It was a lightweight @ 3150 lbs. I put a GM Hot Cam, 4.10 gears , big single exhaust, and a tune. yeah it was a bad dude.
It was pretty clear GM was done with putting money or thought into those cars after the late 80s. I was a big third gen fan having owned a pile of them back in the day. Most of the crappy engineering carried through to the fourth gen cars.. the LT1 and LS1 made them respectable again but it could have been much better..
Not really... sometimes few more HP might be available , but that would not be the norm. LS motors are famous for piston slap.. GM has more excuses for this than you can shake a stick at, but the real reason is that they went to something called "net"clearances in about 1998. So instead of the "select" clearances, which are individual pistons matched in size to individual cylinders, now it's basically anything goes, as long as it's within a rather wide spec window. This was done to save money, and speed up production. The result was Hyper pistons that slap like mad when they are cold. My 00 suburban 5.3 is really loud.. the OE owner told me that the rattling started when it had about 20K miles on it.. was back to the dealer several times, each time being told that it was "normal". Not all LS motors suffer from this, my 05 6.0 in my 2500 Burb is actually very quiet, at all temps. They made engine assembly into a game of Russian roulette. when it comes to piston/wall clearances. If you have seen the little letters and numbers stamped on the decks, next to the cylinders on our 455 engine blocks, you have witnessed "select clearance" fitting of an engine by the factory. JW
The 6.0l in my 04 yukon 2500 is very quite, got back last night from a 3000 mike round trip towing a loaded 28ft enclosed trailer from Ohio to San Antonio, minus it doesn't have big block torque in the lower rpms 2000-2500 so it can't stay in overdrive as much as I would like, it did ok. Low 8 mpg but we were 65-75 most of the trip. Only drank 1 quart of oil. Has just under 180k. Perfect temps and oil pressure, tranny never saw much above 180, and we did about 750 miles a day so she ran for basically 12 hrs a day. I do wish it had an 8100 or at least 4.10 gears.....but we can have everything
Speed engineering headers, dual 2.5" maganaflow and a blackbear tune will wake it up BIG time in the 2000-2500 RPM range... All across the torque and HP range is improved but towing performance really improved and it can now hold 6th gear when towing. Mines a 2012 6.0 but the same idea and the same mods will help.
Yup, the 4.10's make a big difference... I only lost 1mpg towing an empty 2000 lbs alum open car trailer.. 14 to 13 mpg.. and then after a loaded 4000 lbs of trans parts and transmissions onto that trailer, it dropped another 1 mpg.. got just over 12, driving at 70-75 mpg on the recent 1200 mile trip home loaded.. Surprisingly, after changing Mike's 05 1500 Sub to a 4.10 gear, from the pathetic factory 3.42, he only lost about 1mpg empty. The engine was working so much less, requiring a lot less throttle opening, that the extra rpm was not that much of a factor.. he went from high 14's, low 15's empty, to mid to low 14's.. Towing? Forget about it.. that thing used to get 5mpg trying to tow anything decent size. Got into a headwind in SD once, could not maintain 55 mph without it being is second gear.. had to pull off the interstate that time, and drive the secondary roads at a slower speed. After the 4.10 install, it towed my 05 3/4 ton home from TN, on an open trailer, and averaged 10mpg.. Be interesting to see if I can pull my open steel trailer, with a GS on it, and get 12... I would be ecstatic if it will. Same weight as the trans parts, but heavier trailer, and much more wind resistance.. we will see, hopefully in a few weeks here. JW
I can see 13/14 just the vehicle on the interstate highways. We went through alot of terrain from Ohio to Texas. I enclosed is about 4000 according to the birthsheet. Going down I had another 5000ish in the box. Coming back I was empty minus an aluminum headed bbb I picked up in Dallas.....but I had alot wind over the nose. I was hoping to get closer to 9, and I'm sure if I would had slowed down to 65 I could had gotten there, but the travel window was tight
Mine was holding 1100hp on a stock bottom end,.....no issues with the 10k miles I put on it,...new owner now
I currently have 4 LS engines (LS1, LS2, LSA, LY6) and all have been rock solid and performed better than I would have expected. I've heard lots of complaints about piston slap in LS engines, including two that I've owned, but I've never personally known anyone that had one fail due to that condition. It's just been an annoyance. I certainly agree with Jim W. about swapping rearend gears in anything with the smaller LS engines. It's no surprise that the 4.8, 5.3, and even 5.7 LS don't make a lot of torque in stock form, just like nearly every non-performance, small displacement, gas-burning engine ever made, regardless of brand. I agree. I've got a LS1 4th gen Formula WS6 with the common modifications (heads, cam, headers, intake, exhaust) and while I've never taken it to the track, that little 346 ci engine really runs stronger than I would have expected considering its small displacement. I've got a stock bottom end 6.2 LSA that pushed a daily driven 4,515 lbs Caddilac to 9.84 @ 140 and has hundreds of passes with no issues. That's now going into a 3,600 lbs car and will be way more powerful than I really need.
Agreed, I just did a 4.10 gear swap on my lifted 02 Yukon and its better on fuel now compared to the 3.73.
I got an 2004 Silverado 2500 HD, with 6.0. Its a baby at 108k on the clock. I at least have the 4.10s, which is nice for getting going. Its still in the 8 mpg range with an enclosed trailer and car. I did 10 with an open trailer and car and from Michigan to Carlisle, probably with my foot a little less in it. I looked at some 8.1s of the same era, and talked myself out of it. All the talk of a quart of oil between fill ups. Honestly, I'm pretty happy with my 6.0.
Well tonight on a 100 mile trip to the lake with just the family and our stuff it went 14mpg. Average around town is 10/11
