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Motorweek: Turbobanks Turbochargers For 6.2 Detroot Diesel Suburbans
- Thread starter blackandgold51
- Start date
Kit should include a forged crankshaft...
" biggest hotrod in the neighborhood" lolol
Well,to be fair,Suburbans ARE pretty big!..but not a "hot rod" with any 6.2 powering one!..a 454 would smoke it in a drag race..
Not with a Turbo it wouldn’t .
Besides the 454 would have to stop at the 1/8 mile for fuel ........ that’s assuming it didn’t spin a rod or main bearing on cold start .
Granted a turbo may increase the torque & HP on the 6.2,but with a 3600 rpm redline ,I doubt it'd beat a 454..sure the BBC will guzzle more gas,but few who want a BB will care about MPG..
A 454 wont spin a bearing after a cold start provided you dont wind it out instantly at 10 degrees--the 6.2 would be lucky TO start cold period..better have 2 fully charged good batteries,all the glow plugs working,and thin oil in it..and cross your fingers..
My 6.2 sounds like all 8 pistons and the bearings are all "loose",especially after a cold start in winter...and it doesn't quiet down much after its fully warmed up either..
I guess its just the nature of the beast,but it makes me nervous driving it,you feel it's going to go "bang" and leave you stranded..
A 454 wont spin a bearing after a cold start provided you dont wind it out instantly at 10 degrees--the 6.2 would be lucky TO start cold period..better have 2 fully charged good batteries,all the glow plugs working,and thin oil in it..and cross your fingers..
My 6.2 sounds like all 8 pistons and the bearings are all "loose",especially after a cold start in winter...and it doesn't quiet down much after its fully warmed up either..
I guess its just the nature of the beast,but it makes me nervous driving it,you feel it's going to go "bang" and leave you stranded..
wasted wages
1 ton status
Give it time....it will....
I'm not sure what year the video is from (haven't watched it) but I think there is a chance that a turbo'd 6.2 may be able to run with a factory 454 from the mid-80's timeframe. Keep in mind that an early to mid-80's 454 (or just about any factory engine in that timeframe) were complete dogs. I've always said that most people who bad mouth the 6.2 have only driven old ragged out and poorly maintained versions or are simply jumping on the "6.2s are junk" bandwagon even they they have very little to no experience with them. I've personally talked with several of these people and always chuckle a little when they start explaining their experience with a 6.2. Usually starts out with "my friend's grandpa had one on the farm and it barely ran and would hardly pull a trailer at 35 mph and wouldn't start in the winter".....of course when you dig deeper the truck had 100k+ miles on it without ever having the fuel filter or air filter changed after running old dirty fuel out of a rusted out tank sitting behind the barn, none of the glow plugs worked, and only had a single undersized battery installed......
I would love to have a nice and clean fairly stock K5 with a turbo'd 6.2 as a mall cruiser. Plenty of power and twice the fuel mileage of a similar gasser. FYI: I bought my '90 6.2 K5 back in '94 and daily drove it for years before retiring it to a dedicated off-road rig.
I would love to have a nice and clean fairly stock K5 with a turbo'd 6.2 as a mall cruiser. Plenty of power and twice the fuel mileage of a similar gasser. FYI: I bought my '90 6.2 K5 back in '94 and daily drove it for years before retiring it to a dedicated off-road rig.
To be fair,my 6.2 likely had a rough life before I bought the truck--it was supposedly a salvage yard bought engine with "only 80,000 on it",but I have no way to prove it,that is what I was told,but people will say anything to sell something..
The original engine broke the crank I was told,with only around 30,000 miles on it..truck now has just over 47,000 on it now..
I bought it 16 years ago in the fall of 2003,and it mostly was just used to plow the driveway,go to the dump,and it sat a lot..
I had to do a lot to it when I first got it--the dual fuel tanks wiring & switches were butchered and missing,and it needed all new glow plugs (one still wont come out !),and it had one fail while it was running,sounded like the piston was pounding it into the cylinder head..but the noise abated after awhile,and so far no issues with it burning oil,etc,but I wont be surprised if it has a bent push rod or tweaked valve head as a result..
I've never had the oil pan off,and it has needed one for a decade now,I wasn't able to lie under the truck long enough to do a swap,I have two decent pans for it,but I just patched up the rotted one and keep driving it..with my luck if I changed the pan,I'd see main bearing web cracks,and not want to ever run it again..
I'm just going to run it as-is till it pops,then if I feel the truck is worth an engine swap,I might convert it to a gas V8...truck is getting pretty ripe though,most would just scrap it instead..
