New tow vehicle: Yukon XL Denali vs. Suburban Z71

[mnypitboat]

Re: New tow vehicle: Yukon XL Denali vs. Suburban Z71

The 6 liter that was available in the swb Trailblazer and far nicer SAAB 9-7x with dozens of upgrades over the TB, does more than wake it up. Guessing you already know that though. They are astonishingly fast but interestingly the 400hp and 400tq does not increase the tow capacity from the 5.3 liter middle engine option as they are limited by drive train. When you retune the PCM via a third party instead of HPTuners diy, you generally need to denote whether you tow and then have a bit more torque management removed than simply removing all of it for a non-tow vehicle. I've got two of the 5.3's and owned a third one prior and when I'm towing you really notice the torque management when you are rolling through a stop but need instant torque...it manages it down versus if you gun it from a dead stop where it allows you to take off much faster. GM tuned one of my 5.3 liter suv's by sheer stupidity and the original is stock and the difference between the two identical vehicles is pretty suprising.

There was no 6.0 available in an extended version. With what we tow, we needed the extra wheelbase. The regular length is far to short. Otherwise I would have gotten an SS. The tow capacity is actually higher on the EXT with the 5.3 than on the 9-7 or the SS with the 6.0 or... I bought the email tune from PCM of NC, formerly PCMforless and we tweaked it a bit. It is amazing how much they bumped the timing up. I would have never guessed you could go that high. I told them to send a tune for both towing and non towing. They were surprisingly close to the same tune, only big differance was torque management. We also have the 3.73 lsd, which is a huge help towing.

Only reason we did not get a larger SUV or truck is because this was my wife's DD and she didnt want one that big. At the time nobody had anything with a wheelbase like this, and the towing capacity this has in a smaller SUV. Now nobody at all has them, so I am looking at keeping it and doing heads and cam, exhaust etc now that it has been retired of DD duty. I even priced out a supercharger.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: New tow vehicle: Yukon XL Denali vs. Suburban Z71

Bruce ... You're cracking me up.

I thought you might like that!

 

[jkust]

Re: New tow vehicle: Yukon XL Denali vs. Suburban Z71

There was no 6.0 available in an extended version. With what we tow, we needed the extra wheelbase. The regular length is far to short. Otherwise I would have gotten an SS. The tow capacity is actually higher on the EXT with the 5.3 than on the 9-7 or the SS with the 6.0 or... I bought the email tune from PCM of NC, formerly PCMforless and we tweaked it a bit. It is amazing how much they bumped the timing up. I would have never guessed you could go that high. I told them to send a tune for both towing and non towing. They were surprisingly close to the same tune, only big differance was torque management. We also have the 3.73 lsd, which is a huge help towing.

Only reason we did not get a larger SUV or truck is because this was my wife's DD and she didnt want one that big. At the time nobody had anything with a wheelbase like this, and the towing capacity this has in a smaller SUV. Now nobody at all has them, so I am looking at keeping it and doing heads and cam, exhaust etc now that it has been retired of DD duty. I even priced out a supercharger.

Right of course the EXT never offered a 6.0...but it would've been a hoot if they did. Handling on the Ext/XL suffured compared to the relative decent handling of the swb. (the 9-7 had the best handling and the SS was right there with it since the SS technology came from the earlier 9-7...their handling compared to the others is literally night and day) The capacity on these things as all tow ratings is based on weight, engine, axle ratio, etc...so the 2wd has a higher capacity that 4wd plus the axle ratio up to the 4.10 if you didn't have a v8. There are so many iterations and amazingly if you look at the same vehicle side by side from year to year they changed the capacity year to year a hundred or two hundred lbs. If you pull up each owners manual for some odd reason some years are different than others. Add to that that each of the iterations from the Rainier, Trailblazer, Envoy and 9-7 all have different curb weights with the 9-7 being the pig of the bunch. I've owned 3 of the group all with the 5.3, 3.73, G80 and G86. You mentioned you have the LSD but it would be an Eaton full locker G80 while the G86 LSD only came on the SS and 9-7. Bummer they didn't make the Envoy Denali XL a few more years longer since I had tried to find a low mile, all options 2006 and never found one as they were all beat to heck with very high miles. What happened to your MPG's after your PCM 4 less tune? The beauty of the 5.3 over the 4.2 base engine is there are so many off the shelf mods. You can go pick up that supercharger any time and have nearly the same numbers as the 6.0. The 4.2 has no such off the shelf parts.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: New tow vehicle: Yukon XL Denali vs. Suburban Z71

My 2001 Yukon has 128000 miles and never been touched. Has done nothing but tow. A friend has an 04 Suburban with 264,000. Both 5.3's. I would certainly not call them bad tow vehicles.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: New tow vehicle: Yukon XL Denali vs. Suburban Z71

I used to work for Delco electronics and worked for awhile at the GM proving grounds in Arizona. The engineers there said you were foolish to do the aftermarket tunes as the people who do them have no idea of all the parameters that need to be set. They said at the best you will be replacing O2 sensors more often as may of the tunes just richen the mixture too much. At worse you could have more issues. I follow their advice since they were the ones writing the code for the ECMs. Just my opinion.

 

[keith2k455]

Re: New tow vehicle: Yukon XL Denali vs. Suburban Z71

In the end, all I wanted was 100k on the clock since that is the major service interval. Didn't care 5.3 or 6.0. Either must be good with the number of them on the road, but they are damn tough to find used, must speak to both drivetrains being good

I'm not looking to mod anything here. I do plan on playing with the program on my turbo Sonata, but that's got computer limited torque and hp... I just want to remove the limiter there.