Friend has an '04 Tahoe with the 5.3L engine in it. How noticable would the performance gains of a programmer (like Superchips), intake (like Airaid) and exhuast (like Borla) be?
If he just did the intake alone first, would that be noticable by itself?

Thanks,
~Rob

 

If he did exhaust and intake i think he would notice a difference. i drove a 5.3 my last year of school and if you make it flow better it'll get more power to the ground.

 

Unless he's dead set on borla, I wouldn't get it. They make great exhaust systems that sound really nice but they cost a bloody fortune. You could get away with a magnaflow or gibson exhaust system. A full set of headers would be nice to. I think with an exhaust, intake, and programmer you'd be able to notice a difference. Now if he wants to really notice a difference then just give vortech a call and have them send you one of their superchargers. He's really notice the difference then.

 

I mentioned the supercharger, but he has his heart set on twins. Need to get him into diesel

~Rob

 

You wont really notice much difference with the programmers. You might be able to tell, but the best thing about them is that they firm up the tranny shifts. Intake and exhaust will be more noticeable than a programmer. If i could only do one thing to a gasser; it would probably be intake(for performance). A little better throttle response.

Eric

 

If I could do only one thing to a gasser it would be a kenne bell twin screw. Wicked bottom end power, incredibly fast response, and lots of top end power.

Rob, if he's looking at twins has he checked out the STS setup? They mount their turbo(s) at the back of the car in place of the muffler and then run the piping. I've read nothing but good things about their kits. Very fast spool up, tons of power, very quiet, very clean under the hood, moderately ok to install. Might give them a shout.

 

A Westers or Nelson tune will make more power than the commercially available programmers. A buddy of mine ran a 13.30 with his 5.3 shortbed Chevy by adding a whipple charger.

 

He could do an ATI Procharger- with a programmer included. Gets really nice power and the impact on the fuel economy isn't as bad as with other chargers I tried.

 

chargers are great, but as soon as you get into any real boost there are problems, also a need to run premium, prices are bad enough for regular, nothing wrong with putting a bottle in the back and a 75 shot under the hood, that way the power is there when he wants it and no need to run premium all the time. if he gets tired of 75 then he can go to 100 shot nozzles easy enough. lots of options and easy install, even the wet shot kits are easy compared to chargers of any kind.

 

Most of the "tuner" power claims are pretty bogus, the highest power readings are running 93 octane fuel, which gets expensive quick in a truck. Intake and exhaust will help, but probably not the $800 he's going to have in them. Tough to do much with a gasser without actual intake manifold, cam, and head changes.

 

Swap in a Cummins and be done with it. Then he'll have a real truck. I'll shut up now.