Silverado HD front end lift

I leveled my 2012 2500HD by cranking the torsion bars which is what the dealer is suggesting I think. The downside is the ride quality decreases. The upside is you still have the $2000 in your wallet as opposed to lifting the truck. I would suggest you have the dealer crank the Tbars to where you want it, drive it for a while and see what you think. If you like it, then have the front end realigned. So don't drive for three month cranked up without getting aligned you will wear your front tires. You don't over crank it, you don't have to worry about extending the shocks. I only cranked up to level the truck out.

If you like the ride of your truck just go with a basic spacer lift that goes on top of the strut between the strut mount. It's the easiest, cheapest and most common and won't affect the stock ride.

You will need a wheel alignment and depending on the amount of lift you may need to drop the differential to keep the axle angles in line, but usually only if lifting more than 2".

CurtisFamily wrote:
Does anyone have experience lifting the front of the new HD's? I've seen the 1 and 2 inch lift kits. And the local dealer told me that they can rotate something in the front suspension to raise it up, giving the truck a more level look. Either way, what are the benefits and disadvatages in doing this? I'm guessing a level truck would look better, until you put a load in the back. Would airbags then be needed? Is any modification going to cause additional wear on front end components?

Doing a modest level of 1 or 2 inches is very common with pickup trucks. I did the same to my F-150 when I wanted to fit larger tires on the vehicle. With GM trucks, they use a torque rod instead of a coil-wound spring. Same concept, but the spring is just a straight rod with a twist in it. To add lift, they can add more twist to this rod but it will firm up your suspension. The dealer would use a "torque key" to add additional twist to the torque rod. If you have a lot of miles on your vehicle, it may put different wear on your ball joints, cv axles and shock absorber. Unless you have a whole lot of miles, your ball joints and cv axles will usually not be an issue. Typically it will be the shocks that need to be replaced when you do this, as they wear into a certain movement range and when you level, you've moved the shock's stroke range a good inch or so. A lot of the aftermarket make front shocks specifically for this. When I leveled my truck, I decided to put Bilstein 5100's all around.