My Porterbuilt Experience...

[72BlckButy]

Awesome build. Can't wait to see some more before pictures.

[mac808]

Originally Posted by Bennett68C10

First off I have to say that you have a beautiful truck. I love the color combo of the Red with the white grill. I'm really thinking about painting mine the same. You definitely chose right going with Porterbuilt and can't wait to see the final pics of your truck aired out. I'm very happy with my Porterbuilt purchase and even though I did go with dropmembers, the install was very straight forward with hardly any modifications needed besides a little welding for the rear bag mounts. This is a testament to how well the Porterbuilt products are made, everything fits as advertised.

Like you said though, going with dropmembers does make you have to raise your bed floor, change to different inner fenders and relocate your battery. It isn't for everybody and I think you made a great choice with your kit. I haven't driven my truck yet but from everything I read and hear you will love the way it drives. Nice job with the install pics, keep it up. Can't wait to see it finished.

Thank you very much for the compliment! I greatly appreciate it. To be honest, I have gone back and forth on painting the white front red but I have come to appreciate and love the 'original' factory look of the white front. I really love the white on red contrast with a bit of the trim in between.

It's great to hear your satisfaction and positive experience with PB as well. I can't agree more on the quality, fitment, and ease of installation with these parts. I actually thought to myself, 'if all of the PB components fit this well and are this easy to install, going to a full dropmember wouldn't be so initimidating'. Alas, my better judgement got the best of me and I stopped myself from going further into that train of thought (till later, at least...). For now, I'm very happy with the 'mild' set up. I'll definitely have to check out your PB build as well so when the time comes for the dropmember upgrade, I'll know who to ask.

Originally Posted by t76turbo

Beautiful truck.

And thanks for the post. I do wish PB would include instructions with their parts for those of us who aren't as well versed in where everything goes. I will be installing my PB stage one rear and adj trac bar soon. (Will be followed by stage 1 front soon after and maybe control arms). Will use your thread plus others for the locations and orientation of all the parts. So thank you for doing it!

No problem t76turbo! I'm glad that my thread can be of some sort of help or reference. I know there are some of us out there that need just a little bit of visual reference, since, like you said, PB kits don't come with any instructions. Although to be fair, PB kits are pretty straightforward and simple enough to figure out what goes where. Even with the 50 bags of nuts and bolts that all start to look the same. Looking forward to your install of your Stage 1 parts. Oh, and just my .02; go with the inch forward arms if you can. Totally worth it! Centers the wheel in the fender well and increases castor. Feel free to ask if you have any questions or need any pics and I'll help you out the best I can!

Originally Posted by lolife99

Excellent thread!
Thanks for taking time to document each process with text and photos.
I run between 40-50 psi in my rear bags on my 2wd blazer.
Please post up some photos at ride height when you are done.
I found I needed 2" lowering blocks on my blazer.
Not to allow it to lay out more,... but to allow a lower ride height with the correct amount of air in the Slam Specialties RE-7 rear bags.
Beautiful truck.
We definitely need more "before" pictures of the entire truck!

Thanks lolife99!! It is the LEAST I could do for all the info and knowledge all of you forum veterans spew out on a daily basis to help the forum out! I will have pictures of the truck in the second post for the PB front install to show how it sits on the bags(minus the bed). I'm not running a pressure gauge on my tank with the AccuAir setup so I don't have exact psi figures to compare. I basically set the tank pressure to 200psi and just let the eLevel sensors do their thing and hit the preset height settings for me. I may add a pressure gauge later just to have an idea of where its at but for now, I'll let the AccuAir system manage everything. I'm very impressed with how 'intelligent' the technology is on this system, but more on that later.

I am running a 1 inch block for my set up as well, just so I can get a little more, as you mentioned, 'useable' bag height when its at drive height. The bag cups help in that area a bit as well(going without the bag cups was an option but it a) required drilling more holes for the airline/mounting holes and b) it would reduce my travel by the amount of the cup, leaving me with less range to play with).

As for before and after pics, they will definitely be coming! I'll have a half completed shot without the bed at the end of the second part.

Originally Posted by oldman3

Mac, thanks for posting this info, it will be a great help to people wanting to know how things fit. Will be waiting for the second part...Jim

You're very welcome Jim! As I mentioned earlier, if this could help just one person who is wondering about fitment/orientation or how the PB stuff actually looks, works on our trucks, I would be very happy. I know I would've loved to have something like this as reference when I was trying to decide on what direction I wanted to take. I'll be posting up part 2 shortly!

Originally Posted by 72BlckButy

Awesome build. Can't wait to see some more before pictures.

Thank you! Its a huge compliment coming from you! I've read through your entire build and was truly inspired by it, as I'm sure were many others. Whats funny is your truck was actually the nagging angel on my shoulder to keep it at a clean, simple, static drop. I kept going back and forth whether to go lower or keep it at the static height. There are so many perfectly stanced static dropped 4/6, 5/7 trucks on here and I too was trying to leave well enough alone, but seeing awesome trucks like Sylvester go down just that extra couple of inches on bags sealed the deal for me. And with PB having such a bulletproof reputation for quality, it wasn't too difficult for me to pull the trigger and go with the devil on my other shoulder.

I'll definitely be posting up the before/after pics once the bed goes back on. In the meantime, I'll post up a bed-less stance shot of the completed PB suspension install with the bags installed.

