n8in8or
I never met a project I didn’t like
This is more of a “new vehicle” thread than a project thread, though I’m sure I will be doing some things to it in the future, so I thought I’d start a thread to document what I do to it.
Getting this truck was not really in the plan, though it has been a bit of a dream vehicle for me for years. In additions to that, for a little over a year I’ve been slowly piecing together an LSA supercharger kit for my Envoy. Earlier this year I started to wonder if I should instead get an 07-14 Escalade to LSA swap because it would give me some extra room, a nice interior and it would already have the 6L80 that I want as part of the swap, plus I’ve always liked these Escalades. I weighed my options and decided to just stay the course of doing the Envoy conversion…..I even recently got a 6L80 core to build for it. Well a little over a week ago, my brother sends me an ad for a 2013 Cadillac Escalade ESV Platinum with an SLP supercharger on it. It was a beautiful truck with a supercharger even bigger than the LSA charger (this one is 2300cc versus the 1900cc LSA) on it already and the price wasn’t too bad. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. So I did some financial planning and talking to the credit union and came to the conclusion that I could make it work. It was at a dealership in Wisconsin, 3.5 hours away from me. I didn’t have any concrete plans last Saturday so I went to look at it.
The interior was in great shape. I had never touched an Escalade with the Platinum interior before and I fell in love with it - it’s like the nicest leather jacket I’ve ever touched, much different than typical automotive grade leather upholstery. It drove really nice - so much more comfortable than the Envoy, which I’ve definitely diminished the ride quality of with the lowering suspension bits and poly bushings. I was afraid the ESV version would be too big (the ESV is the Suburban-sized Escalade, as opposed to the Tahoe-sized one), but it really wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t what I would call “fast” due to the weight of this truck, but it’s adequate…..and the speed is also deceptive because it’s so quiet inside while accelerating, though you do get a little supercharger whine when you’re on the throttle, which is super cool. While it was in really nice shape overall, it did have a little rust starting on the driver side quarter that would need to be addressed before it got bad and the frame coating was flaking off and there was a solid coating of rust on the frame, which could also be addressed.
Since this was such a rushed thing, and there were other people looking at it as well which diminished my bargaining capabilities, I passed on purchasing it. But I kept my eye on it…. I also convinced myself in the meantime that I could buy it, and if I didn’t like it (either due to the size of it or the cost of it) that I could remove the supercharger and sell the truck NA for close to what I could buy it for, so that felt like a risk reduction and a bit of a justification. It still hadn’t sold by Wednesday evening, so I called to try to make a deal. We ended up at a price just above what I told myself was my max, but it was still $1000 off asking, so I said “ok”.
A friend of mine (a very good friend of mine) drove me the 3.5 hours there yesterday to pick it up. I’m really loving it so far! The power curve is really interesting. I think it’s tuned to deliver the power gradually so it won’t hurt the drivetrain or the engine itself since it’s just a bolt-on kit that doesn’t require regapping the rings or doing any drivetrain upgrades. The kit supposedly takes the factory output of 403hp and bumps it up to 525hp……sometimes when I get on it I believe it, other times it feels overrated, but I haven’t really driven it enough to fully shake it down yet.
I’ve found a couple things to fix/upgrade in the near future, but first I need to replenish my bank account and also keep chugging along on the Frankensquare project, which still needs a bit of financial investment as well.
As far as the Envoy goes, the initial plan was to sell it to help offset the cost of the Escalade……however, I’m also weighing the idea of continuing with the LSA swap, but do it in a cheaper fashion since it won’t be a daily driver any longer - I can make it a toy that can be my LS project outlet, and not make bad decisions with the Escalade. Not sure what the direction will be yet.
Here are a couple pics I took when I got it home.
I tried parking it in the garage. I knew it was just a touch long with everything as-is, but it is super close. I already need to replace the garage door, so I’m going to change the framing up so the door sits out a little further, which should buy me the extra couple inches I need. In the meantime, I’ll park it in the barn so it’s out of the weather.
