I currently own an LBZ. As far as power is concerned, my stock LBZ felt nearly identical to my mildly (and affordably) modded LB7. I was very happy with the drivability of both rigs. My old LB7 had: 6" superlift, 17" wheels and 37" BFG AT's, AFE Stage II air intake, 4" exhaust (downpipe back) with NO KITTY and a hypertech on Level 3. This being said, the truck ran like a champion. It was fun driving in the mountains...lots o power and the thing I miss the most was the exhaust note. It sounded so sweet. I'd purposely reroute myself to tunnels or underpasses, drop the rear window and let-r-eat...damn it sounded good. I liked the old 5 speed tranny a little more, too. Even though I had the big meats on the LB7, I remember getting roughly the same mileage from that truck as I do my LBZ. As mentioned before, with the transition from the LB7 to the LBZ, the difference in power was hardly noticeable. That's a good thing, since my LBZ had not been tuned by an aftermarket programmer (and still isn't...still unsure of what I want). As far as the LB7 goes for maintenance, the only thing that I heard (I don't know this for sure...do your research) was that if the injectors needed to be wrenched on, it took substantially more labor hours to access them vs. the newer LBZ design.
I see a few 2002 LB7's runnin around out here and I really liked the hood design of that year, too.
I haven't been in the market to purchase a new/used rig so I don't know what the diff is between the LB7 and the LBZ. Either way, I think both duramax/allison models can be very reliable/capable rigs.
Happy hunting, brother. Whatever choice you make, you won't be sorry...especially with resources from this website for when something goes haywire or you just want to spend some of that hard earned cash on trickin' your new baby out just the way you want to. :thumbsup:
10: At least I'll be satisfied to keep the LBZ stock.
