Why the ZL1500 and ZR1500 trucks cost over $100k to build. I explain part by part!

what's up guys welcome to the channel today i've had a lot of questions asking um mainly hey what does it cost for me to build one of the zr1500 trucks or what does it cost for me to bring a truck to you and do the same stuff you did on the zl 1500 truck um i'm just curious well i uh you know there's a lot of money in these trucks guys these are not just take a truck wham bam swap an engine in it and uh hit the road these are full off frame frame off builds so i am going to make a video for you all today explaining about you know what and why everything costs as much as it does for when the zr1500 or zl1500 builds so make sure you watch this whole video because i'm going to explain to you all the parts involved in what everything cost individually so let's get to it make sure you hit the subscribe button and the bell notification to let you know whenever i post a new video okay i brought the zr1500 to my house and next to it is the zl 1500 i'll zoom out a little bit so you guys can see boat trucks in action here but uh also guys there's the c7 a lot of you ask uh you know where the the z06 went that we had on the channel about eight months ago well it's it's sitting right here i do not have the gray z06 anymore or uh the gray c7 is what i call it the procharger car it has been gone for two years now so this is uh kind of what replaced the c7 void in my heart uh but let's get to it so here we have the zr1500 truck which this is the latest truck on the channel that we have built at killer performance which is my shop that i co-own with curtis um and then this is the zl 1500 truck which we had um previously built about a year ago on the channel almost a year ago to the date between these two trucks so i'm going to explain basically going over the truck uh kind of just like hey this part costs this hey this part costs this and then go over the labor and then everything else that we do to make these trucks as cool as they are um so first off we're going to start with the zl1500 truck this is a 1993 silverado this is an original paint truck yes guys this was a low mile original paint truck the reason why i start with the original paint trucks is because i don't have to do bodywork i don't have to do rust repair i don't have to do any of that stuff the interior is perfect so that's why i start with a good low miles truck because i feel that if i buy a you know a project truck a truck that's got a lot of miles a truck that's got um you know a lot of paintwork a lot of rust i'm gonna be ending up spending more money making that truck look as good as this one does and it's not gonna be original it's cool when i can pull up to a show in this truck and say yeah this paint right here is the original paint from 1993. or hey this interior in this truck is the original interior from 1993. it just adds value to the truck so that's why i choose the low mile ones and don't start with the basically piles of junk so let's get right to it guys zl 1500 build this build for this truck is going to run you about 85 000 plus a truck um and that is if your truck is in good shape so this truck was a 50 000 original mile truck that i found in iowa it was basically a one owner truck just beautiful when i bought it and it was a perfect candidate to do this swap on on the exterior on the z on the zl trucks zr trucks i color match everything kind of make it look like a sport truck so this truck for instance we did uh front and rear bumpers from lmc truck the paint to match ones we had them painted we also did the sport grill uh that is a paint to match grill from lmc truck and then have it painted basically front rear bumpers you're looking about you know four hundred dollars the grill you're looking another hundred dollars and then to paint everything you're looking at about another 450 dollars so that totals that up headlights we just uh replaced basically with an aftermarket headlight figure 100 for headlights clear corners another 50 bucks not bad this truck that i bought had a cow hood which we put a stock hood on there so we put a uh you know a lmc truck kind of a replica hood and then we had it clear brawled when we got it all finished by the time you bought the hood paint and everything you figure about another uh 600 650 bucks all right bed this truck had a great bed in it um it did have some scratches on the bottom because it had a mat in there from basically whenever it was new so what i did was the size of the bed were perfect you can't ever have original perfect paint beds once they're scratched up so i wanted to keep that originality with the bed but we did a spray in bed liner on the very bottom of it and i think it turned out really nice i don't have to worry about a bed mat blowing around while i'm doing 130 plus miles an hour so um that right here didn't cost us anything but this this was 400 to get done next we'll move into the interior so the interior in this truck and all the zl zr builds we try to keep it pretty stock we want to keep the truck kind of what it would have been like if it would have came with this stuff from the factory that's kind of my recipe for these trucks so really the only thing that we change on the inside is we run a bill specialty steering wheel that way we can run these awesome billet shifter paddles for the 10-speed transmission and then we make it all work with a dakota uh digital um automotive uh uh dash so basically that's 1250. steering wheel we're looking at another i believe 650 dollars by the time you buy everything and then the paddles we have 600 in the paddles so there's the interior for the zl 1500 truck this is obviously something that i did on this truck these are actually 454 ss seats that are in gray yes these are super super super rare seats that we put in the zl1500 truck really cool i may actually even switch them into this truck since it actually does kind of mimic a uh ss truck next we move on to the mirrors we did the the 454 ss mirrors these you can buy use these are actual metal ones um oe mirrors uh you can usually pick them up for three or four hundred dollars online if you can find a set and then by the time you paint them you'll have another 150 dollars in that so figure 250 300 for a set of mirrors then we move on to the brakes and the wheels and the tires so we use the forged weld wheels now they do have another line out the ventura