Looking to upgrade my truck
 

I have a 08 Chevy 3500 Duramax quadcab dually that has developed an exhaust leak. I can smell exhaust in the cab when it goes into regen mode, it looks like the pipe has shifted at the bango clamp coming out of the turbo. I have been thinking about installing a new exhaust & ecm tune but not sure who to go with. I wouldn't object to a throatier sound but a full open exhaust is too loud. Would also like to increase mpg. Everyone claims 140 some hp & x% mpg increase but different companies do it differently. Who is the best to go with & what can I expect realisticly. Thanks in advance, Randy

Look up buck183 here on OSO. He is in Arkansas; does this for a living, and will have some sound advice for you.

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/members/buck183.html

My neighbor has the same truck as you and bought a complete Banks set up ( Fresh air intake, dual exhaust, and programmer) from Summit. He pulls heavy equipment all day and said gas mileage went up avg 1 mile a gallon and torque vastly improved. For what its worth.

Banks=overpriced garbage and won't let you delete the dpf since they're carb certified. Im not a big duramax guy but quite a few of my buddies are. They seem to like the Efilive and H&S programmers. Much over 100+ hp and the stock trans will be a ticking time bomb as they use adaptive learning to adjust shift pressures. You can get packages (tuner/exhaust) under a grand usually. Straight through muffler would tone it down a little.

Get the pipe leak fixed first. CO fumes are bad for you. I would look at reviews and talk to Buck183,

Wannabe

That is what I am seeing as far as kits, Banks keeps all of the stock emissions equipment & others remove stuff & reprogram the ecu to keep the engine light off. I don't know enough about diesels to know if I'm damaging anything by deleting emissions. I will pm buck & see if he gets back to me. Randy

Efi live is where it's at

Got your PM Randy.

To fix the leak I have to take the exhaust loose from the manifold/turbo, I would just as soon replace the pipe now instead of removing stuff twice. Randy

The only damage being done is by keeping all the emissions equipment on it!

My '11 Duramax was in the shop 3X for a leaking downpipe. On the 11's and up, GM added a 9th fuel injector that sprays directly into the exhaust during regen. Diesel fuel was leaking out the connection to the exhaust pipe and smoking like crazy. I finally deleted everything and have loved the truck ever since. I'm running aFe 4" turbo downpipe back exhaust with a muffler. The sound is perfect. It's kinda loud from behind the truck, but just right inside. Be careful, though. This diesel modding stuff gets addictive. I'm currently running a H&S tuner with custom PPEI tunes that add up to 200HP. That required an inline lift pump to keep up with fuel delivery. It also starts to run a little hot on the 200 tune, so I'll be adding water/meth injection soon. Once installed, the engine will have about 650HP.

Thank you for your comment Plum_Crazy, I don't want to" hop up" my truck, it has enough power to do what I bought it for but if that comes with a tune to increase the mpg I won't kick it to the curb. Lol, + I have too many boat projects to do with out spending excess money on my truck. My main 2 concerns are fixing the exhaust right the 1st time & increasing the mileage per gallon because the truck is my main transpo. If more power & a better sound are a result then so be it. Randy

Have you looked at MBRP? I am real happy with their system on my Ford. It's been on there for 6+ years and never an issue.

Check out duramaxforum.com. You can learn about all your options there.

I gained MPG deleting the emissions on my 2010 Ram. I think you are on the right track with a tuner, exhaust etc to delete your emissions. Just make sure to run the tuner on a level that is close to stock, or slightly above stock. I found out that my "no power" setting on the H@S tuner was actually a detuned power level. So for my Ram I had to run power level "mild" with the timing on level "2" to be closest to stock. Sorry I do not know more about the Duramax. Hope this helps!

Enjoy!

I also have a 08, not a dually, I have a aftermarket, exhaust(DPF/cat delete), EGR block off, and tuned by duramaxtuner using EFI live, love it, I have the under 8500lb tow tune(you can get several or switchable) the exhaust brake mod they include is awesome..you have to be careful when getting this all together as some tuners will only tune with the EGR/DPF/CAT delete for "off road" trucks..Rob