My new Suburban

Yea i wasnt trying to critisize any one,in my bad trucker days ,i ran triple digits with my big truck,500 horses and 1850 lbs of tourque will make you smile that evil grin(as you do)! and theres always some one faster and stronger,ive just seen and been first reponder to too many naffs that drove over their limits,I can say i was lucky not to fall of the road at 121 mph and got passed by a little old Pete from pasadena.!i think torqu is torque no matter where you find it. happy wheelin guys!  

My son was recently rear ended across the state from where we live and car was totaled (it was old style Firebird with a v8) I fired up my old burb which has not been driven for a few months (and it started like it had been run yesterday and it has been sitting is some severe cold too) and rented a car hauler (full trailer not a dolly) and went to retrieve car yesterday. I used burb so I would not have to take salt spreader off my 2000 K3500 to access hitch. (I do not drive burb in winter to keep it out of salt but keep it on standby with a full tank for emergencies) Loaded trailer weight about 6K and I averaged a bit over 13 MPG towing averaging about 65 MPH and that old 350 TBI pulled it like a tractor motor and without fuss and I actually used OD too except for a few hills too when I downshift to drive because I do not like to pull/lug it hard and it never broke a sweat. Coming back we were bucking a big head wind too. That burb has 180K plus on it too. Say what you want but the 6.2 would have never done as nicely doing it or as quietly too. It got load moving easily with authority and kept it moving with ease even on hills and never using more than about 1/4 throttle too. With stock timing advanced 8 degrees and high octane fuel that I have feed it for over 17 years the engine is crisp and strong with very light throttle. If this had been a 6.2 it would have strained at same task and I would have been on at least my second and possible third injector pump now too as they were not known for long life. My burb still has factory injectors, regulator and fuel pump too. This burb has been a easy keeper.  

most problems that are called "bad pump" end up being another problem after the pump is replaced, only the early ones had problems with the plastic retainer deteriorating and plugging up the return line which caused them not to run,(ford too they used the same pump, the linkage was just located on the other side) there is very little inside the pump that can go bad. the 94 models had some problems that was fixed for 95 on. the pmd module is the major cause of failure due to heat. the pump itself rarely is the problem. so...say whaIf you hooked that 89 to my 34' toy hauler you'd more than change that tune after you also pulled it with my 98 6.5td burb. that is 12 tons of loaded truck and trailer wieght.  on a recent trip to china hat near bend, or, one of the group members could'nt keep up on the hills, and we have some grades, with their 97 gas pot pulling a 26' weekend warrior, in the 425 mile round trip they burned nearly two tanks of fuel to my one which was filled 30 miles from home. sure they could have done better, if they weren't trying to keep up, they to now own a diesel, a dodge BTW, and have been making promises all year to pass me this time rather than keep up. I can hardly wait, now it has a +80hp ss diesel ECM, 4" down pipe, exhaust and a intercooler. last year it was bone stock except for the stock replacement K&N filter.

so....say what you want about the 350 it is no match for a turbo'd 6.2/6.5 especially with a load. if they could match the towing ability and efficiency I would not own any diesels. how many 7000+ # gas pots do you see at the drag strip that run mid 13-14 second 1/4 mile passes and then pull the bracket racer back home and drive to work monday thru friday?....that's right .....none. it takes a few bucks to get a 3000# car to run that fast.

what about this noise thing? it's not a cummins or international. now even they are extremely quiet inside the cab. the only noise I get is from the toyo m/t's pounding the pavement.

o' and one more thing...175,000 miles and has never has any work done other than regular PM's, exhaust mods, a PMD and still has the stock pump, (ECM only changed for power) and a cooler, @170,000. as you can tell by the mileage, it spends little time parked.  
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My "Vet" that have have been dealing with for 25 years started buying GM Diesel P/U's back in 80's because he had a lot of field calls for horses and cattle (I started with him because of my horses) He had 6.2, a early 6.5 and a later 6.5 and all of them had pumps crap out between 100 and 130K miles. He takes excellent care of them and uses good fuel because his business depends on mobility. After the third time around he gave up on diesels and went to gas trucks and has no desire to go back to diesel again. He said it is cheaper long term to run a gas truck because cost less and cheaper to operate, maintain and repair long term.I might add were my son works at a oil change place, they get a lot of GM Fleet trucks/vans in with 200 to 300 K on them still going strong and every one of them gas too.  

