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I've had thoughts of pumping mine up a bit with a Smarty, but dread the thought of possibly killing the 48RE automatic. Performance is all about how much you want to spend, and personally I don't need a whole lot more power than my stock 305/555 common rail puts out. I'm usually passing half the vehicles up steep grades with my camper on or pulling a trailer.




Then leave it be.... increased performance will increased the odds of failure in some manner be it trans, headgasket, or even a melted pistons. Granted you usually have to do some pretty stupid stuff to hurt em, but I've seen plenty! I was pretty disappointed with my 01 4x4 when I got it, but I built a good trans with an awesome torque converter, some RV275 Bosch injectors, and an Edge EZ. Simple low end mods which totally turned the truck around for my towing needs. Personally I question alot of the MPG number stated here, but I also live in a pretty god awfull area with steep long mountain passes. IF...I drive nice I'll see 16 in town. On the highway...17-19 in the 75-85 range. Towing...best ever was 13, usually 10-12 and this is a 24ft enclosed trailer 8K total. One time I was bored and drove across the desert to Palmdale to drop off my race trans and kept the boost low, and the average mpg on the overhead as high as I could. I don't think I went over 60mph the whole day and on some of the steeper grades I was out of OD to keep the numbers "up". I got 23mpg that day.