I have been reading about all of these big power builds that have been going on and I never see anything about any modifications to the driveline or brakes to compensate for the increase in engine performance. At what point are the guys makeing these driveline/brake upgrades, or are they makeing any changes at all? The reason I am asking is that I am just in the planing stage for an engine build myself (I am almost finished with my suspension work). And I am looking at some realistic goals. For example, if the driveline/brakes will handle 500hp/?torque without any changes then I can plan/buy for that. But if the driveline/brakes will handle then 600hp/?torque then I will plan/buy for that. Thank-you for your advice, ksi.
PS; The beast is a 2006, 5.9 HO, 6 spd, with a bunch of Carli suspension items.

 

Plan for a clutch. 3rd gens have decent brakes already compared to the 2nds. The rest of the drivetrain is pretty stout. The G56's seem to crack cases when pulling or racing around the 700 hp mark.

The only driveline upgrade I have done is the clutch, and that was mandatory, since the stocker would spin at about 300 hp or so.

 

Ive replaced everything in my whole driveline except the T-case and the front diff. Brakes are horrible but who needs to slow down?? They work well enough to lock up all 4 35" rubbers so thats good enough for me.
Then again the parts on the 3rd gen are alot better then what I'm workin with, and I also use my truck for work as a courier so I put 100x the wear on it.

 

What are you going to use the truck for? You could make a driveline live with 1000hp if you drove it nice and didn't abuse it(exception clutch) On the other hand if your drag racing and pulling a sled every weekend you could kill a truck with 400hp. What I'm trying to say is it's all how you drive and take care of it. I've had a 500-600hp truck for a while now with no problems, but I watch the egt gauge, don't do boosted launches at every light and keep up with the maintenance.

 

I am leaning more toward moderate off road use. That is why the initial build is all suspension related. After reading all of the posts, I think I am going to do the basic air in, exhaust out, and programer routine. Until something breaks, then, I will upgrade. And in the meantime continue with suspension and driveline upgrades. The next one will be changing the front bearings from unit to manual style. Thank-you for the advice, ksi.

 

My truck is all stock and I still haven't broke anything yet. Thought most of the truck was pretty well built. Just needs a few mods to fix.