if they had a shop that knew what they were doing rather than parts changers, they wouldn't have changed the pump, most cases the PMD is the problen and always gets changed along with the new pump,...I can't tell you how many "bad pumps" I've come across that tested as good on a machine, many are ignorant to this fact.  
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It was not a parts changer. The pumps on those engine were known to be troublesome. The 6.2 and 6.5 mechanicals and and early to mid electronic ones on 6.5 were basically a POS. They may have worked some of the quirks out on some of the last ones built but earlier ones where a crap shoot with age. Back in late 80's and thrue 90's those pumps were expensive too but today they are cheaper because they are no longer main stream. Any money that you might have saved on fuel which was cheaper then too was gone when pump had to be replaced. And today, fuel cost more as well so no money is really being saved when you ad it all up. The future of personal automotive transportation lays in direct injection gas motors, not diesels.  

if they were pulled and not tested they are parts changers, I have the test equiptment, as I said the pump is rarely the problem, which can be fixed without removing the pump or old PMD, the problem was solved by the new PMD they also put on the new pump, pump failure is the result of poor filtration,
the 78-83 had plastic retainers that deteriorated and the first electronic (94) had issues...the rest is mostly external electronic problems not the pump.  
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I used to have a friend that was a GM diesel freak of sorts and he also could sing songs about pump design and reliability issues with those pumps. SOme time mid 90's GM went to a electronic "drive by wire" with 6.5 pumps and that was troublesome too for several years. Those engines never came with a pump that could begin to match up with possible service life of rest of engine.  

like i said above...the year was 94.
in 95 it was updated.....the the faulty parts are external electronics not the pump as I can see is the popular belief...and shops take advantage of it instead of having the pump tested, mostly from a lack of experience....anyone can change a pump for 1600 bucks even though it only needed a 300 $ part. (if it came from a dealer) they can be bought still in the box for under $100.  
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Unlike FOrd and Dodge that took a commercail engine with a proven pump and adapted it to a P/U, GM started from scratch. The engines internals were okay but the pump was a still is another matter. Like I said, the only saving grace is that pumps are a lot cheaper now. Isuzu designed and built Dmax and knows a bit more about such things than GM.  

lol....ever notice the name on some of the JD, case and ford tractor diesel engines, standadyne...thats what gm uses and they were proven long before that.
the ford used the International 6.9 and the 7.3 both had the SAME standadyne injection pump as the GM 6.2 and 6.5 used untill they went to the direct injection in 96 or somewhere around that time.

the only difference was the linkage was on the opposite side of the pump and the mounting surface...the direct injection at the time wasn't a big enough improvement For GM to follow suite, and also kept the turbo boost presure at a maximum of 10psi stock along with the relatively high compression ratio.

using either a mechanical or a db-4 stanadyne electronic pump on the gm 6.5 @18:1 compression and the addition of a intercooler so the boost presures could be brought up to 18-20#'s, as the ford and dodge were using, the "little engine that couldn't" exceeded the abilities of the new direct injected IH's and cummins in their stock form.... just by matching the compression ratios and boost presures of the others. now the ford is down to a 6.0....I'd love to hear a story of how someone thought they were racing and passed them with a 350. Pure ignorant BS.  
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Ever notice that GM uses cheapest parts possible????? Seen Roosa Master too. The pump/injectors is the weak link of any diesel. When money is saved here building those parts the consumer will pay for the folly.  

o' yeah....now bosch is a cheap injector?  
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You are mistaken if you really believe that they use the Best Bosch, Standyne or Roosa Master pump possible on those vehicles. If they did, there would not be the pump problems that there has been on those models. Like I said, they work good for 100K or so but they are not pumps to grow old with. You can have a 20 year old gas motor run well with little up keep. Not so with those old oil burners.