I haven't seen any trucks on this forum, but there seems to be a wealth of knowledge on here related to the engines so I hope I'm in the right place.

I'm looking to do some performance upgrades on my 2006 2500hd. My truck is a Regular cab, 2wd work truck with a 5-speed manual trans so it is as light as they come for a 3/4 ton pickup, but it's still pretty freakin' heavy at ~5140 pounds!

I have no crazy dreams of my truck running 12's, I simply want to make it more fun to drive and maybe play around with the occasional mustang while i'm out picking up a load of lumber. With the power I'm looking to put out the 2nd and 3rd gear pulls should be pretty freakin' fun for a work truck.

So far I have and AEM intake, pacesetter long tubes and dual, catless, 3" piping. My next purchase is going to be a set of 4.88 gears and hptuners software.

What would you guys suggest as far as intake, heads, and cam?

I've been eyeing up the PRC LS6 Stage 2.5 heads along with either the torquer V.3 or MS4 cams. I haven't really looked at intakes yet.

I can't really compare my hp/torque at the wheels to the charts I've been looking at on here since my 11.5" 14-Bolt rear is going to eat up quite a bit. On the plus side I highly doubt I have to worry about breaking it! I would like to see 500+ hp and 450+ ft/lb of torque at the crank. I want the absolute nastiest, lumpiest idle that'll still power my brakes and not be overkill for my motor setup. I'd like to see my peak power at no more than 6400-6500 rpm. As far as towing, my truck has never and will never tow anything heavier than maybe 5000-6000 lb (race car and trailer) and with the 4.88 I don't see that being an issue even with a more aggressive cam.

Anyways, if you've made it this far I really appreciate you taking the time to read my post and I'm looking forward to hearing what advice you folks have for me. My budget for this project is $4000.

 

For more truck info, go to our sister site PerformanceTrucks.net. It's one of the tabs at the top of the page.

 

Ah saw that coming.... Honestly, I have been there gone through it time and time again to get a idea on what to do to my truck and I never leave there feeling like I know what I want to do. Its a good site but honestly as close as the LS1 is to the LQ4 I feel this mans question can better answered here. Rant over

To the OP:

How did you feel your intake and exhaust helped your truck i'm really looking into this for my truck? Your cam choice is nice but have you thought about going turbo?

 

Looks like your headed in the right direction already. You could even mill those PRC's some to boost the compression some more. As far as an intake goes, the best value would be a TBSS intake manifold which will bolt up but takes a 90mm TB.

With a $4000 budget, I would be looking towards some sort of FI rather than building a motor first. You will make more power and have better driveability with a mild boosted motor than a radical N/A engine.

 

this is what i had 03 1500HD 4x4 6.0 on 33" 6400lbs
K&N intake, Pacesetter LT, 3" true dule orp, Magnaflow, ms3 237 242 .603 .609 112, Patriot Gold springs and Ti retainers, stock ported heads, ASP Underdrive pulley, 42# injectors, 160 tstat., 05 E-Fans, Nelson Fan Harnas, tb bybass, MSD wires, NGK tr55, Ported tb, Transgo HD2, yank 3200 conveter, HP tuners, Walbro 255, 4.56s solid motor mounts i loved it it would hang with a c6 vette whenever i could get it to hook but with the truck intake its going to fall off above 6000 and as far as your brakes you should have hydroboost

 

Yeah, I've looked around on the truck site, but honestly there aren't too many n/a guys taking it too the level I'd like to on there. Most have automatics and have to worry about torque converters. Not an issue for me.

I've had the intake and exhaust on for a few years now, but I just bought the headers and haven't installed them yet. I expect a bigger improvement once tuned, but they did seem to help it breath considerably better in the upper rpm range.

 

I've been looking at the Edelbrock tunnel ram style intake with 90mm trottle body. Price is reasonable, looks cool as hell, and the 1500-6500 rpm operating range is exactly what I'm looking for.

I agree forced induction would be the easier way to get 500hp. I've been that route (had a wrx and evo) and frankly I've always wanted a really nasty all moter V-8. The long term plan is too eventually do a 408 stroker when it's time for a rebuild and if I start getting bored with that the moter will find a lighter weight chassis to call home.

 

Sounds like an awesome setup. Very close to what I have in mind. I don't suppose you have any videos of it? I should be in a similiar power range to you, just a bit more gear to help get the weight moving. I'm going to be running 4.88 gears with 32" tires! Should be able to get it to hook by 4th gear. I'm not sure what to do with the tires, I refuse to run drag radials since the whole point of this build is to have a badass truck that can haul 3k pounds in the bed and/or a 10k pound trailer. If not I might as well do a 1500 or colorado. A good buddy of mine that is heavily into drag racing said a good compromise might be to run snow tires in the back since they are a softer compound, but still E-rated. The truck will get less than <5k miles a year after the mods are done so tire lif is of little concern to me. Any opinions on this? Might be the only way to retain my work truck abilities and still have some kind of traction.

 

What camshft do you guys think would be a good match for the PRC stage 2.5 heads? If my calculations are correct my compression should be ~10.1 with the 65cc chambers. Anyone know how far I could have them milled without having PTV clearance issues on the bigger cams such as the Tsunami, Torquer V.3, and MS4? I'd like to get up to between 10.8-11.0 if possible. I considered doing the 5.3 heads to make this easier, but I'm concerned they won't have sufficient flow if/when I go to a 408.


P.S.- Is there an extra charge to have TSP mill the heads or is that something they can just do when they'e porting them?

 

To get 11:1 on a LQ4 using 243 heads, you'll have to mill them .035". That's exactly what I did. That's with GM MLS head gaskets. I'm using 7.325 PRs.

 

How was your PTV clearance? I'm leaning towards TSP's tsunami cam at this point (235/240, .648"/.609", 111 LSA), do you think I'd have clearance issues with the stock LQ4 pistons and the milled LS6 heads? I hope not. Should pull like a damn freight train with the 4.88's.