line that is a cast you can buy those wheels for about 1200 bucks a set if they're in a 20. these are the forged version however because the trucks deserve fine wines so we buy the good stuff for the trucks you can buy a set of these wheels 20 by 10 20 by eight in the front uh from well it's about eight week build time but these run about five thousand a set plus a set of tires they're going to run you about another fifteen hundred dollars so you figure sixty five hundred dollars in wheels then we get to the brakes so these are the little shop brakes for a 15-inch rear wheel so we can run off all the way down to a 15 inch wheel if we're going racing so we do that disc brake conversion but the fronts gets a little bigger up here so these are the 16-inch wheel wood brakes um these basically for all four are gonna run you about five thousand dollars give or take if you do the 14s in the back add a few more or if you do the small ones that we have on this truck figure about 5 000 for a set of bricks all right now we start getting into uh where a lot of the money is when you pop the hood on one of these trucks you'll notice everything looks very modern uh it looks like it came this way from the factory all the way down from the air intake to the blower fluid reservoir which holds a lot extra you can also put ice in it um we got our methanol tank which was actually used to be the washer fluid tank and then of course we have the heart of everything that makes it all work in this case is an lt4 engine you can't just put one of these motors in these trucks and expect everything to work and live so what we do is we build everything else around it as well so when we take one of these trucks we do a factory 454 ssh radiator there's a really good radiator for what they are and then we run a dual electric fan combo um we obviously get rid of the mechanical fan for one these engines don't even have that but it just looks a lot cleaner too figure about 450 for the radiator and another 500 for a set of fans also the blower has a heat exchanger so we have a factory heat exchanger in the zl1500 truck off a zl1 camaro uh factory heat exchanger's going to run you about 300 and you got to have a blower intercooler pump on there as well so figure about another 150 for that here we have a quartus performance this is a c7 5-inch intake these run 750 dollars from quartz performance obviously we modify them a little bit to make them work for the trucks but still the price is the price so 750 for that then we have the quartus performance this is a c7 expansion tank that's actually made for the z06s but it fits right at home on these trucks that we build this tank is 700 and it does come with some of the fittings and hoses obviously this is a different application than what they build them for so we do have to modify a little bit that is a motion raceworks catch can motion racehorse catch hand comes with the lines and the fittings for about 350 then we have the lt4 here this lt4 um crate motor is going to run you about 16 000. this one is not stock though however we have done some modifications to this which kind of makes it kind of tailored to the zrzl packages this one's got a joker's ported blower fifteen hundred dollars it's also powder coated at 300. also we did the taller lid add 750 powder coated at 30 with the color match not 30 300. then we have a 103 throttle body here uh 750 upper pulley 325 then we have a lower pulley down there which runs you about 650 then we do a cam and dod to lead on these cam and dod delete is going to run you about two grand give or take on labor and parts we're running motion raceworks billet valve covers on here those run you about 700 by the time you buy the coil brackets and everything else then we get down to the headers uh headers actually are not really bad they're priced about 350 dollars for the swap headers that we use but we may be going to a different brand here pretty soon then you got a front drive kit because why well these lt motors don't come with power steering and obviously you want to change up everything they set in a different frame so everything's going to be different this is a drive junkie front drive kit that's going to run about 3 000 underneath the truck um i know it's hard to show you guys because the trucks are on the ground but i'm just going to kind of go over some things with you um underneath the truck we have a 10l90e which is going to run you about 4500 then the driveshaft is a slip joint drive shaft it's going to run you about 1400 for that of course you don't want to have the stock rear end in there so when we do the rear ends on these we actually use the factory 10 bolt but we do build them up the full build kit with us is going to run you about three thousand dollars by the time you do everything to it with the powder coating and then to put all this power to the ground we run a qa1 full coilover suspension kit that's going to run you about six thousand dollars to get the fuel system done uh the fuel system is a basically we use an air motive on this one we used a holley on the zr but they're both about the same thing same price point it's gonna run you about 400 for the fuel system but these are not stock so we actually beef up the fuel system and we run a dsx low side as well that's gonna run you about a thousand dollars for the dsx low side then we actually um on these level three trucks we get rid of the factory steering and we put a rack and pinion steering in from elevated concepts that's gonna run you about two thousand dollars there then um let's see here bracing we run elevated concepts mid brace which actually acts as a transmission mount as well that's going to run you about 750 dollars plus powder coat and install when we do these trucks we completely disassemble the whole frame uh we take the cab off the bed off everything we have the frame sandblasted and powder coated that's going to run you about 1500 for just the powder coating and sandblasting to put one of these trucks all together is about 230 hours of labor and that's being very uh i guess very conservative on the labor as well i mean it's it's very fair um it probably does take us a little bit longer but we are getting quicker with the more trucks that we do figure about 120 an hour labor which is very very fair for a shop like ours so 125 times 230 hours you guys can do the math i'll put it at the bottom that is what you're looking at for