The reason is that the factory geared tow rigs that way for a reason. As I said, 1 ton trucks commonly came with 31-32" tall tires and ONLY came available with 4.10 or 4.56 gears for a reason.
The logic is simple. If it takes 4.56 gears to get 10,000 lbs of towing capacity with a 350 and 31" tires, then it takes 5.13s to match this with a 36" tall tire. GCWR on a 1 ton rig with a 350 and 4.56s is 16,000 lbs or so. Subtract the weight of the trailer (his is 7 k empty, so say its 8k loaded) and that gives you 8k lbs left for the tow rig. A Surburban can easily weigh 6500 lbs, which gives you 1500 lbs of cushin. I think that's a good way to think of it....makes perfect sense to me.
Sure, mods to create more power will work too, but gearing the engine into an RPM range where more power is available in the first place is a better option for towing IMO.
I wish my tow rig had more gear every time I get something heavy behind me, and this is Illinois. I imagine anywhere where there's hills and it'd be even worse. I have been slowed down to about 50 mph towing down I39 from Rockford to La Salle where there are just some mild hills. Downshifting, even with 4.10s is not an option as that would make the engine scream too high. A little more gear would net quite a bit more usable pulling power in my opinion.
Zakk jr., sure, but I believe that I've got good justfication to believe that if GM wants that much gear in a tow rig, so should we. /forums/images/graemlins/thumb.gif