Getting this truck was not really in the plan, though it has been a bit of a dream vehicle for me for years. In additions to that, for a little over a year I’ve been slowly piecing together an LSA supercharger kit for my Envoy. Earlier this year I started to wonder if I should instead get an 07-14 Escalade to LSA swap because it would give me some extra room, a nice interior and it would already have the 6L80 that I want as part of the swap, plus I’ve always liked these Escalades. I weighed my options and decided to just stay the course of doing the Envoy conversion…..I even recently got a 6L80 core to build for it. Well a little over a week ago, my brother sends me an ad for a 2013 Cadillac Escalade ESV Platinum with an SLP supercharger on it. It was a beautiful truck with a supercharger even bigger than the LSA charger (this one is 2300cc versus the 1900cc LSA) on it already and the price wasn’t too bad. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. So I did some financial planning and talking to the credit union and came to the conclusion that I could make it work. It was at a dealership in Wisconsin, 3.5 hours away from me. I didn’t have any concrete plans last Saturday so I went to look at it.
The interior was in great shape. I had never touched an Escalade with the Platinum interior before and I fell in love with it - it’s like the nicest leather jacket I’ve ever touched, much different than typical automotive grade leather upholstery. It drove really nice - so much more comfortable than the Envoy, which I’ve definitely diminished the ride quality of with the lowering suspension bits and poly bushings. I was afraid the ESV version would be too big (the ESV is the Suburban-sized Escalade, as opposed to the Tahoe-sized one), but it really wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t what I would call “fast” due to the weight of this truck, but it’s adequate…..and the speed is also deceptive because it’s so quiet inside while accelerating, though you do get a little supercharger whine when you’re on the throttle, which is super cool. While it was in really nice shape overall, it did have a little rust starting on the driver side quarter that would need to be addressed before it got bad and the frame coating was flaking off and there was a solid coating of rust on the frame, which could also be addressed.
Since this was such a rushed thing, and there were other people looking at it as well which diminished my bargaining capabilities, I passed on purchasing it. But I kept my eye on it…. I also convinced myself in the meantime that I could buy it, and if I didn’t like it (either due to the size of it or the cost of it) that I could remove the supercharger and sell the truck NA for close to what I could buy it for, so that felt like a risk reduction and a bit of a justification. It still hadn’t sold by Wednesday evening, so I called to try to make a deal. We ended up at a price just above what I told myself was my max, but it was still $1000 off asking, so I said “ok”.
A friend of mine (a very good friend of mine) drove me the 3.5 hours there yesterday to pick it up. I’m really loving it so far! The power curve is really interesting. I think it’s tuned to deliver the power gradually so it won’t hurt the drivetrain or the engine itself since it’s just a bolt-on kit that doesn’t require regapping the rings or doing any drivetrain upgrades. The kit supposedly takes the factory output of 403hp and bumps it up to 525hp……sometimes when I get on it I believe it, other times it feels overrated, but I haven’t really driven it enough to fully shake it down yet.
I’ve found a couple things to fix/upgrade in the near future, but first I need to replenish my bank account and also keep chugging along on the Frankensquare project, which still needs a bit of financial investment as well.
As far as the Envoy goes, the initial plan was to sell it to help offset the cost of the Escalade……however, I’m also weighing the idea of continuing with the LSA swap, but do it in a cheaper fashion since it won’t be a daily driver any longer - I can make it a toy that can be my LS project outlet, and not make bad decisions with the Escalade. Not sure what the direction will be yet.
Here are a couple pics I took when I got it home.
I tried parking it in the garage. I knew it was just a touch long with everything as-is, but it is super close. I already need to replace the garage door, so I’m going to change the framing up so the door sits out a little further, which should buy me the extra couple inches I need. In the meantime, I’ll park it in the barn so it’s out of the weather.
