I am rebuilding my 2000 chevy silverado 2500 4x4 6.0, does anyone have any advice for me about mods i can make for horsepower or milage, im rebuilding the motor at a local speed shop, i want a new exhaust but im afraid if i remove the cat converter my o2 sensors will freak out and turn on the dreaded engine light. any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

tune will let you run no cats with no lights comming on . just wont pass a sniffer test .

 

no sniffer tests where i live. all shut down for good. do you have a recommendation for a specific type of programmer.

 

There is nothing wrong with the earlier long crank 6.0L’s and they can be built to put out just as much power as any other 6.0L. Even the iron heads are up to the task to make decent power, as they are basically iron equivalents to the later aluminum versions with 210cc intake runners. Depending on what style of pistons you’re choosing for your rebuild process, whether you decide to stick with a dished-top replacement or move up to a set of flat-top’s like an LQ9 would have had, you may want to include a set of aluminum heads to your project. If you were planning on sticking with replacement dished pistons and picked up a set of “243” casting heads, you could add close to an extra point of compression for a little more torque. If you were to add flat-top’s you could pick up a set of “317” casting heads pretty inexpensively and still have decent compression and a power increase. Not to mention it would let you shed a decent amount of weight over the front axle. You don’t have to swap to aluminum heads, but it would be a good time to do so and besides being a weight savings and easier to modify than iron, you can also generally be able to run an additional amount of ignition timing, as the aluminum heads tend to pull heat out of the combustion chamber at an higher rate.

Other than the previously mentioned iron heads and long style crankshaft, the early 6.0L’s had a smaller camshaft and injectors than the later units, so upgrading these pieces as well as in conjunction with having someone tune it for your new combination could result your truck running better than new.

The possibilities are almost endless, so good luck with your rebuild and I hope it turns out well.

 

thanks ill post some before and after pics in the next few months, its gonna be a nice truck when im done.