Hey all new here.

Well its just like the title says. I just bought a clean 99 z71 with a 5.3 and I'm pretty dissapointed with the performance of it. Everything works as it should but my dad has an identical truck but its a 4.8 2wd, both are all stock and his will leave mine in the dust. Mines got some miles on her at 170k...

I know everyones thinking if I wanted to go fast why did I buy a 4x4, my thing is I race quads and bikes and was tired of getting pulled in and out of muddy races.

So anyway I have researched a bit before joining. I see the 220r and 224r are popular cams, along with a stall and all the bolt ons seems to be a good way to wake it up but Id hate to spend all that money to have a truck thats just a hair faster than a stock 2wd. Plus this truck loves gas as it is. I dont want a truck thats a 3 legged dog unless you have the pedal matted

I guess I cant go wrong with headers, intake exhaust and tune but if someone has advice or has modded a 4x4 please fill me in. Thanks

 

some of our fastest trucks are 4x4. makes traction easy. go for it.

 

As Stewart said, there are allot of fast 4+4's on this site. It makes for a good street setup.

 

ok I feel better now. Gonna start with bolt ons that I mentioned then cam and stall it


224r / 3600 circle D sound like a good combo?



Hate being the new guy and being kinda clueless here but hey I want to do it the right way the first time. I really dont want to re gear it. Im guessing i can kiss my whopping 15mpg goodbye?

 

Welcome to the site.

Like said above...there are plenty of strong running 4x4's on this site. There's plenty of "free mods" that can be done, and plenty of low dollar mods that can be done...all to add some power to what you already have. My own 2002 Z71 runs very well on 87 octane tune (home HPTuner tuned), and has the basic mods you listed. One thing I found out after spending a LOT of cash on several different exhausts....my bolt-on style truck runs and drives better at ALL RPM's with a stock replacement exhaust back on it. It still has plenty of NOISE when I want to make it noisy, but I do have longtube headers and no cats. I also have a 4" homemade air intake, modded stock airbox (that's proven itself over and over to work), home ported throttle body, and LS1 electric fans. Nothing fancy or high dollar and not one thing I have done has slowed the truck down, or decreased the miles per gallon...quite the opposite for both, actually.

I'd suggest simply planning on doing a LOT of searching and reading here by simply typing in each modification in the search box and go from there.

 

well i have a 4x4 extended cab not anywhere near as fast as alot of people on here. but i did the 220 cam, 3000stall, longtubes, and exhaust and its pretty quick for what its got done to it. And yeass you can kiss your around town mileage goodbye but you highway should still be pretty good.

 

You're going in the right direction. Just hang in there. I wish I would have bought a 4x4 from the get go. Put a tune and a stall in your truck and report back with us. You will be very happy.

 

couple quick questions, can I use the same stall and headers on this as 2wd trucks use? I was looking thru the classifieds here and thought I saw someone selling their stall and in the title it said 2wd stall.

Thanks again guys, its nice to have helpful people to answer questions instead of telling me to search. I understand the importance of learning it yourself but with all the acronyms (tbss escb nbss) it takes a while to make sense of it.

 

Yes the 4l60E in the trucks use the same Torque converters.

The 3600 stall and towing a trailer will make you gas needle move down faster haha.

What size tires are on it?
Gear ratios?

 

4x4s are slow