2022 2500HD with a new RSI SmartCap

c0wb0y84 · November 6, 2022

When I got the truck back in April I had originally planned to go the ARE or Leer route but with a 3+ month wait time, and being in the middle of a cross country move, I had to wait even longer. After seeing the SmartCap for the first time back in June on a Ranger, I knew that this was the cap I wanted and was able to convince the wife, who wasn't a big fan of the bed cap idea to begin with because she thinks they're just for old men trucks. Powder coated stainless and the large gull-wing side doors were big attractors to me. Unfortunately, there is a long back-log on getting these as well. I placed my order around the 2nd of July and it showed up to my door the 31st of October.

Some assembly is required, but its like playing with a really advanced set of legos. I've got three kids ages 3-8 so I've had ample opportunity to tune up my lego skills since I had been out of practice for a decade or two, and was able to assemble this in an afternoon and then recruit some neighbors to help lift it on the truck.

I wasn't able to find many good pictures of what it looks like on the 2500 prior to purchase so I thought I'd put these up here for anyone else considering one of these.

Edited November 6, 2022 by c0wb0y84

Pryme · November 7, 2022

1 hour ago, c0wb0y84 said:

When I got the truck back in April I had originally planned to go the ARE or Leer route but with a 3+ month wait time, and being in the middle of a cross country move, I had to wait even longer. After seeing the SmartCap for the first time back in June on a Ranger, I knew that this was the cap I wanted and was able to convince the wife, who wasn't a big fan of the bed cap idea to begin with because she thinks they're just for old men trucks. Powder coated stainless and the large gull-wing side doors were big attractors to me. Unfortunately, there is a long back-log on getting these as well. I placed my order around the 2nd of July and it showed up to my door the 31st of October.

Some assembly is required, but its like playing with a really advanced set of legos. I've got three kids ages 3-8 so I've had ample opportunity to tune up my lego skills since I had been out of practice for a decade or two, and was able to assemble this in an afternoon and then recruit some neighbors to help lift it on the truck.

I wasn't able to find many good pictures of what it looks like on the 2500 prior to purchase so I thought I'd put these up here for anyone else considering one of these.

Looks very nice and well built. What does it do exactly? The website says it’s a five piece cap? I see it’s all stainless which is nice but 4k plus is a lot for a cap so what does it do exactly?

c0wb0y84 · November 7, 2022

2 hours ago, Pryme said:

Looks very nice and well built. What does it do exactly? The website says it’s a five piece cap? I see it’s all stainless which is nice but 4k plus is a lot for a cap so what does it do exactly?

It does pretty much exactly what fiberglass truck caps do but in stainless. SmartCap is kind of a silly name for it. It comes in five pieces so it can ship direct to my door for a lot less that trying to get a single piece cap to my door. Since the closest place that I could get an A.R.E or Leer is two hours away and the base price of the fiberglass caps available to me from them start at $3,000 before adding sliding flip up windows $$, roof rack rails $ and such and then paying for installation $$, the cost difference was negligible and saved me the gas and time for a 4 hour round trip to get it $$$.

Edited November 7, 2022 by c0wb0y84

Pryme · November 7, 2022

10 hours ago, c0wb0y84 said:

It does pretty much exactly what fiberglass truck caps do but in stainless. SmartCap is kind of a silly name for it. It comes in five pieces so it can ship direct to my door for a lot less that trying to get a single piece cap to my door. Since the closest place that I could get an A.R.E or Leer is two hours away and the base price of the fiberglass caps available to me from them start at $3,000 before adding sliding flip up windows $$, roof rack rails $ and such and then paying for installation $$, the cost difference was negligible and saved me the gas and time for a 4 hour round trip to get it $$$.

Makes sense. Should last forever being stainless.

sheath · November 7, 2022

Man, that is a nice cap! I can see why you like it. It looks really sturdy. Almost like an enclosed truck rack. Looks like you can put a pretty substantial rack on top if you want.

