My '05 Suburban 2500 (6.0/4.10s) is used as an occasional tow vehicle about a half dozen times a year. I pull a car on a trailer with tools and tires, or a 28' TT with weight about 7K lbs.

In WNY we have fairly mild elevation changes but I'd like a little more oomph out of the tune without having to make any mechanical changes. This is my DD/family hauler so I'm not interested in a cam, deleting cats, headers/exhaust that will inevitably drone, etc.

I have HPTuners - what are some changes I can make in the tune to boost midrange torque in the 2.5-4.5K rpm range?

I am aware of the changes to enable Power Enrichment (remove time and RPM delay, etc). Just wondering if there is any other "low hanging fruit". Not looking to make any changes that will negatively impact transmission or drivetrain durability. I am not opposed to running 93 octane if need be.

 

Honestly, you're not going to gain anything. Nothing you'd notice anyway.

Sure you could run 93 octane and bump the timing in the mid range and run a slightly leaner air fuel ratio but we are probably talking less than 10-20ft lbs change and similar to less horsepower. That is not enough to even notice for a very small range that you'd pick up that power. You need better gearing or mod that engine if you really want to get any more power from it. Needs a camshaft, more compression to really see that 50hp and 60-70+ ft lbs of torque bump to make that truck way stronger pulling loads.

 

Just needs a properly sized turbo. Boost Fixes Everything!

 

If you're only towing 6 times a year, I'd say to just bear with it unless you want to really dig into it and throw some parts/money at it.

You could put 4.56 gear in it, which would be putting you into power band much faster, though burning more fuel at higher speeds as well.

 

Why not just a mild cam meant for towing and a tune? It would still be street-able/daily driver. Combined that would get, what, like maybe another 20 ft-lb TQ and 30-50 HP? 🤔🤷 May not be a huge difference, but still worthwhile. IDK

You still have stock tire size, right?

 

The low hanging fruit is PE Delay and a better shifting. Tune it to go into PE when you are at 60-70% throttle rather than NEVER going into PE. Drop the enable TPS, drop the minimum torque to 80%, reduce the delay to 2 seconds and the delay bypass rpm to ~2,500 rpm and up the enrichment rate to 1.0. It is an instant 30-40 ft/lbs gain. You can zero the delay and put the rpm to ~1,200 rpm but I find the engine runs more smoothly with a slight PE delay. The 6.0L responds well to this. The older 350s, 454s and the 8.1Ls respond even better to the same change. I like using BlueCats to setup my shift point and TCC lockup tables. Good transmission tuning can make it perform even better than adding power in many driving conditions. The other low hanging fruit without going into the engine is Doug Thorley Tri-Ys and a 4" air intake using a 4" LS7 cartridge MAF and the stock airbox. An engine is an air pump the easier it moves air into and out of it and the better the combustion chambers are scavenged at the RPM you are running it in the more efficient and more power it will make.