• Welcome to The Truck Stop! We see you haven't REGISTERED yet.

    Your truck knowledge is missing!
    • Registration is FREE , all we need is your birthday and email. (We don't share ANY data with ANYONE)
    • We have tons of knowledge here for your diesel truck!
    • Post your own topics and reply to existing threads to help others out!
    • NO ADS! The site is fully functional and ad free!
    CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

    Problems registering? Click here to contact us!

    Already registered, but need a PASSWORD RESET? CLICK HERE TO RESET YOUR PASSWORD!

Just a few random questions

SethRoush97_6_5

New Member
Messages
24
Reaction score
3
Location
Chesterville, Ohio
Hey all,

Just wanted to know what everyone has had the best luck performance wise with: turbos, lift pumps/fuel systems, chips/tuning and also automatic transmission builds/performance kits. Just curious in the different options and roads I can get into with my truck.

Thanks in advanced
 
What exactly are your uses, plans, goals, and expectations for the truck?

Cheap fuel efficient DD? :greedy:
Show Truck?
Drag strip?
Tractor Pull?
Pulling an RV?
Work truck?
WVO disposal?
Land Speed Record?
Finding new impressive "Bang!" ways to turn a 6.5 into scrap iron? :dead:
 
X2 on what WW asks.

Need to decide on the truck's primary use and map out the plan.

For example, while I use the Burb as a daily driver, it was rigged to tow. So the upgrade path I took was for pulling with highway manners and not dragging.
 
How good for what $?
P400 long block, moose pump, ATT turbo, 4" diamond eye exhaust, Bosch injetors(balanced), Bosch glows would be a real nice start.
 
Well then what about lift/injection pumps and turbo. Already have it head studded, exhaust, pmd relocate. Ive heard good things about the A-team, hx35 and hx40 turbos but has anyone had any better luck with anything else? Also have heard good things about the airdog and raptor pumps but are there any other good options?
 
Hey all,

Just wanted to know what everyone has had the best luck performance wise with: turbos, lift pumps/fuel systems, chips/tuning and also automatic transmission builds/performance kits. Just curious in the different options and roads I can get into with my truck.

Thanks in advanced

4L80E is a fine transmission for what you're doing. I tow to southern Ohio and my stocker does well. Heath EPROM has pressure jacked up, I believe, has shift points changed and torque convertor stays locked down to 30 mph when I let off the throttle, so helps with braking. I run Lube Gard as a recommendation from Heath, as well.
 
Well then what about lift/injection pumps and turbo. Already have it head studded, exhaust, pmd relocate. Ive heard good things about the A-team, hx35 and hx40 turbos but has anyone had any better luck with anything else? Also have heard good things about the airdog and raptor pumps but are there any other good options?

Another turbo from our new vendor is in here.
http://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/threads/2000-k3500-gone-mechanical-build.42434/

The A-Team is best at towing and other sustained high load higher RPM use. Burnouts - No. You are trading low end boost for high RPM boost and pulling like a freight train all the way to red line. Getting to 2000 RPM where the turbo lights off is a big part of the trade off. The factory turbo rolls over and dies after 2200 RPM.

Getting around using a large turbo (ATT) for lower RPM:
http://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/threads/another-bd-quick-spool-valve-install-with-a-c.39716/
The other way of high stall converter is already posted.

Having run both the HX40II and the ATT I found:
HX40II lights off at a little lower RPM, but, from a dig needs to see 2000 RPM to really light off just like the ATT.
HX40II uses 24 PSI of boost to get the same power on the rollers that the ATT does at 15 PSI of boost.
If the HX40II Waste Gate pops off at high RPM you hit a brick wall for power and sudden smoke. - Adjustment is required.

Because the grades here are 7% to 18% I need all the top RPM power I can get out of the engine and have a blown a few up towing. So the large ATT is the best choice for me and adapted to daily driving that include steep grades.

Walbro is the best flow on fail lift pump you can get. (Engine will stay running with lack of power with a Walbro failure due to the IP's own pump.) They don't last forever. For the cost of a Raptor you can buy 2 or more Walbro's. If the Raptor quits about 10 seconds later so does your engine. I have run and killed lots of lift pumps - IMO the engine quitting with the unreliable things is the worst feature to have. Lift pumps are a question of "when" not "if" they die.
 
Another turbo from our new vendor is in here.
http://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/threads/2000-k3500-gone-mechanical-build.42434/

The A-Team is best at towing and other sustained high load higher RPM use. Burnouts - No. You are trading low end boost for high RPM boost and pulling like a freight train all the way to red line. Getting to 2000 RPM where the turbo lights off is a big part of the trade off. The factory turbo rolls over and dies after 2200 RPM.

Getting around using a large turbo (ATT) for lower RPM:
http://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/threads/another-bd-quick-spool-valve-install-with-a-c.39716/
The other way of high stall converter is already posted.

Having run both the HX40II and the ATT I found:
HX40II lights off at a little lower RPM, but, from a dig needs to see 2000 RPM to really light off just like the ATT.
HX40II uses 24 PSI of boost to get the same power on the rollers that the ATT does at 15 PSI of boost.
If the HX40II Waste Gate pops off at high RPM you hit a brick wall for power and sudden smoke. - Adjustment is required.

Because the grades here are 7% to 18% I need all the top RPM power I can get out of the engine and have a blown a few up towing. So the large ATT is the best choice for me and adapted to daily driving that include steep grades.

Walbro is the best flow on fail lift pump you can get. (Engine will stay running with lack of power with a Walbro failure due to the IP's own pump.) They don't last forever. For the cost of a Raptor you can buy 2 or more Walbro's. If the Raptor quits about 10 seconds later so does your engine. I have run and killed lots of lift pumps - IMO the engine quitting with the unreliable things is the worst feature to have. Lift pumps are a question of "when" not "if" they die.