[duallyjams]

nice write up but where's the hula grill ( the little one that you see on the dash )

[mac808]

Originally Posted by duallyjams

nice write up but where's the hula grill ( the little one that you see on the dash )

Thanks! Haha! No hula girl but I do have a cowgirl swingin' on my rear view...

[mac808]

Thanks for all the comments and replies on Part 1 guys! Here goes Part 2!

On to the front! OEM control arm setup CPP 2 inch drop spindles(to accomodate the Wilwood brakes), ECE 3 inch drop springs and BellTech shocks. Note: It helps to specify the type of spindle you are running when ordering the arms so that the correct ball joints are sent with the new arms~





Out with the old and in with the new Porterbuilt Inch forward Lower Control Arms. All parts were powdercoated Satin black to match my frames coating. The PB parts are works of art and would look just as good unfinished or pc'd ~




Side by side comparison with OEM lower arm~





Front Airbag mounting plate to be attached to front x-member(covers the OEM spring pocket to accomodate the airbag) and the new front shock relocator bracket. More drilling! ~



Lower Control Arms removed~




Upper Control Arms installed. I reinstalled the alignment shims to the OEM settings but I think the alignment values will be significantly different with the new arms anyway so it isn't critical to replace the shims as they were. I've seen a thread where someone found that the PB arms didn't clear the OEM x-members hump between the two pivot points and the cross shaft was hitting and preventing it from being attached but I found no such issues with my install. There is enough of a a gap to go without any shims temporarily till a new alignment can be done~




Airbag and Upper plate mounted up. Ready for the spindle and brakes to go back on~



Quick note: In this pic you can see the upper bag plate mounting bolts with the button head on top, nut on bottom. This must be flipped around. Be sure to face the heads of the button head bolts down toward the bags with the nuts on top so that it reduces the risk of cutting into the bags. I flipped mine around after it was all mounted up just for peace of mind(and probably because that's the correct way to do it). There's quite a bit of clearance around the circumference of the bag so technically it would've been fine as is, but there's probably a good reason they provide smoother button head bolts for this part of the application~



Spindle and brakes installed. At this point it might be a good idea to adjust the steering arm to correct the toe. I found that the new arms gave a severe toe-in position so I eye balled both sides to get the rotors as straight as possible ~







Correct installation of the aforementioned upper bag plate mounting hardware(button head down towards bags)





Completed front with new KYB Excel G shocks installed. Ride impression of these vs. the previous Belltech and KYB GR2's to come~




Since the airlines were not hooked up yet at this time, the first trial fit of wheel to fender clearance was done using a jack to lift the arm/wheel into the fender. Just as a side note, this is the stance and tire clearance with a 265/40/22 tire. It is sitting on the tire and this is the max drop that can be achieved with the stock fender. It is just shy of tucking the rim. More on this later...~








Air management: ACCUAIR eLEVEL system installation~


VU4 and eLevel CPU mounted on rear crossmember. Nice thing about trucks and having the bed off is all the space and access you get to play with. The only down side is I have to lose the tail pipes going out and over the axle and it leaves big gaping holes in the rear x-member. Unless I do a full rear dropmember and run the pipes along the same shape as the notch to get the tail pipe out to the rear, having a tail pipe is out of the question due to axle clearance issues and leaves me with the one option of doing a simple turn down tip right out of the mufflers. Turns out it actually sounds kinda nice!~






Dual 3 Gallon tanks with dual Viair 400c compressors mounted with eXo mount system~






The magic keypad!~



Now with everything finally hooked up and air lines run, wiring connected, the only thing left to do was to address the little issue of gaining another 10mm in drop height. How? Remember the tire in front...? My easy fix was to replace the 265/40 with a 255/30. Here's the difference in how much more it tucks...









And to give you a better idea of how this all translated into the final stance, as promised, Ruby as she sits currently sans bed~








One of the things I didn't include in this thread is the details on the installation of the AccuAir ride height sensors and their placement/wire routing etc. As many of you have probably seen or experienced, there are a myriad choices and preferences for where the 'best' mounting points are. It really is preference and is also the beauty of the AccuAir system for allowing a ton of flexibility and choice on how it is installed and set up.

I just didn't want to end up including too much about the AccuAir components in a Porterbuilt parts thread but I'd be happy to post up pics or answer any questions on that area as well. Dave Porter sent me a couple of great pics to help give me ideas on how others have set up their sensors and it helped me out tremendously. Ultimately, though, you can get as creative as you want with it. As long as it is in its optimum working parameters, the AccuAir eLevel system is pretty darn bulletproof too!

As for initial driving impressions based on a quick loop around the block, I have to say the ride on bags is amazing. It is in no way 'airy' or 'floaty' like most may think. It is a nice firm ride, similar to how a quality drop spring would feel but with a little more give. I have yet to play with the drive height settings and determine how much pressure/height would be best for everyday driving but based on my first impression of my first spin, it is an exceptional ride. I don't see any issues regarding any loss of handling or performance either. Plus its always great to have the peace of mind of having quality components under your ass and knowing you can drive with complete confidence!

If you've made it through the whole thread and you're still here; thanks! Hopefully this thread so far has been helpful(or at least slightly entertaining to those who like to look at pics). I'll be happy to answer any questions or post up more pics at your request and help out in any way I can.

Looking forward to hearing feedback and comments from you guys. I'll keep updating this thread with the rest of my non-Porterbuilt related parts of the project as it comes along as well.