Some of you know that I was going to do a duramax swap, but decided to do something a little more for the masses.
Something that everyone could also either do themselves or have a shop do it for them with the engines that they currently have.

So i'm slowly working on boosting the HP/ but mostly the low end torque where the engine spends most of it's time for daily driving.

An engine is basically an air pump, so the more efficiently you can get the air in and out the more efficient the engine will be.

It's not untypical for a worked over LS to have volumetric efficiency in the 120-130% ranges.

So i'm slowly doing some modifications to not only increase the horsepower and torque, but hopefully also improve the gas mileage as well.

So far i've done the very basics with just an easy tune up with 1 range colder spark plugs, new plug wires, and a slightly colder thermostat.
With that I modified the factory tune. I've leaned out the areas where the engine spends most of it's torque for me roughly 1000-2500 RPM.
With that you also have to add in some spark advance or it will be very sluggish. You basically add in spark until you feel it loose power or start seeing some knock retard.

With this over the past 2 weeks i've gained a real world hand calculated 1.5 MPG.

Today I changed out the truck L92 throttle body for an LS7 throttle body. The C6 Corvettes all share the same size, but I just happened to snag this one off of E-Bay for $79.99.

The truck throttle bodies all have some good restriction in them, and I was going to have it ported but for less than $80 I decided just to swap to the Corvette TB.

Next I used the homemade intake tube from the throttle body to the factory airbox.
I'm sorry I don't have the gentlemens name that posted up on here about using the 3.5" aluminum 45% tubing, and the silicone 4-3" reducer but it worked out great for me. I think the total cost with shipping for everything was $78 LOL. I had an AFE intake on order but the seller kept giving me excuses I think because the price I bought it for was only $275. Everywhere else was $375 and up. I also wrapped the aluminum tube with the gold reflective tape to try to keep the intake temps down.

After looking at it more, I actually liked the DIY setup better due to the smoother air path into the throttle body.
The factory airbox is pretty large and it pulls air in from the passenger fender so that's always a plus.
If you use the AC3100 air filter which is made by Donaldson as labeled as powercore, its the same media that Amsoil uses in their synthetic EA air filters.
So not only does it filter well, it also flows well to.

I'm taking a trip tomorrow and will see what kind of highway mpg I can get. My prior best was just a hair over 14 running the 37" tires.

Some of the next things I am going to do are:
Regear the differentials from 3:73 to 4:11 which will put me back in the factory RPM range from the larger 37" tires
Auto-trac transfer case. This will give me the 2WD, Auto-4WD, and locked 4 Hi, and 4 Low
With this I am putting in a tru-trac rear dif, and moving the e-locker to the front. This will allow the front drive-shaft to not spin unless the transfer case is sending power up front
Long tube headers, these add torque and HP especially if tuned
Rebuild the trans as it is long over due, and put in a new torque converter with a higher stall
Lastly rebuild the engine, and go from 6.2L to 6.9L this is going to happen by using an LS7 crank, rods, and custom pistons.
Along with this I am having the heads specially ported that will be geared towards torque, along with a custom grind camshaft.
The valves will all also be titanium just because I got a great deal on them.
So the reciprocating assembly will all be lightweight which should cut down on parasitic losses in the engine.
The end result should be around 425-450 ft-lbs of torque right around 2500 RPM and peak horsepower right around the same levels but obviously at a higher RPM.
The trans and engine rebuilds are going to be a little while off, but I plan on posting updates with each step I make.

Thanks for reading my jumble of stuff

 

Hey YRKD MaxH2, You might want to check out this

https://www.powernationtv.com/episod...60-on-a-budget

Can cut out alot of the "guess" work

 

Thank you sir!

I'm letting my friend/ head maching guy pick out all of the pieces and parts.
He sleeps about this stuff i think

I was talking to him on the phone and told him what I wanted to do, he was spouting off cam specs, and what port for the heads he would use, etc...

I'm not too shabby when it comes to this stuff, and I feel like a little kid around him LOL

 

put some pictures plz

 

whats the update on this project?