Just curious on the hx40/ATT comparison, did you try to wastegated the hx40 to the same boost as the ATT? I wonder if you were just building extra boost that was unnecessary for the fuel you were running?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Just curious on the hx40/ATT comparison, did you try to wastegated the hx40 to the same boost as the ATT? I wonder if you were just building extra boost that was unnecessary for the fuel you were running?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The HX40w will give more boost than you can fuel w/DS4 a DB2 Bull Moose pump will complement it very well. The HX40ii is a small version between the 35 and full sized HX40w.

It's hard to be subjective w/little or no A-Team Turbo data the Holset/CKO's spool faster than comparable sized Mitsu/CKO because of turbine design. I run a HX40W 18 cm2 Super 40 CKO and happy with it because of the massive amounts of air it flows at low boost as well as up high.

I plan a DB2 Bull Moose pump in the near future.
 
Just curious on the hx40/ATT comparison, did you try to wastegated the hx40 to the same boost as the ATT? I wonder if you were just building extra boost that was unnecessary for the fuel you were running?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just ran the HX40II and it let you know when the WG popped off as there was instant smoke and power loss. So I couldn't reduce boost without power loss. For whatever reason the engine I tested on was near impossible to clean up. (Cars failed on the rollers next to me during emissions testing till I worked at cleaning it up.) I suspect it was the 6.2 NA precups and maybe that was the limit I ran into on that build. It would pull better MPG that any other 6.5 and turbo combo I tried with the ATT and the BD spool valve. I even had a higher stall converter made for it because that's what it needed, but, it wound up in the 1993 as I sold the rig. The converter was ordered before I dropped the spool valve on it and the spool valve made the converter unnecessary.
 
Did you do a write up on here for the dyno results WW?

Sorry for the derail, back to the topic after this one[emoji4]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Hey all,

Just wanted to know what everyone has had the best luck performance wise with: turbos, lift pumps/fuel systems, chips/tuning and also automatic transmission builds/performance kits. Just curious in the different options and roads I can get into with my truck.

Thanks in advanced


Your limit on power would be the ds4 platform. Every person that sells a tune will tell you why theirs is so much better than the competitors. But when it come down to it, they are all limited to "x" amount of fuel bc of the factory programming. Each programmer does a little tweaking here and there, but after running multiple tunes from various places, they are all pretty much the same. I personally couldn't tell a noticeable power/fuel mileage difference between any of them. The exception would be the KOJO tune, but I ran it with the ATT, all other tunes were run with a stock turbo. So that comparison can't really counted.

The ATT is the only turbo, other than stock, that I have ran on a ds4 platform. It was by far the best running. With some minor tweaks (mainly transmission/converter tweaks) to the tune, it would have been about as good as a ds4 could get I think. But I wasn't willing to ship my ecm overseas for another month or two to get the tweaks, so I just lived with it.

For mostly daily driving and towing on or around the farm, I would probably suggest something more along the lines of a hx35. With a 12cm housing it is small enough to build boost quick for great acceleration but should also flow well enough for most "normal" hauling. If you live in a location like I do, most of your hauling will be in the 55mph range with a lot of speeding up and slowing down for sharp country curves and hills. A 35, I think, would best suit that kind of hauling on a stock or "tuned" ds4. A 40 I think would be too big and lag too much for the lower rpm range you would be running.

I towed with my ATT, which is bigger than the hx40, and it did well, but I was unable to get the full potential out of it with the type of hauling I did. And once I switched over to a marine db2 and then my modified pump, it was all but impossible to haul anything with it. But the KOJO tune works really well with it. I would only recommend a KOJO tune if you plan to run an ATT. With a hx35 I don't think it would much matter who you went with.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Did you do a write up on here for the dyno results WW?

Sorry for the derail, back to the topic after this one[emoji4]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dyno:
http://www.thetruckstop.us/forum/threads/att-run-vs-hx40ii.38950/

With a small turbo as you noted above, well, small asthma attack turbos just covers up a lot of things. When you finally let the engine get a lot of air the small things show up like differences in tunes. Could be said as less forgiving. Differences in tunes are needed to make up for the large turbo trade off as well. Small turbo's simply run out of air after lighting at low RPM. Simple to cut top end fuel. it's harder to keep smoke down at low RPM with a large turbo. This is where tunes and other differences like precups show up.

For example retarding the timing to spike EGT at low RPM could be used to help light off the ATT. With a spool valve I noticed Dennis's tune had a flat spot where he was trying to do this. The spool valve eliminated the need for that trick.

The terrain and MPH you have is different than mine. To the OP here is 2 examples of building the truck for our needs/goals. So in my case I went from a 454 gas guzzler economy of 7 MPG towing to 10.4 MPG by dropping the ATT in place of the GM turbo. 3.4 MPG wasted as heat trying to blow through the restrictive GM turbo going up The Rim 1000' to 7600'. Never mind piston scuffing and other failures while pushing that hard. Even a steady flat run 62 MPH, 2200 RPM, was the limit of the GM3 on the 1993 with a slight grade and a head wind. (Lake Havasu to Phoenix.) So ANY larger turbo is better than factory.

The difference in turbo size is a big factor. Other things show up as you go bigger. I like the extreme top end and am not afraid to wind it up and leave it there. Mainly because I need to and still get passed on grades. So I have built my rig around the ATT and budget. The ATT's paid for in fuel savings. The other mods like stall converter and Spool valve just make things better without buying a new variable turbo truck.
 
Back
Top