Top Gear and Tools for Off-Road Adventures: A Handy Guide

Dropping a ’23 Sierra Closer to the Ground

Stock trucks are something most of our readers try to avoid. Sure, when it comes to work trucks, owners keep them stock for most of their working lives. But for us gearheads, we can’t leave anything alone and always have to tinker on our trucks.

Suspension upgrades seem to be one of the first “must haves” in our world. Personally, every vehicle I currently own is lowered, and that mod was planned shortly after purchase, right behind window tint.

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Several suspension companies out there make lift kits, lowering kits, and even track suspension kits for just about every truck on the planet. When vehicle manufacturers redesign a truck, aftermarket companies try to adapt a kit for the new configuration. Sure, you can cut apart your truck and add an air-bag suspension, but for most people, the work, cost, and hassle to do this is beyond their grasps or out of their ability to do it themselves.

Adjusting the altitude of your truck is still within reach thanks to companies like Belltech. For this project, a ’23 Sierra 1500 4WD, the company offers a few options for lifting and lowering to fit everyone’s individual needs. I’ve wanted a static-dropped, super-clean daily driver for a while and figured it was time to build one that fit what I wanted, so I reached out to Belltech to see what my options were.

This truck is a four-wheel drive. Most people would ask, “Why would you lower a 4WD?” For my specific needs and because we get a couple small snowstorms a year, keeping the 4WD working was a priority, but I also knew wanted to sport-truck look with this build. These new trucks aren’t like the older, solid front axle trucks from back in the day. Modern suspension is pretty much the same on a RWD and 4WD version, so with a mild drop, the front CV axles can still work as planned.

Knowing I wanted this truck to handle and drive as well as stock if not better, I opted to go with Belltech’s upgraded kit that upgrades the front coil springs to a full strut replacement coilovers, upgrades the front sway bar, and adds a rear sway bar. With this kit, Part #1041 HK with a $2,573 retail price utilizes a front 2-inch drop spindle and up to 3 inches more drop with the adjustable coilovers. The rear consists of a leaf spring flip kit, new rear shackles, and a bolt in C-notch.

DIFFICULTY LEVEL: INTERMEDIATE

I would say this is a mid-level difficulty installation, but if you are mechanically inclined with a good tool stockpile, it’s something you can do in your garage. Cutting the frame to bolt in the new notch was honestly the most time-consuming part of the whole install. Yes, it can be done on jackstands, but I opted to team up with a local shop, Wheel City Tire & Alignment, to do the install on a two-post lift to make things easier. The installation plus the alignment took a full day; I’m sure taking photos slowed the process a bit. But you could easily do this on jackstands in a weekend.

Once the install was finished, the truck went on the alignment rack. Belltech designs its components so that the truck aligned back to factory specs, preventing excessive tire wear. The stock wheel and tire setup fits perfectly with this lowering kit as you can see in the photos, but I also added a set of 26×10 Dropstars Billet Wheels, model number B61 with a $1,468 retail each. These wheels were wrapped in 305/30-26 Lionhart LH-TEN tires with $175 retail each. This gives me the option to roll on the 26s but swap to the stocks during the winter if I wish and have zero issues with either set.

Follow along with this quick glimpse into what is involved in installing the kit. Yes, there are several steps left out due to space, but the high points are hit so you can see the main steps to judge whether it’s something you want to do or leave to a local shop. After driving the truck, I honestly couldn’t tell it was lowered.