Vortex 6.0 mods

My 2004 6.0L is pretty doggy from a dead stop, but I think that's mostly due to the tall first gear in the 4L80E. Usually the power seems so-so until I hit about 3500RPM. From there to 4500 it's like a can of wake-up juice gets chugged and it pulls fantastic. I've never towed anything where I thought I was underpowered, but a little more grunt on the low end would be nice.

Every now and then I flirt with the idea of getting a custom tune and minimizing the torque management. I've never used EFI live or any other ODBII visualization package to see real-time performance. However, I have seen data others have acquired and the amount of spark retard the ECM applies at high throttle can be staggering. It just makes me wonder how much better the truck may perform while towing if the timing wasn't drawn back so far?

KJ

If you want significantly more performance besides the hyped up chips and intakes etc that each get you "15 hp downhill with a tail wind" then the best bolt on mod is a forsale sign and star looking for a Dmax.
If you dump any real money into mods then you just spent the $ to upgrade to a diesel and you still have a high winding comparatively low powered gasser.
I've tried a lot of bolt on gasser mods and most of the performance gain is through weight savings....... In my wallet!

Mike, sounds like a blast! Love the mud runs! Keep us updated on your truck, I am a 6.0 fan as well.

APT wrote:
Mike, I believe I am not making my point clear. I have a 6.0L too and love it! I'm not saying everyone should have a diesel. I think it makes far more sense for the OP than you or maybe even me. I was just curious if you have real world experience improving power on your truck for RVing. It is not the same use case as sporty cars, even lightly loaded trucks.

It sounds like you have a baseline. Do you plan to do the cam soon? I am interested in your results, how you think it pulls on the same conditions and hills.

Well the last truck ,the 5.3 had a cam and heads, it made a huge diffrence. A cam by itself? What I expect to see is dropping down the RPM from 4000 to 3500 rpm on the long grades and getting up to highway speed a little quicker on the on ramps. In the old truck before the heads it did help hold overdrive longer becuase it delivered more torque at lower RPMS.

I hope to install it this weekend, but I ran the Ragnar relay this past weekend and plan on running the Whale of run this weekend so It may not go in until August and then I have a half marathon and a mud run so...

I like to run. The Ragnar is a 2 day relay race with a team of 12 runners we each ran about 17 miles. You basically get 2 hours of sleep during the course of the run and each runner runs three legs. It took our team 30 hours to run 200 miles. It was a blast!

STS Turbo, I think they make a kit for your truck.

Mike, I believe I am not making my point clear. I have a 6.0L too and love it! I'm not saying everyone should have a diesel. I think it makes far more sense for the OP than you or maybe even me. I was just curious if you have real world experience improving power on your truck for RVing. It is not the same use case as sporty cars, even lightly loaded trucks.

It sounds like you have a baseline. Do you plan to do the cam soon? I am interested in your results, how you think it pulls on the same conditions and hills.

The truck is an 02 with 32,000 miles on it. Paid for for 3 years. Tows a whopping 7600lbs loaded. I don't need or want a diesel or the payment on a new truck.
It will cost me about 600 bucks to do a cam and a few other mods (valve springs and a tuen) during one weekend.

The truck gets maybe 3000 miles a year on. What do I need a diesel for?
I do not like working on them and don't have the knowledge I do on them like I do the LS serious of engines.

I pull 4th of July pass and the larger passes out here at 50 to 60 MPH at about 4000 rpm. This cam will move peak power down a bit in the RPM range and give me a little more off the line. I am not looking for night and day performance and certainly don't care about the gas mileage, just somehting I wanted to do in my free time. Even if I swapped in a 500 HP 600 FT/lbs of torque LSx 408 with supporting transmission mods. I would still be in this truck under 20,000 as I only paid 12,000 for it.

Mike, have you done any engine work to your pickup/TV?

For the $$$ one could invest in a supercharger plus other mods, you could have a far more comfortable towing experience with a stock 2010+ diesel. These make almost twice the torque as 10 years ago. And the truck is actually worth the extra investment over aftermarket stuff to another truck.

$1500 on gears may be worthwhile depending on what trans/axle ratio he has.

transamz9 wrote:

ls1mike wrote:

APT wrote:
ls1mike, peak power at 4500-6000rpm is not usually helpful for towing. While the 6.0L L96 may be not be living to its full potential, the factory setup is quite good for doing work.

