• If you currently own, previously owned or want to own an Avalanche, we welcome you to become a member today. Membership is FREE, register now!

ItsRichards future modifications and plans

ItsRichard

Full Member
Joined
Jan 4, 2020
Messages
13
Location
Wisconsin
My 08 Chevy Avalanche is 2k miles from reaching 250k! I have a lot planned in the future for keeping her going.

I am creating this thread to show my mods and plans. First plan is upgrading my suspension and leveling it out. Right now I am looking at my options on what to do. At this moment I'm planning on this; looking at a 2" suspension lift. There are two options I am looking at, Cheap option or something twice the price. The cheap option is the Rough Country N3's. These are really cheap and look ugly. It would save a lot of money. The option I'm leaning towards is the Fox 2" performance series. The Fox are twice the price but are better quality and most likely a better ride quality.

If I do the lift I am also getting a new upper control arm to compensate for the height. The control arms I'm looking at are the DynoFit 2-4" lift control arms. These will help with ride quality better then having my stock control arms that would be adding stress to the ball joint.

My last product that I will buy with all of the above are new control arms. I need new control arms anyways so this would be a great time to get new ones.

I will continue to post on this thread for future updates, pictures, and ideas. I am also planning on making a YouTube video once I reach 250k Miles!
 
*Update*

This week I got a glorious ticking noise coming from my truck 10 miles down the road going to work. I automatically knew it was one of the lifters going out. Drove it to work and parked it there for two days. Today I took it to a shop around the corner to get it diagnosed. Keep in mined I?m only 1k miles a ay from 250k miles. Sure enough one of the lifters in cylinder 1 totally collapsed. That shop I?ve never been to quoted me at $3200 to only do one side of the engines lifters. Well, I called up my mechanic and told them what they found. The quoted me $3000 to do all 16 lifters plus a new camshaft if anything damaged it. If the cam is fine it will be probly only $2300 for the fix. This is a reason why I love my mechanic. He?s done lifters on our beater charger and that is up to 290k miles. After this fix I could pretty much have a new engine. I know I don?t have a crack in the block and everything else is good.

So, my suspension plans have been put on the back burner. I?m going to try to get the collapsed lifter to have a picture for the forums. I?ll give an update I want I find on the lifters and maybe read on how to change them for the future.

Shake and Bake Yall
 
Time for an actual AFM delete?

???
 
How much for a new engine from say JASPER or Junkyard or ??
 
EXT4ME - looking into it. I?m going to talk to mechanic that?s does lifters for us before. He would give me more info on what to look into for an AFM delete. I also looked into getting the RANGE ACTIVE FUEL MANAGEMENT DISABLE DEVICE. It?s an OBD2 plug that locks the truck into v8 mode for only $200.
 
Ygmn - Right now I?m not looking into doing an engine swap. But, I believe if I looked hard enough I could find a LS engine for pretty cheap. I?ll have my mechanic give a thorough look over on my engine when I take it in here sometime.
 
Update on lifter replacements

Called the shop today. They checked out the camshaft and said I won?t need a new one! Money saved there for sure. All 16 lifters are being replaced. The shop is waiting for the heads to come in from being refreshed. I?m getting excited for the day I can pick up probably next week. Still looking at getting an OBD2 plug that shuts off the DOD/AFM system so the new lifters don?t blow out to early. I think the avalanche will last a long time (engine wise). Hopefully the body stays together and the transmission doesn?t go out.
 
Outstanding news on the cam.

I can only hope I am as lucky when I finally get my truck into the shop.

Here is hoping your news continues to be good.

(y)
 
ItsRichard said:
EXT4ME - Did a lifter go out for you as well?

I have a thread on my issues right next to yours in this section.

Check it out here.

Taking into consideration many possibilities for a remedy, having an engine installed is one that I would feel better about.

I am NOT interested in a junkyard engine.

Opting for a GM rebuilt crate engine or something similar with a warranty would be the choice I would be most comfortable.

Having new heads, lifters and possibly a cam and cam bearings might also be a possibility to fix the existing engine.

I won't know for sure until I can get the truck to a shop and have them give it a good going over.

Given the age of the engine and the possibility of other things going bad, a new engine is looking better all the time.

My 2004 EXT, despite it'e advanced age, is still in really good shape and I would like to see at least 3 to 5 more years of daily driver service out of it, if possible.

I can also see moving the EXT to a spare vehicle position at our household later on (I currently have a 1993 Ford Explorer serving that function) and buying a more sensible daily driver.

It will be a little while before I can pursue getting my EXT repaired, so I will continue to follow your repair progress with great interest.

Thanks for sharing.
 
Back
Top