I have an '85 K10 Suburban with a 6.2 & a dying 700R4 that I let sit 10 years and is now rotted,I could part that out,and use it's engine,but I think I've had enough of 6.2's for awhile..parts are getting scarce and expensive for them and my truck gets the same MPG it would with a gas engine,diesel costs more,so I see no real advantage to a diesel for my needs..
The original engine broke the crank I was told,with only around 30,000 miles on it..truck now has just over 47,000 on it now..
I bought it 16 years ago in the fall of 2003,and it mostly was just used to plow the driveway,go to the dump,and it sat a lot..
I had to do a lot to it when I first got it--the dual fuel tanks wiring & switches were butchered and missing,and it needed all new glow plugs (one still wont come out !),and it had one fail while it was running,sounded like the piston was pounding it into the cylinder head..but the noise abated after awhile,and so far no issues with it burning oil,etc,but I wont be surprised if it has a bent push rod or tweaked valve head as a result..
I've never had the oil pan off,and it has needed one for a decade now,I wasn't able to lie under the truck long enough to do a swap,I have two decent pans for it,but I just patched up the rotted one and keep driving it..with my luck if I changed the pan,I'd see main bearing web cracks,and not want to ever run it again..
I'm just going to run it as-is till it pops,then if I feel the truck is worth an engine swap,I might convert it to a gas V8...truck is getting pretty ripe though,most would just scrap it instead..
I have an '85 K10 Suburban with a 6.2 & a dying 700R4 that I let sit 10 years and is now rotted,I could part that out,and use it's engine,but I think I've had enough of 6.2's for awhile..parts are getting scarce and expensive for them and my truck gets the same MPG it would with a gas engine,diesel costs more,so I see no real advantage to a diesel for my needs..
I think your memory of how good those 70’s and 80’s gas motors is clouded by nostalgia. They really were crap , choked down with miles of vacuum lines , egr , and inefficient catalytic converters ,
big blocks with out priority main oiling are known for spinning rod and mains at cold starts . It’s a more common problem then 6.2’s breaking cranks .
Diesel is 30 cents a gallon cheaper here then regular.
My 90 V3500 with a banks turboed 6.5 gets 20 mpg , my 91 V3500 with a 5.7 gets 9 . Both trucks are identical with exception to motors and trans ( the 91 has a 4L80e , the 90 has TH400)
My 6.2/6.5’s will start down to about -15 without being plugged in . If plugged in I don’t worry about the temp .
big blocks with out priority main oiling are known for spinning rod and mains at cold starts . It’s a more common problem then 6.2’s breaking cranks .
Diesel is 30 cents a gallon cheaper here then regular.
My 90 V3500 with a banks turboed 6.5 gets 20 mpg , my 91 V3500 with a 5.7 gets 9 . Both trucks are identical with exception to motors and trans ( the 91 has a 4L80e , the 90 has TH400)
My 6.2/6.5’s will start down to about -15 without being plugged in . If plugged in I don’t worry about the temp .
Just because I like talking 6.2's here is the history on mine. Bought a really clean '90 K5 in 1994 with 49k on the clock. Silverado with the 6.2, 700r4, and 3.73 gears and the only modification were the 32" tires. Being a teenager at the time the thing was always ran hard and always netted me a couple speeding tickets on the freeway (it would easily cruise at 75-80 mph). Don't get me wrong as my current 6.0L powered 2500HD could run circles around it but after growing up driving trucks with carb'd and emissions choked 305s with 3.07 gears the 6.2 felt pretty good. I also consistently got 16-18 mpg, and again that was always running it hard and a lot of stop and go driving. For comparison purposes, after retiring the K5 from daily driver duty I bought a 4-cylinder 5 speed 4x4 Toyota Tacoma and got the same mpg.
I still have that K5 which was turned into a dedicated off-roader a long time ago with 1-tons w/ lockers and 40" tires. The engine now has around 130k miles miles on it and has never been touched internally. It's had one set of glow plugs, one glow plug controller, a water pump, and a fuel lift pump (not the injector pump)...and of course regular fuel and air filter changes, and that is it. 10+ years ago I did swap in a ported single plane intake and cranked up the fuel pump. As long as the batteries and glow plugs were good it's always started even if well below freezing. For the last several years it has been sitting in the shop for long periods of times. As long as the batteries are charged it will fire right up within 2-3 seconds of cranking the key even if it has sat for months.
