Any one have any tips for tuning a stock 2003 silverado? truck is stock with auto and 5.3 . The truck is a dog specially when I pull my car hauler. I have a wideband but really didnt want to get into a full blown tune on the truck until I do at least headers and cold air intake later. Im pretty new to tuning drive by wire also. Is it worth tuning the Ve and Maf on a stock 5.3 truck?
Any tips for tuning it would be really appreciated.
You can always perfect the factory VE and MAF tables, they can be off a tad bit but it's not a must do thing.
Your rear gear ratio can make it feel crappy when pulling trailers aswell. 3.23's would be the worst, 3.73's are better. Otherwise to me not much else can be done to fix how it pulls trailers in stock form. Adding mods to the motor/trans maybe a stall or better rear gears would be required.
But you can still mess with tune to make it drive a whole lot better. Minor switches to power enrichment and torque management and even doing a minor trans tune can wake them up.
2016 Silverado CCSB 5.3/6L80e, not as slow but still heavy.
If you don't post your tune and logs when you have questions you aren't helping yourself.
Remove the power enrichment delay, but if you're going to tow, don't go nuts adding timing or going too lean. If you're going to tow often, I'd keep PE fueling at 1.2 EQ ratio or fatter.
I spent a lot of time with shift points and converter lock/unlock on my 2005 5.3 and it made a lot of difference in driving feel.
Last edited by MikeOD; 05-17-2015 at 08:24 PM.
2010 Camaro SS M6. Stock Bottom End, Heads/Cam/Intake/Headers/Exhaust.
2005 Silverado RCSB. Forged 370 LQ9/Borg-Forced Inductions T6 S484/Jake's Stage 4 4L80E with D3 Brake/4WD.
2023 Durango Hellcat
I don't use the truck to do too much towing. I use it every once in a while to pull my race car to the track on my 18ft car hauler. even when not towing the truck is a dog. My old 98 chevy felt faster. This truck only has about 70k miles and was owned by an elderly couple. Im wondering if maybe from them just putting it around town maybe the catalytic converters are stopped up or something. I have owned it for about a year and a half and put about 15k of that 70 on it. I had a 2003 Yukon before also that had a 4.8 in it and that thing had more pep.
5fdp I read through another thread you posted on with some tips on tuning a 6.0 truck. Will any of that help my anemic 5.3?
Whats the gear ratio?
Like I said before, that can be a big factor. If you have 3.73's and it's still a dog, then you could be needing a tune up aswell. Clean the throttle body, clean the MAF sensor, spark plugs should be changed by now just based off years and I dont run plugs to 100k either. They tend to wear out at 60-80k anyway, run some fuel injector cleaner in it too.
You can temp gun the cat converters if you think they are plugged up, take it for a drive and beat on it a few times to get things real hot then quickly pull over somewhere and check. Temp gun before and after the converter, one will obvisously be way higher if the gases can't exit the converter well.
Then start "tuning" the truck, you can wake it up some with a few minor changes.
2016 Silverado CCSB 5.3/6L80e, not as slow but still heavy.
If you don't post your tune and logs when you have questions you aren't helping yourself.
Yeah I already did plugs and wires when I first got it. I put some NGK tr55 plugs in it and a set of MSD truck plug wires. Ill have to check the Catalytic converters I have a temp gun somewhere. Ill look at the gear ratio in the tune tomorrow and see what it says.
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