labor to build one of these trucks start to finish there's a lot of wiring involved speaking of wiring we use spear tech for the harness spear tech harness for the lt4 swap is going to run you about 3 500 it also comes with the computers and all that jazz then if you notice on the zl1500 truck there's a lot of things that have been powder coated and made to look nice we powder coat the the wheel liners black we powder coat the full cool core support all the all the hood hinges all that good stuff basically for powder coating on one of our builds it's going to run you about 2 000 to 25 hundred dollars on everything that you do now the hood here um we use an eddie motorsports billet hood hinge um these run about five hundred dollars one more thing that we do to kind of make everything cool with the factory column shift is we run a low carb flexible uh shift linkage which goes down to the 10 speed that's going to run you about 250 so let's move over here to the zr1500 now that you kind of see what the level three zl 1500 build is going to cost you and this is what a level three zr1500 build and when i say zr1500 basically the big difference is we use utilize an lt5 engine on this truck and also we use a level 3 qa1 suspension kit as well basically the difference on that is quite a bit actually so an lt5 is going to run you about double what an lt4 does an lt5 right now is going to run you about thirty thousand dollars and then the wiring harness so the wiring harness is a lot more expensive you're looking at sixty five hundred dollars uh for the spear tech lt5 10 speed combo wiring harness because the lt5 actually utilizes port and di injection and they run a holley computer to run the port injectors and then also a whole factory system which is what's in this truck so basically you're paying extra for the full holley system and it's nice it's got wide bands you can even hook up a holley screen in the truck if you do wish which is pretty cool um so that is going to be the main difference in there also the lt5 utilizes a dry sump oiling system there's a little bit of extra cost in there you're looking about 600 for the tank plus we had it powder coated by the time you buy all the dash 12 lines and fittings probably add another 350 dollars in there and that will give you a good idea what you guys are running difference wise for the lt5 to the lt4 also the zr1500 truck we are using ac on this truck this one will get ac it's just that drive kit did not work at that time we did finally find a drive kit that works well with ac and still looks good we don't have the lines hooked up yet but the ac is on the truck wired in ready to rock and roll we just need to make the ac lines just at the time of this video we hadn't got to that point yet the zr1500 truck we also upgrade the heat exchanger in the front of the truck this is a cordis performance c7 heat exchanger it's going to run you about 750 this truck also on the zr1500 which we will offer it on the zl2 is we actually had this cab and the bed uh transported to our painter and he painted all the inside the fenders the firewall all underneath the cab and underneath the bed um which did cost a little bit that's going to run you about 1700 depending on how bad your truck is and how much work it does need but that'll kind of give you an estimate of what you're looking at there and when we get done with these trucks um we take them over to um our detailer casey detailing he's going to charge you about 3 500 to make these things pop like brand new again as you can see the paint is perfect on these and this red truck was not perfect by any means when we picked it up it did have a lot of swirls and scratches and stuff in the paint that they were able to get out so they do a really good job also we offer ppf film on the whole tailgate this one's got it on the roof the complete hood and then the whole bottom half of the truck is also ppf'd as well along with the front bumper so this does have a lot of ppf it keeps these trucks kind of preserved for you so that way you can take them out and drive them and beat on them without the worries of you know chipping all your paint and you know kind of ruining your investment that you have here all right guys i hope that uh kind of shed some light on how much just one of these trucks is it's not just the engine and the transmission that's a big part of the swap is everything else that kind of involved with it and i know just going through it i missed a lot of stuff but that should give me a good idea on just kind of what you're looking at on one of these trucks because they are not cheap to build and they're a lot of work i mean when we build these trucks we're working about two months straight at the shop monday through friday for two months so 8 a.m to 5 p.m 9 a.m to 6 p.m however you put it but that's how much time it takes to build one of these trucks about two months full time um and that's if we have no parts delays that's if everything comes back from powder coating on time paint all that good stuff so hope that kind of clears it clears the air with the the trucks and uh hope you can see the value that i see in them these things are awesome they're a blast to drive and uh can't wait for uh you all to see them in person i know a lot of y'all have seen the the teal truck i know a lot of you all have seen the teal truck in person and we're impressed wait until you see the red zr 1500 it's going to blow your minds we'll have it at tx 2k this weekend uh they're in baytown texas so if you see us while the truck with us in the pits make sure you stop check out the truck look forward to seeing you all there but uh that's it guys we'll see you down in texas uh for all you that are going but we'll see you later make sure you subscribe and that'll do it for today's video [Music]

Channel: Stangkilr Productions

Views: 79,983

Keywords: zl1500, zr1500, obs chevy, silverado, obs, build day 1, obs build, killer performance, 1320video, street car takeover, street truck takeover, roll race, 40 roll, 60 roll, chevrolet trucks, e85, supercharged, lt5 swap, lt4 swap, 10 speed swap, paddle shifters, cleetus McFarland, ford trucks, f150, qa1 coilover suspension, roadster chassis, sema, sema show, 454ss, 454obs, ss silverado, corvette, camaro, lt5, hellcat, 1994 silverado, red dragon, drag racing

Id: wWovmJP9YGY

Length: 20min 34sec (1234 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 16 2022