I still have that K5 which was turned into a dedicated off-roader a long time ago with 1-tons w/ lockers and 40" tires. The engine now has around 130k miles miles on it and has never been touched internally. It's had one set of glow plugs, one glow plug controller, a water pump, and a fuel lift pump (not the injector pump)...and of course regular fuel and air filter changes, and that is it. 10+ years ago I did swap in a ported single plane intake and cranked up the fuel pump. As long as the batteries and glow plugs were good it's always started even if well below freezing. For the last several years it has been sitting in the shop for long periods of times. As long as the batteries are charged it will fire right up within 2-3 seconds of cranking the key even if it has sat for months.
I've had a couple TBI454's and they ran pretty friggin good. One I did an SAS on, even with 3.73s and 40" boggers it would light the tires up going around a corner. Other one had 3.42s with 35s and that would light the tires up too. I never owned a diesel so can't compare, but just heard horror stories bout em and avoided em like the plague.
I have had both , I don’t mess with big blocks now unless it’s for a high performance application where I litterally use nothing but the stock block .
For towing and general Daily Driving you can’t beat a diesel .
The only time a big block pencils out is if you buy it cheap and only use it a few times a year to pull moderate loads .
My 6.2 K30 flatbed is the slowest vehicle I own, but it's also my favorite.
My oldest boy scored me some west coast mirrors and installed them for me on Fathers day a few months ago, just when I thought the K30 couldn't get any better, it did!
My oldest boy scored me some west coast mirrors and installed them for me on Fathers day a few months ago, just when I thought the K30 couldn't get any better, it did!
I had at least four 454's in various vehicles back in the 80's..
One was in a '74 C-10 that came factory with it,with a TH400..
Thing always ran strong,and the only "problem" I had with it was when I decided a Q-jet wasn't the greatest carb for it--I put a Holley 450 cfm "race" carb that had no choke on it,and regretted it.
It did run stronger with that during warm weather,but it sucked in cold weather,you had to let it sit and warm up several minutes or it'd stall..
Truck was better with the Q-jet,but I ended up selling it without putting the original carb back on it..truck flew with that engine,it could smoke the tires easily in all 3 gears..looking back I'm surprised I didn't grenade the 12 bolt rear diff in it!..
I had a '74 GMC K2500 that a previous owner installed a '74 Chevelle 454 into it..those years were no prize compared to the earlier ones being a smog version,but 360 HP and almost 400 ft/lbs was more than enough to move the truck right along..
That engine had a weird wrist pin rattle at about 35 mph,it wouldn't do it sitting still,never did find out what caused it--I bought a '78 K10 Suburban for parts and put its SB400 in the truck, and sold the 454 to a friend for his ramp truck..he took it completely apart,had it rebuilt,but they never found any loose wrist pins or other parts..
I had a '74 Monte-Carlo with factory 454/TH400,but I never registered it--I bought it with intentions of putting that 454 in my '72 Chevelle wagon that was on a '69 Suburban K10 chassis,but I saw it has non foulers on the rearmost spark plugs,but it didn't burn oil or knock,but I didn't want to use it without going thru it first..
Car had 130,000 on it,still ran & drove nice..swivel buckets too,black on black..car was not rotted either,I wish I'd kept it now,,
I swapped it's 454 for a '73 454 my older brother had out of his rotted out Impala (plus some $) that had a recent valve job and ran sweet...never had any trouble with that engine,and though it was a "smog" version,I had no complaints about its performance..I put a spread bore Holley on it and that really woke it up..
All the 454's I had got about 13 mpg in city/highway driving..no worse than the 350's I had,even a few straight sixes were no better than that in a full sized pickup..I wouldn't mind having another one like them..
My brother had a bone stock 1970 454 from an Impala ,he put a Torker manifold and a Holley 4 barrel on it and put in a Competition Cams "off road and towing/RV cam" in it,and pulled the 292 six out of his '82 Chevy K30 and put that in it..it had a SM465..
That truck was so powerful it was hard not to light up the tires,it could take off in third gear easily..not sure what gears it had,maybe 4:56's,we used to tow a cut down G-10 van we made into a trailer with it,stuffed full of swap meet parts--engines,transmissions,etc--you never knew the thing was behind you..it wasn't very good on fuel though,8-12 mpg was it..
One was in a '74 C-10 that came factory with it,with a TH400..
Thing always ran strong,and the only "problem" I had with it was when I decided a Q-jet wasn't the greatest carb for it--I put a Holley 450 cfm "race" carb that had no choke on it,and regretted it.
