There's a saying: Go big or go home. Bryan Brown decided to go very big with his '01 Chevy HD crew cab. That's just what this Mentone, California-based sport truck builder does. As the owner of Bulletproof Suspension, he was very interested in being one of the first shops to build a lift system for the new heavy Chevy.
The towering presence of this truck comes from a series of well-designed and applied components. To lift the nose, Bryan designed components to raise it 18 inches. No body lift; it's all suspension. He built A-arms, a drop down cage and spindles, as well as a torsion bar, which provides a stock spring rate at the lifted height. The rear suspension uses an Atlas Spring pack re-arched to give 15 inches of lift. With the nose and tail raised, Bryan had the room to fit the rig with some seriously tall rolling stock. He fitted his Chevy with 42-inch tall Super Swampers on 16.5x12-inch Weld Racing Stonecrusher wheels.
Once you get a truck body -- especially a Heavy Duty four-door truck body -- that high in the air, you better be able to control it, and that's where the Fox Shocks come in. Bryan installed two 12-inch Fox shocks with reservoirs on each corner of the front suspension. The rear suspension required 14-inch Fox shocks. Bryan's company built the billet clamps that reinforce the shock bodies and add a bulletproof style to the suspension.
With a massive Heavy Duty made more massive with a maximum tire combo and lift gear, the truck needed more torque from the big 6.0L V-8. Bryan took it to Glen's Chassis in Redlands, California, to have a Powerdyne Supercharger installed. He also had a set of Gibson stainless steel headers installed to help the supercharger and backed it up with a Gibson exhaust system. The centrifugal supercharger pumps 8-psi boost, or about half an atmosphere. This unit is not intercooled, so it is probably not generating 50 percent more power compared with the factory rating. The owner estimates he has at least an extra 100 ponies and 100 lb-ft of torque on tap. That extra torque and the toque multiplication of the 4.10 gear brings this combination back into the fun-to-drive power level. After he had the power and the lifted stance, Bryan started on the styling. Blue metallic tribal flames were added to the black body paint. The subtle paint scheme puts the focus on the suspension at first, but thencalls attention to itself as you get near the truck.
Inside the truck, he went multimedia-wild with an extensive sound and DVD system. He started the system with an Alpine head unit and Alpine DVD player. Four sets of Fosgate component speakers driven by an MTX amp fill the cab with the highs and the midrange. A thumping bottom end comes through eight Kicker 12-inch subs, with a pair of MTX amps reinforced with two capacitors dedicated to drive the bass. On the video side, the DVD plays through six monitors placed strategically throughout the cabin. To tie it all together, he had the interior redone by Stitch. The upholsterer made custom seat inserts and worked up a few door accents as well.
So there you have it, Bryan Brown's bad, black and blue-flamed massive Chevrolet Heavy Duty Silverado masterpiece. This awesome spectacle of a truck doesn't come easy and doesn't come cheap, but boy, is it worth the effort. Just ask Bryan.