Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Front leveling kits

Anyone care to share thoughts on "jacking" the front suspension a coupla inches, to level a late model Silverado? Always bugged me that the 1500s are a few inches lower at the front, than at the rear suspensions. Not to mention that damned plastic doohickus that hangs too low under the bumper.

Never bothered with my '06 Sierra, because it had torsion bar suspension and I didn't care for the procedure of adding longer keys in the A arms to raise the front a bit.

Newer Silverados/Sierras now have "coil over" front suspensions and I've looked at the various leveling kits, which raise the bottom of the shock mount to level the front.

I like them. Some don't. If you pull a real heavy load they'll sag in the rear a bit and it might look goofy but you won't care, you'll be in the truck.

If you want to run a bigger tire you almost have to have a level'r now days.

Mostly going for a more level look. Seldom load much in the bed that weighs more than a few hundred pounds, although there is typically a coupla hundred pounds of tools, straps, chains and "junk" in there?

Only thing that squats the ass end a bit, is when I haul firewood on my 16' flatbed trailer and I generally load most of the weight over the axles, just enough weight on the hitch for a good pull.

Watched a video of the installation, didn't look like anything I couldn't handle and the sucker is due for an alignment, anyway? I've seen billet spacer kits and the ones in the Rough Country video appeared to be neoprene or some similar material.

Be aware that leveling the front will tilt the effective aim of your headlights up a bit. Me and several others I know have had oncoming traffic start to flash high beams at us, thinking we had on our high beams, even though we did not. This only started after the leveling kits went on. My next door neighbor was baffled about this with his new Silverado, until I asked if he'd recently installed a leveling kit.

Realize headlights will need to be adjusted and the front end alignment needs redone.

Bought a used Chevy 4x4 years ago and realized there was a major problem with the headlights, first time I drove it at night. Truck had never been wrecked, but for some reason the lights were way too high and aimed off to the left too far, so they offended everyone else on the road coming at me.

Suspect the original owner had done it, since he was an odd ol' bastard in many ways.

Used to pull 'em up in front of a garage door and re aim them myself. No probs after I adjusted the lights on that truck. Then I also had one on which the headlights were 'bout useless.

Low beams hit about 50 feet in front of the truck when I got it and the high beams reached out about where the lows should've been.

Check out Top Gun Customz leveling kits. They have a good selection and they also have kits that they make. They have the kits that use the spacer for the top of the shock and spring assembly along with the bottom shock mount adapter. I would use this kit becuase it keeps the ride like stock and does not put the shock or the axle in a bind.

To my taste, I like having a little rake to it when it's empty. As luck would have it, that's how they make them. I don't know that I'd bother with it unless you need to add room for bigger tires or chains, but you only have to please yourself.

As far as i know, the 4x4's still use torsion bars, unless they changed it for the 2014's.

GM dropped the torsion bars when they redesigned the trucks in '07, if not mistaken? My '06 GMC had them, the '10 Silverado does not.

My '11 does, but it is a 2500HD. So the 4x4 half tons are not torsion bar anymore. Man, I haven't kept up with that change.

I don't like the look of the "leveled" front end. It makes the truck look like a dog that just got kicked in the butt that's running with it's tail between it's legs. Around here all the teenage gang banger wannabees do it to their trucks as soon as they get them.

If you still want to lift the front and have some rake,you can lift the rear too can't you? Most kits offer that IIRC.

Two options here:

1.) use a set of wrenches and remove it.
2.) run over a large roll of carpet that will start the removal process. You still have to use wrenches to finish the job.

Wife won't be happy with option 2 if it is her truck. I know. It does look a lot nicer with the plastic doohickus removed.

For the leveling, you can go past center and do the 'SoCal Lean' with the front end running higher than the back. Only in California.....

That's the way they did a lot of Chevy 4X4's around here in the early 80's. 5" lift in the front and 3" in the back with a huge set of Gumbo mudders all the way around. Most folks claimed better weight transfer. Not sure if it actually did any good or not.

Ahhh...the Cali Rake. It makes the truck look *really* good with any kind of a load on it.

Wife removed that on her truck, the first year she owned it. Ran over a huge chunk of frozen snow.



According to the owner's manual, if you remove that thing for off roading, 'sposed to put it back on for highway use. Some jibberish about cooling, IIRC?

Personally, I wish they'd take the same approach for the 1500s as they do on the 2500s: Bit higher and level.

It used to just be the lowriders with their Impala's. Now every jackwagon and his bro have the front end lifted and an aluminum skid plate.

Looks better on a truck than a Corvette though. Seriously, 13" spokes and B78 white walls. Talk about fuggly!

I just put the Firestone airbags in the back of my '09 GMC and ordered the Rancho Levelling shocks for the front. No issue then with the sage when loaded or pulling a trailer.

I have an 07 Chevy 1/2 ton 4wd (the new style that switched over 1/2 way thru '07) with a leveling kit. Took about an hour to put the shims in between the struts and the control arm. I didn't like the lowered look either and I wanted the clearance for a larger tire. I think it looks pretty good.

The only downside is you will get crappier gas mileage after you do it, which is the reason stock factory trucks are lower in the front to begin with. It's to cut the air from getting under the trucka nd improve the mileage numbers.

Just leveling it I lost a bit over 1mpg, combined with the more aggressive tire (and calculating tire diametere difference) it added up to right at 3mpg.