Hey fellas, I was toying with the idea of putting a whipple on my new (to me) '09 GMC half ton, but the harder I thought about it, until it gets higher mileage, I don't want to swap out a perfectly good tranny. I keep hearing how much potential these engines have over stock, and I thought I would ask you guys, who have a lot more experience with these things than I do, what I can do to get the most out of this truck while keeping the stock drivetrain reliably in tact. I'll be doing a bit of towing an RV with it, so I want it to benefit me in that regard but what recipe will give me the best combination of power, fuel economy, and reliability. Thanks fellas, I really appreciate it.

Edit: I should add, I have 4.10 gears in it so that is something that I won't be needing to change.

 

What are you goals for the truck? There is no need to change out any of the drive train, The 6l80e is a stout transmission even in stock form. If you have the funds for a s/c that would be a great start to build on.There's actually been talk of 1-3mpg gain with the tvs1900, The biggest culprit is a heavy foot.

 

I don't have any specific numbers in mind. It's my DD, and like I said will be towing an RV around the rockies here for a week at a time several times a summer, so some good towing performance is ultimately what I'm after while keeping decent fuel mileage. While this truck is an '09 I wasn't fortunate enough to get one with the 6-speed, so I only have the 4l60e tranny, which is the only thing making me a little gun shy of supercharging it.

 

shoot... with a 4l60, i'd almost be leery of intake headers & tune (which is a good place to start, especially with a blower in mind for later)

 

How about building up the 4l60 with a shift kit and whatnot? Would it be able to handle those mods over the long run?

 

Do a tranny cooler and corvette servo to save it for a while, but eventually its gonna have to go. So its now or later pretty much especially if you're gonna be towing in the mountains

 

If your not abusing the truck you'll be ok with proper upgrades. The trans will need a cooler and shift kit to save the clutches. The upgraded servos would be ideal too. As for power like I said before the s/c is first choice if money permits. Adding an exhaust to that would be even better. If you can't afford the s/c with trans upgrades than a CAI, LT headers, catback and tune will give decent power.

 

check out my puplic profile on my 5.3 skip intake and stall for towing. maybe a 2600 stall would work better for you. i recently beat a new bmw 650i at the track.