Hi All,

Have a 2003 2500hd extended cab 4x4. 160k miles. Mainly a light duty work truck, with occasional heavy loads in the bed and towing in the future. Truck currently has a Magnaflow muffler and AirRaid intake. Love the truck, have a plan on upgrades - want to see if money might be better spent elsewhere.

The exhaust manifold studs are broken in 4 corners, so I'm planning on pulling the heads, that's where this started. All labor aside from porting will be done myself.

1. Pull heads, send to Texas speed for CNC port and valve job with larger valves.
2. Texas Speed truck cam, not sure which one. While the heads are at their shop, they will install valve springs.
3. New lifters, rockers, pushrods, essentially replace everything aside from pistons, bearings, etc with the heads off.
4. Long tubes - maybe pacesetters or some other value brand.
5. Send to exhaust shop to complete exhaust work - I'm in CO so must be emissions compliant, plan to reuse stock cats unless they are unusable. Will have them weld in UQ resonator - drone is bad currently.
6. Tune from Black Bear or similar. Maybe local dyno shop.

The rough numbers on this seem to be affordable (half cost of a blower) and I think should net decent gains? I could be way off. Want to see if money would be better spent on maybe different heads, etc. Truck currently has a Magnaflow muffler and AirRaid intake.

 

Sounds like your on the right track. Porting the heads isn't a necessity but it will make difference.

 

Please buy larger fuel injectors too. Do that before your tuner or whoever tells you half way through a full throttle pull that you are already at 90% duty cycle with the small 25lb/hr injectors. Bump up to 31lb/hr or larger to make sure you have the headroom.

Stay smaller on the camshaft if you don't want to install an aftermarket stall converter too. Something in the 212/218 range would be great.

 

I second the 212/218 cam. I have that cam in my 6.0 Tahoe it has a ton of low end grunt but also pulls well up top and sounds nice.

 

Interested in your results

 

Thanks for the responses everyone. I'll take the advice on the cam - didn't want to go too big, because I want to keep stock cTonverter.

Thanks for the injector info FFDP.

Thinking about a TBSS intake while I'm in there. Any thoughts on that? If I go the TBSS route, should I do larger TB while I'm at it? Found a site that sells them new plus bigger injectors for less than $500.

 

The TBSS/NNBS is a proven piece. If you get an entire intake, you'll get a larger TB with it.

Unless your truck is already a flex fuel truck, you'll need a couple of things: (if the fuel crossover on your current intake is stainless and not black, you're already flex fuel ready and #2 below isn't needed)

1. Xlink - you need this so the TB will operate correctly.
2. Injector pigtail conversion harness - you can either cut/solder in new ones or just get pigtail conversion harnesses.

 

When you're looking at the TSP cams, they have a low lift and high lift, the high lift makes more power everywhere over the low lift so choose the high lift. It will require new valve springs and pushrods but that's a good plan anyway since you're that deep in. Hell even if you weren't that deep in it's a good idea.

 

Hi All,

I am in the process of this. Have the heads pulled, ready to go to TSP. Took everyone's advice on cam selection, etc.

Question now is: what else should I replace while I'm in there? Taking off that intake manifold was a nightmare, I'll do whatever I can while I'm at this point.

I already have MAP sensor, 2x knock sensors, knock sensor connector, new fuel injectors, 02 sensors, and oil pressure sensor ordered. Thinking I might do fuel pressure regulator. Just did plugs but I may as well do them again now.

Anything else you guys can think of? Ignition coils are all relatively new.

 

New lifters, new camshaft retainer plate, if you went with the high lift cam and matching springs I'd go with a set of hardened pushrods. Since the intake was a "nightmare" I'm not going to recommend dropping the oil pan for a new oil pump, pickup & o-ring replacement. If the oil pump is not removed/replaced you can't remove the crankshaft sprocket to replace the full timing set. Inspect the cam gear and if there is no abnormal wear just install a new LS2 timing chain.