2004 6.0 NV4500 Tahoe

[Rocket Man]

More progress but waiting on the new tube to come in so I can chop it up and finish.

I think you could add a few more welds to that if you cut the pieces smaller.

 

[Dantheman1540]

I think you could add a few more welds to that if you cut the pieces smaller.

For real I thought I was gonna need to cut them with more angle which means less material in the skinny side and highly increases my chance of burning through it. I think at this point I estimate around 55’ of welds on this intake. Good thing I can burn all the schools supplies lol. I’m gonna keep track of how much rod and an estimated time welding I spend so I can price guesstimate it.

I also need to figure out how I should polish it if the welds come out good. If not flap disk and off to powder.

 

[Sam Harris]

Yep that’s the stuff.

Thanks Mark. You’re so good at showing me new things I NEED, that I didn’t even realize..

 

[Sam Harris]

Excellent work! Nice puddle and ***********

You'll get the rythm down quickly. Once you get past the "oh shit, its starting to pop and not turn red" phase, you'll master the rest quickly.

Getting used to the material not changing color was challenging for me at first. Its been 15 years since I've tig welded. I hope to get a machine one day and get back into it.

Wait until you do something like stainless...you'll wonder why you even bothered with aluminum lol

How about titanium..? That’s some beautiful material..! I watched Adam LZ’s guru “John” (pronounced Johan) do incredible work on his amazing R34 project car. Mind blowing.

 

[m1949]

Alright, I figured I should make a little thread on here since there seems to be a lot of activity on this forum. This build isn't all about performance it's a little bit of everything.

Went and bought a 2004 2wd 6.0 NV4500 5 speed manual transmission Tahoe out in the great state of Texas in Aug 2019. The owner was a respectable member of another forum and when he posted it for sale I jumped on it right away. My other truck has an NV4500 which I have had for several years and in and out multiple times so I already knew I really liked the NV4500 and getting a Tahoe already swapped saved me a lot of work

EDIT: Turns out the previous owner was a member here as well https://www.tahoeyukonforum.com/threads/04-tahoe-6-0-nv4500-2wd.113658/

Current mileage 260,000 on 1/6/2021

Front suspension/Brakes:
-Atomic fab & perf Coilover swap/torsion bar delete
-Viking double adjustable shocks with 1,000lb springs
-Kryptonite Tierods
-Hellwig 7702 sway bar
-OEM replacement idler arm, idler bracket, and pitman arm
-Front Driver Side Wheel Bearing #(Timkin SP500300)
-Poly Front end link bushings
-KYB Steering stabilizer
-2021 Tahoe 4 piston brake swap

Rear suspension/axle:
-2011 AXN 9.5 Semi Floater 14 bolt axle (Out of 2wd 6.2 Yukon Denali)
-3.42 gears
-1410 forged yoke
-G80 OEM locker
-Eibach 3' drop springs
-Viking Warrior series shocks with shock extenders
-Airlift rear bags
-Free travel mod
-Hellwig rear sway bar and end links
-PML slim diff cover
-Spohn rear LCAs
-QA1 Panhard


Engine:
-Refreshed LQ4
-Cam is a TSP 224/228 113lsa .600/.600 lift
-862 heads with Stainless 2" valves
-CHE rocker arm trunion upgrade
-Dual comp cam valve springs
-AEM Wideband AFR and tuned VIA HP Tuners by me
-Arp Head bolts
-LS2 Throttle body with X link adapter
-NNBS Intake
-AFE Cold air intake
-Long Tube headers
-Two Vibrant Ultra-quiet resonators
-Gibson 788050S dual 3" inlet/Single 4" outlet muffler
-4" Diesel over axle pipe
-Walker 21649 OEM 4" Dodge muffler

​

Transmission:
-Rebuilt GM NV4500
-Hurst Short Throw Shifter (handle length part#:0295)
-Clutch master rod extension (Custom made by me)

Exterior mods:
-Paint correction
-Morimoto HID retrofit headlights
-Paint matched handles
-HD front end swap
-Rare style rear hatch glass
-Trailer connector relocated to bumper
-Esky roof rack
-Esky rear appliques
-Diode Dynamics SS3 Pro amber fog lights
-Z71 Valence (Black)
-285/50/r20 Nitto 420s on LTZ 20s


Other random things:
-Full fluid change
-Full interior de-funkify
-Knock sensors replaced as well as Valve covers because one was cracked and leaking.
-Weathertech mats everywhere
-Kenwood8906x Head unit
-JL Audio C3 door speakers
-Custom sub enclosure with JL12"W3
-JL RD900/5 powering the system
-Back up and dash camera
-Full sound deadening on doors, floors, and rear hatch
-5% tint all around
-4hi mod

Probably more I'm forgetting.