Right, but this cam helps lower end just as much as top end. It is a different grind than I used in my Trans Am.

The LS motors make there peak that high but the cam will add through the complete power band, plus not everyone wants a Diesel. I am not saying a gasser is better, but as I recall my BILs 98 Cummins had to live high in it's RPM range towing his old fifth wheel when he pulling grades. I just have no use for a Diesel. Different strokes for different folks.

Not sure how the OP uses his truck but, I only use my truck to tow, so putting a cam in over a weekend is no big deal.
I have the Trans Am or a Supercharged Buick regal that I drive daily.

Mike, I'm an LS fan myself (2000 Trans am/ 2005 Vette). They are great and strong motors but IMO they are for sports cars and grocery getters. Your BIL's 98 Cummins my have had to live in it's higher RPM range but that is still no where near the 6.0's RPM range it has to stay at to compete. My first Cummins was a '99 and I ended up trading it in on an '02 6.0 2500. Didn't take me 6 months to realize that motor was not up to the pulling tasks of my 99 diesel. Don't get me wrong, the 6.0 would spank the Cummins I had unloaded and would have probably pulled the same loads faster but it was a very un-nerving ride with the 6.0. It was always constantly shifting to stay where it needed to be power wise. I now have an '05 diesel and there is no comparison between the two. My truck tows 18,000 and does it at low rpms. It takes a pretty steep and long grade to make it gear down. I can run along at 45-50 on the two lane back roads in OD with very little gear change also. You will never get that out of your LS truck.

I understand that and I am not trying to tow 18000 lbs with a gasser. I am towing about 7600lbs. As you know the LS will live at 4000 RPM for years. My last 5.3 truck went 230,000 miles pulling the Trans am to track which with everything was just a hair over 6000lbs, not super heavy but not much lighter than how I tow with my current 3/4 ton. The thing that didn't last was the 4L65E. It maybe un-nerving to some, but to me it is just what it does and that does not mean it is going break, it just means it is doing what it is designed to do.
Design limits are design limits no matter what you tow with. My buddy just left his 07 Cummins in Montana while they do a short block. Scored a cyclinder pullling over the Continental divide, he was at about 17,000 lbs, truck was bone stock. Happens to everyone. Is a diesel better for towing yep, gets better gas mileage, yep. I am not arguing which is better as we know that the diesel is and like I said I can't answer for the OP, but at the weights I tow and for what I do with the truck, the 6.0 does just fine.

ls1mike wrote:

APT wrote:
ls1mike, peak power at 4500-6000rpm is not usually helpful for towing. While the 6.0L L96 may be not be living to its full potential, the factory setup is quite good for doing work.

Right, but this cam helps lower end just as much as top end. It is a different grind than I used in my Trans Am.

The LS motors make there peak that high but the cam will add through the complete power band, plus not everyone wants a Diesel. I am not saying a gasser is better, but as I recall my BILs 98 Cummins had to live high in it's RPM range towing his old fifth wheel when he pulling grades. I just have no use for a Diesel. Different strokes for different folks.

Not sure how the OP uses his truck but, I only use my truck to tow, so putting a cam in over a weekend is no big deal.
I have the Trans Am or a Supercharged Buick regal that I drive daily.

Mike, I'm an LS fan myself (2000 Trans am/ 2005 Vette). They are great and strong motors but IMO they are for sports cars and grocery getters. Your BIL's 98 Cummins my have had to live in it's higher RPM range but that is still no where near the 6.0's RPM range it has to stay at to compete. My first Cummins was a '99 and I ended up trading it in on an '02 6.0 2500. Didn't take me 6 months to realize that motor was not up to the pulling tasks of my 99 diesel. Don't get me wrong, the 6.0 would spank the Cummins I had unloaded and would have probably pulled the same loads faster but it was a very un-nerving ride with the 6.0. It was always constantly shifting to stay where it needed to be power wise. I now have an '05 diesel and there is no comparison between the two. My truck tows 18,000 and does it at low rpms. It takes a pretty steep and long grade to make it gear down. I can run along at 45-50 on the two lane back roads in OD with very little gear change also. You will never get that out of your LS truck.