South Dakota

[TheGameGoat]

Hey all!

 

I'm from East Central South Dakota, currently work in the Ag Industry as a Custom Applicator, which means I get to drive the big monster truck looking things, and I've been lurking on the site for over a year now, absorbing as much of the wealth of knowledge as possible from everyone. This has been an excellent site for me in getting to know my truck better and the things it's capable of. I've had my Silverado SS since November 2015, always wanted one after my brother had an '03 many years ago, he's since gotten rid of his (what a mistake). Mine is an '05 AWD, the mods I've done so far are pretty minor, Airaid CAI, DI/DO catback exhaust w/dual tailpipes behind the tires, Black Bear mail-order tune for 91 Octane, 305/50-20 Nitto NT420S, 1.5 inch drop shackles just to level it out, I've also put in a Rockford sub/amp and a Pioneer 7" touchscreen radio (AVH-X4800BS), and I put in some Spyder smoked red tail lights, and blue LEDs in the DRLs at risk of attracting the attention of Police, but I've found out my 3% driver and passenger window tint already does that, $130 later, pulled over on the Interstate for window tint, can you believe that?!

 

When I bought the truck it was sorta blacked out, which is a look that I like but don't prefer on my own vehicle, black grille inserts, black bowtie, black tail lights, but still has the factory chrome wheels and all the SS badging (thank god, I love these trucks and want to flaunt that it's an SS). Years before I bought it, it had been wrecked badly enough that it is a salvage title truck, but whomever did the repairs seem to have done a pretty good job, although the driver's side, where it had been wrecked, had a bit of orange peel in the paint, but a couple family friends who are body guys as a hobby and have schooling from Wyotech gave the physical repairs their stamp of approval (before and after pics provided). One of the guys buffed the hell out of it last summer, and made it much better but he wasn't able to get all the haziness out of the paint.

 

The town I live in is a smaller town, about 12k population, but has by my count 5 Silverado SS's plus mine so 6 total, including 2 black, 1 blue, and 2 red, and mine is black also. So, with that in mind, my truck is going to one of the family friend's paint booth tomorrow to have Hockey stripes painted on it, 1. because I love that look and 2. to make it unique in my town at least, I thought a lot about going with AUTOGUY's website and doing it myself, but decided to have them painted so I get exactly what I want in terms of color, shape and length, and since I have a guy who can do it in his shop pretty easily and I can be with him when he tapes them, it seemed like the best option. They will be pearl white with a blue reflection, planning to have a gap left in the front of the stripe behind the headlight so I can put some emblems in there, reminiscent of the '67-'69 Camaros, the biggest problem I've had is finding the emblem I want, I hoped to find an emblem exactly like the '69 Camaro's 327, 350, 396, etc. but as a "364" and have had no luck finding this emblem as plastic, although I did find one in stainless steel it's not the same style, so I'll either have one custom made or go with a different emblem altogether. My dad has always had Classic Muscle cars for as long as I can remember and long before my time, he's had a '67 Chevelle SS ragtop, '65 Chevy II Nova that he drag raced, '71 Camaro SS, '72 Chevelle SS 402 that he built from nothing (this one is his baby), '75 Camaro, '70 Le Mans, and a '77 Camaro Z28 (I'm sure I've forgotten some). I was always in that group of people, my parent's friends were all car buffs too, who had similar Muscle cars and did lots of work making them "theirs". Many cars have come and gone over the years, some with lots of restoration and some with very little only to be sold, but the '72 Chevelle SS and the '75 Camaro are still in his shop. The '77 Camaro Z28 was actually my first car in High School, it was that brown color and just looked dreadful, but it was still cool to drive, I was later given a '97 Firebird Formula with a 5.7L to drive to school then Tech school, so I was fine with the brown Camaro going bye-bye. I seem to have gotten off topic, so with that said I have been around a lot of Muscle cars and that's why I prefer the Hockey stick look and wanted to have my truck be a sort of homage to that era.

 

As for things I'm planning to do to my pickup after the stripes, I think I'll be done with appearance upgrades for a bit (although I want wheels) and would like to focus more on the engine and get some more power out of her. I would like to put a different cam in it with a 2800 stall(?) and LS6 springs, but really haven't researched that stuff much yet, long tube headers, true dual exhaust maybe with an X-pipe rather than the DI/DO single muffler I have now, FAST LSXrt intake, the truck is my daily driver, so I don't really want to put too much under the hood, but I would like to take it to the track someday. With only 87k miles on it, there should still be a lot of life left and a lot of time for me to do the upgrades I want to do, heck maybe someday I'll do some kind of forced induction. Currently this is my only vehicle, so I use it for everything, but when I get another vehicle, I plan to keep the SS as a toy, so then I can really do some upgrades.

 

So, here's what it looked like after it was wrecked long before I ever owned it, we talked to the dealer I bought it from and were able to track down a few images of it:

 

 

 

And here it is now:

 

 

 

So anyway, sorry for the long winded introduction but I like to read other people's backgrounds, so I'm hoping some of you enjoy reading about me and my truck. Looking forward to learning more from all of you!

[Infernis]

Nice! & welcome to the site.

[davischevy]

Welcome.

 

I don't come here a lot but it's neat to see people keeping these trucks on the road.

 

I see several SSS's around here. Now more than in the past.

[houston05tx]

Welcome to the site!

 

 

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