The next parts will be:

-Lighter weight 20s (Maybe Cosmis xtr-006)
-Pull one decent-sized dent
-BOOST! highly considering a Torqstorm

The overall goal is to have a good daily driver that I can hook up a car hauler and tow my "Race truck" or any other reasonable load of crap and also have a little fun toying with other trucks and SUVs from light to light.


Here's a crappy little video walk around from when I first got it.

And some pics
View attachment 270169
View attachment 268402
View attachment 266837 View attachment 240551 View attachment 254071 View attachment 268401

Very nice! Thanks for the details, especially the suspension and brake info. Questions regarding brakes: Did you swap rear brakes also? Was replacing the brakes with 2021 Tahoe brakes bolt-on or did it require modifications?

 

[pwtr02ss]

For real I thought I was gonna need to cut them with more angle which means less material in the skinny side and highly increases my chance of burning through it. I think at this point I estimate around 55’ of welds on this intake. Good thing I can burn all the schools supplies lol. I’m gonna keep track of how much rod and an estimated time welding I spend so I can price guesstimate it.

I also need to figure out how I should polish it if the welds come out good. If not flap disk and off to powder.

Polishing, I usually start with some 400 grit or something on the course side. Then work my way down to wet 1500. After that, start polishing with some compound. Course at first and work my way to ultra fine. You can probably try the fine wet sand on that first. Then just straight to polishing. It's easy, other than the work part

 

[iamdub]

More progress but waiting on the new tube to come in so I can chop it up and finish.

For real I thought I was gonna need to cut them with more angle which means less material in the skinny side and highly increases my chance of burning through it. I think at this point I estimate around 55’ of welds on this intake. Good thing I can burn all the schools supplies lol. I’m gonna keep track of how much rod and an estimated time welding I spend so I can price guesstimate it.

I also need to figure out how I should polish it if the welds come out good. If not flap disk and off to powder.

Why not just make the whole thing out of TIG weld, like a 3D printer? It would not only be a functional part, but a display of how your TIG'ing skills progressed. Then it'd be priceless.

 

[iamdub]

Why not just make the whole thing out of TIG weld, like a 3D printer? It would not only be a functional part, but a display of how your TIG'ing skills progressed. Then it'd be priceless.

...And just as ugly as your carpal tunnel syndrome.

 

[Dantheman1540]

How about titanium..? That’s some beautiful material..! I watched Adam LZ’s guru “John” (pronounced Johan) do incredible work on his amazing R34 project car. Mind blowing.

Well for one I’ve only been Tig welding for 3 days and it’s been in aluminum the entire time. Secondly titanium is crazy expensive! Like 10 or 15 times more expensive than this aluminum, so if I mess it up I’ll have to file bankruptcy. I agree titanium looks amazing but gotta crawl before I can ball. Stainless looks sexy as well so it will be the next thing I try.

Very nice! Thanks for the details, especially the suspension and brake info. Questions regarding brakes: Did you swap rear brakes also? Was replacing the brakes with 2021 Tahoe brakes bolt-on or did it require modifications?

So my rear brakes are still 2004 Tahoe factory style parts that bolt right in the 2012 axle. The only thing that had to be done to make them fit was to change the splash shield which requires pulling the axle shafts. I don’t believe the 2021 rear brakes would fit but since they are still just 2 piston calipers I’m not interested in swapping to them.

Polishing, I usually start with some 400 grit or something on the course side. Then work my way down to wet 1500. After that, start polishing with some compound. Course at first and work my way to ultra fine. You can probably try the fine wet sand on that first. Then just straight to polishing. It's easy, other than the work part

I refuse to hand sand anything, if it’s not on some sort of spinning device I’ll powder it lol.

Why not just make the whole thing out of TIG weld, like a 3D printer? It would not only be a functional part, but a display of how your TIG'ing skills progressed. Then it'd be priceless.

I haven’t figured out what setting to run to make welds stick to thin air lol. I know it’s totally overkill and a ridiculous amount of work but I weld 5 hours a night 4 days a week. I could continue welding flat plates and T joints which is mind numbingly boring or, I could do cool stuff like this and have something worthy of showing off my skillzzz.

Plus a full 4” intake is not something you can readily buy for these trucks without a bunch of ugly couplers.

 

[pwtr02ss]

I meant coarse not course btw...didn't catch that error until I read your quote lol