This hits a sweet spot for me, as I want a truck to work like a truck, otherwise I'd get an SUV. Had never heard of this company before your thread.

And for something that requires assembly the shut lines look perfect. Was that something you had to work at, or does it just go together that well?

Very nice! :cheers:

c0wb0y84 · November 9, 2022

Thanks! The claim is it can hold 700 lbs static and 350 dynamic. It seems that they were designed with offroad camping in mind for people who like the roof mounted tents and such, based on the pics on the website. I'm shopping for a wide heavy duty rack for hauling a couple of big canoes up there while camping. Their rack bars aren't quite wide enough for what I'm looking for and as such whatever I end up with will probably have to be put on just when I need it so that it doesn't interfere with the side doors opening on a day to day basis. That and I'll need a bar to go over the cab and match the height. I'm not sure which direction I'll go for that yet.

Everything was pretty close tolerances fitting together. Not too hard to screw up but it did take some effort working the pieces in together. Their instructions are good so as long as you follow them then it will turn out good.

H1ghlndr · January 14, 2025

Are you still liking the SmartCap? I have had both ARE and Leer on past GM trucks and this was interesting to me ... Any tips?

xrichard · January 20, 2025

Also wondering how you like it a couple of years later--and what you think about the window side opening vs the solid ones.

c0wb0y84 · January 24, 2025

I still really like it and glad I went this route. I've added some yakima HD bars for hauling canoes and the built in rails are nice for that. I got the 78" wide bars and they don't interfere with the sides opening up, which was something I was concerned about. While driving you're not gonna be able to see much out of the side windows so I don't think that would really matter much vs solid but I would still pick with the windows bc even though they're tinted I like being able to look in without having to open the door to see if what I'm looking for is there or not. There's also some threaded anchor points on the roof inside which I've found pretty handy. The thing is rock sold!

The locks are a bit stiff and can freeze when the temp drops but I usually leave them unlocked so it's not a big deal to me. The wiring for the CHMSL was kind of a pain bc it had to run all the way back from under the drivers side dash. RSI also recommends checking the torque on the nuts every so often but I put loctite on during assembly so no problem there for me.

I get lots of compliments and questions about it for sure.

Edited January 24, 2025 by c0wb0y84

xrichard · February 7, 2025

Thanks--I'm going see if I can get one on mine next week.

cseaman · July 28

On 1/24/2025 at 11:07 AM, c0wb0y84 said:

I still really like it and glad I went this route. I've added some yakima HD bars for hauling canoes and the built in rails are nice for that. I got the 78" wide bars and they don't interfere with the sides opening up, which was something I was concerned about.

Thanks for the follow-up posts. I'm about to buy a second hand Smart Cap and have 78" Yakima HD bars in the garage. Did you need to buy anything besides the bars to mount them to the cap?

Tyler Gibbs · Sunday at 02:45 AM

On 1/24/2025 at 1:07 PM, c0wb0y84 said:

I still really like it and glad I went this route. I've added some yakima HD bars for hauling canoes and the built in rails are nice for that. I got the 78" wide bars and they don't interfere with the sides opening up, which was something I was concerned about. While driving you're not gonna be able to see much out of the side windows so I don't think that would really matter much vs solid but I would still pick with the windows bc even though they're tinted I like being able to look in without having to open the door to see if what I'm looking for is there or not. There's also some threaded anchor points on the roof inside which I've found pretty handy. The thing is rock sold!

The locks are a bit stiff and can freeze when the temp drops but I usually leave them unlocked so it's not a big deal to me. The wiring for the CHMSL was kind of a pain bc it had to run all the way back from under the drivers side dash. RSI also recommends checking the torque on the nuts every so often but I put loctite on during assembly so no problem there for me.

I get lots of compliments and questions about it for sure.

Is it an optical illusion in the pic or is the truck really squatting that much horribly?