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outdoor adventure

trouttrooper

Big Blocks ROCK!!!
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Location
Caldwell, ID
Long story short, my in-laws have a cabin in the woods...more like a run down line shack. Anyway, I am wanting to build a storage shed and they said there was a "hidden" cabin up by the main one that was full of good lumber. Here's what almost made me pass out, they said I could have all of it. So one of the good things about the light snowfall this year I guess is we were able to drive to the cabin yesterday. Something that is normally not doable until late May.

The hidden cabin was tucked up in some trees though and still had a couple feet of that nasty hard packed spring snow around it. No problems for the beast though :D . Chained up all 4 and with a few hits was able to back right up to the cabin. Wish I thought about pics sooner, but this was all I got. Ended up with the back of the truck loaded to the top of the shell and a horse trailer with a fair amount of longer pieces including 6 trusses.

Gotta love a 1 ton, the back is completely loaded with lumber in this pic and it's not even squatting. Also love my big block. Hauling all that weight including the trailer through the mountains without breaking a sweat. There's a stretch of the interstate closer to home that is a long slow climb. Our Envoy usually has to kick out of overdrive a couple times to maintain speed. Not the beast though. Loaded down and it stays in overdrive the whole time. :D :D
20150312_131840.jpg wood shed.jpg cabin.jpg headquarters hwy.jpg
 
Trouttrooper was talking about how strong the big block was. Why the heck doesn't GM bring back a big block gas engine? Guess maybe that might hurt duramax sales or is not profitable ?
 
Engines like the 6.0 gasser surpass the capacity of the older big blocks when used as a dd or even moderate towing. The improved mileage, longevity, and lower emissions remove the need for the bigger block build. Even the strongest engine they ever made is the new 6.2 (396 cid) vette engine in a small block size build.
And yes, the torque advantages gained by the big block for anything like towing are surpassed by the magic of Isuzu engineering (duramax). I remember when that engine design with the amazing injection system would make the jump from generator to truck. Sure glad GM grabbed it, they almost let Ford get it.
 
I kinda wonder how much more torque they could have made out of the 496 if they would have kept it in production. I had a 6.0 before this and it is a very good engine. empty and light loads it does just fine and still gave 12+ mpg. My complaint was when I hooked up to my horse trailer, hauled hay or firewood it was gutless at highway speeds and constantly screaming at 5000 rpm. Plus at those times I would get all of about 4 mpg.

My beast is 10 years old this month and has 86,000 miles. I dont drive it a lot and can not afford spending the significant extra cost for a dmax. Upgrading to the big block was $700. I got 13 mpg going up to the cabin and 9 coming home loaded. 300 miles each way. The 6.0 would have been 15 going up and 4 or less coming home with all the grades I had to go over. plus wouldn't be able to maintain a decent highway speed.

I love the niche the big block gave me. :D
 
I agree Mike. I went from a 6.0 (2000) to an'03 496. Night and day for oomph. I couldn't afford 10 gallons of gas every day so I went DMax
 
Kind of like I went from a 5.3 to the Duramax, what a huge difference, unreal. Seems like at the time I bought the truck the 6.0 was about the only gas option in 2500HD and I knew it was a gas hog. I had seen that the gas motors had to be wound up in RPM's to get to a decent pulling power and then they just can't touch a Duramax.
 
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