It did run stronger with that during warm weather,but it sucked in cold weather,you had to let it sit and warm up several minutes or it'd stall..
Truck was better with the Q-jet,but I ended up selling it without putting the original carb back on it..truck flew with that engine,it could smoke the tires easily in all 3 gears..looking back I'm surprised I didn't grenade the 12 bolt rear diff in it!..
I had a '74 GMC K2500 that a previous owner installed a '74 Chevelle 454 into it..those years were no prize compared to the earlier ones being a smog version,but 360 HP and almost 400 ft/lbs was more than enough to move the truck right along..
That engine had a weird wrist pin rattle at about 35 mph,it wouldn't do it sitting still,never did find out what caused it--I bought a '78 K10 Suburban for parts and put its SB400 in the truck, and sold the 454 to a friend for his ramp truck..he took it completely apart,had it rebuilt,but they never found any loose wrist pins or other parts..
I had a '74 Monte-Carlo with factory 454/TH400,but I never registered it--I bought it with intentions of putting that 454 in my '72 Chevelle wagon that was on a '69 Suburban K10 chassis,but I saw it has non foulers on the rearmost spark plugs,but it didn't burn oil or knock,but I didn't want to use it without going thru it first..
Car had 130,000 on it,still ran & drove nice..swivel buckets too,black on black..car was not rotted either,I wish I'd kept it now,,
I swapped it's 454 for a '73 454 my older brother had out of his rotted out Impala (plus some $) that had a recent valve job and ran sweet...never had any trouble with that engine,and though it was a "smog" version,I had no complaints about its performance..I put a spread bore Holley on it and that really woke it up..
All the 454's I had got about 13 mpg in city/highway driving..no worse than the 350's I had,even a few straight sixes were no better than that in a full sized pickup..I wouldn't mind having another one like them..
My brother had a bone stock 1970 454 from an Impala ,he put a Torker manifold and a Holley 4 barrel on it and put in a Competition Cams "off road and towing/RV cam" in it,and pulled the 292 six out of his '82 Chevy K30 and put that in it..it had a SM465..
That truck was so powerful it was hard not to light up the tires,it could take off in third gear easily..not sure what gears it had,maybe 4:56's,we used to tow a cut down G-10 van we made into a trailer with it,stuffed full of swap meet parts--engines,transmissions,etc--you never knew the thing was behind you..it wasn't very good on fuel though,8-12 mpg was it..
I pull a 35ft tandem axle dual gooseneck trailer with a 8000# Rockwell Suburban on it with my 6.5 with 4.10 gears and 35” rubber , it pulls the hills better then my buddy’s 98 vortec 454 with 4.56 gears a 24 tandem single pintle trailer with his 8000# crew cab on 1-tons . And I get double the mileage he does , empty or loaded .
The TBI 454's had a pretty substantial power upgrade as compared to the previous generation engines. I remember when the 350's went to TBI and all the magazine covers showing the new trucks doing burn outs and talking about the performance improvement.
An older cousin ran a backhoe service and pulled a decent size machine around on a tandem dually gooseneck trailer daily. He bought a new '90-ish (shortly after they went to the new body style and IFS) K3500 dually 4x4 with a 454 TBI and 4 speed and pulled that load almost daily for several years. Keep in mind at the time that was about the top of the line for pulling trailers. He traded that truck in for a 6.5TD version within a year or two of them coming out. He always said the 6.5 turbo pulled the trailer just as good as the 454 TBI but got twice the fuel mileage. Another local had a similar year Ford F-350 dually 4x4 with the 7.3 and had an ATS turbo put on it (prior to factory available turbos). The 6.5 seemed to run better. Granted, neither of those hold a candle to what you can get in a truck today but back in the day they were all top of the line rigs for towing.
Yep , my grandpa had a 90 F350 with a Banks turbo’d 7.3 IDI with a 5-speed . It would shit all over 454’s and 460’s of the same vintage and got double the mileage . He traded that in a 93 Cummins with a 5-speed that my grandma still has and uses .
79rustyk10
3/4 ton status
I have no experience with trailering huge loads, but the early EFI 460 always impressed me. I'd be very interested to run a turbo 7.3 IDI.
Those 7.3L engines are significantly more powerful than the 6.5L diesel is. I love those old 6.5Ls though, they have such a unique sound and truly did perform fairly well considering their power ratings and the vehicles they were installed into. Definitely can't hold a candle to the modern Duramax engines, but as compared to the carburated rigs they used to compete with they were pretty solid engines with an unfounded poor reputation.
