This is my 1998 GMC Sonoma SLS with the ZQ8 suspension package. It has the Vortec 4.3 liter V-6 and is turning into a pretty quick little truck.

The ZQ8 suspension is 2" lowered at all 4 corners, has front and rear sway bars, DeCarbon shocks, and a 3rd rear "hop" shock to help control the truck during heavy acceleration. It also comes factory with 16 x 8" rims and 235/55/16 tires. With this setup, the ZQ8 trucks will out-corner a Grand Prix GTP! I have since put 245/50/16 BF Goodrich Radial TAs on the front and 265/50/16 TAs on the back.

I have just installed my 3.42 limited slip gears. It sure picked up, and with the meaty Goodyears, it doesn't spin much at all. Right now I have an SLP intake, Helix Power Tower throttle body spacer, SLP y-pipe, Gibson exhaust, Hyperteck Power Programmer, Flex-a-Lite Black Magic electric fan, and a 160 degree thermostat. In the future, the truck may have an MSD 6al ignition box. That'll be the last mods until the blower :)

This is the rear of the truck. You might notice that there aren't any emblems on the truck. They, along with the 1 1/2" wide sticker that ran around the entire truck were removed shortly after getting the truck. It has 5% tint on the rear window and 20% on the sides. I finally got rid of that ugly bumper and bought a factory GM roll pan for it. It looks a whole lot better now. When I bought it used in the summer of 2000, it already had the tonneau cover, bug deflector, and vent guards. It also had a Lund grill insert, but the motor ran about 15 degrees hotter than without it, so I took it out. The only other things I've done to the look of the vehicle include lowering the rear 1" and putting on the contoured mud guards.

Here's a picture of my engine. I have an SLP intake, Helix throttle body spacer, and Optima Yellow Top battery in there. I also spent some time polishing all the air conditioning components - it really catches your eye when you open the hood!

This is a pic of my Gibson "Swept Side" exhaust system. It's a single 2 1/2" system with a good sounding, mellow muffler. The install was very straight-forward and only took about 45 minutes, and we didn't exactly stay on-task the whole time. We did have a lift and air tools, though.

And the finishing touch for the exhaust: a 3" stainless tip. It looks really good on the truck.

Here's a comparison between the stock y-pipe (right) and the SLP version (left). Much bigger pipe, no kinks, all stainless.

Here's the new y-pipe installed. It gave a bit more power, and really makes the exhaust note sound better.

My family likes black trucks. In front is my brother's '97 Sonoma ZQ8. Mine's in the middle. In back is my Dad's '98 Silverado with the Z71 suspension.

Here's a pic of the interior. I changed the shifter and console from column shift to the console shifter from a 2000 Blazer and put in leather seats from a '96 Trans-am. Also visible is the Woodview carbon fiber dash kit.

On to the stereo. Here you can see the upgraded power wire coming off the alternator. The factory 100 amp alternator does just fine. You can also see the dual 4 gauge power wires and fuse holders that run into the cab. Stinger power and ground wire, along with Stinger fuse blocks and Hyper series twisted pair RCA cables were used throughout the system.

This is my Alpine CDA 7930. It's kinda old, but works perfectly. It's a dead head with three 4 volt pre-outs and a subwoofer level control, though only the front and sub outputs are used. The remote's nice, too.

This is the first shot of the system. The three Pheonix Gold 1 farad caps take the wire coming in and act as my distrubution block. The Rockford Fosgate Punch 200x2 trans-ana runs high pass to Boston Acoustics 4x6 plates and Rally Series coaxially mounted components in the doors. The MTX Thunder 2300 runs bridged mono putting 600 watts minimum into two 10" 8-ohm MTX Thunder 7000s, each in .65 cubic foot boxes. 16 gauge Monster Cable speaker wire is used for the highs and Rockford Fosgate White Wolf 11 gauge speaker wire is used for the subs.

Here's another shot of the subs and amp rack. I'm estimating my real-world power to be around 1200 watts RMS. Gains on the Punch 200 are all the way down and there's very little gain on the Thunder 2300. A Punch Status Display will be going in this summer to help me monitor the Punch 200 to make sure I don't clip it. It was installed in the old system and I didn't even get close to clipping it. Everything sits in there very nicely and two people can ride comfortably now.

Here's some shots of the old sub, which was a 12" Infinity Kappa Perfect, and old amp rack. I think the new setup is definitely a step up. I'm selling the Perfect to a friend of mine who will have two of them pushed by an Infinity Beta 300 (1200 watts at 2 ohm mono) in a black 2001 Sonoma Highrider.

Here's a really terrible shot of the Boston Acoustics 4x6 plates. I'm really impressed with these. They sound great and handle 3-4 times their rated power!

I hope you all like my truck. Thanks to Jared, my brother, for all his help with design and installation and to Casey and Brett for all their contributions and experience. If you'd like to see the stereo in my old car, a 1990 Olds Trofeo, click here.