MPH in 12" of snow. Just because it's 4 wheel drive doesn't make it "super human". If it is not your driving that does it, it will be someone else's. I may live in the South, but we have enough mountain snow to have an idea of driving through 12"+ of unplowed snow. You may miss the 40 MPG car when you live with 13-15 based on the set up.

[kstruckcountry]

All you need for snow driving is snow tires and common sense... Most of the 4x4 trucks come with a rear locker, front isn't possible to do.

[servantsalesmen]

The front dif will be an open dif that can be locked if the truck is put into 4lo. Going 70 in any about of snow sounds very dicey to me but really, good tires, and fully functional 4x4 should get you out of almost anything

[anumber1]

Going in the snow with 4wd is the easy part.

 

Stopping in the snow is the problem.