Ok I am iced in again and have way too much time. Here is a situation I have been thinking about and wanted some feed back. I have always heard an under square engine is better in a truck for pulling power and the weight of a truck. i:e the stroke is longer than the bore is wide. If this is true why did they make the LQ9 over square with a 4" bore?
I am thinking of buying an 02 2500hd ext cab with high mileage. It has the 6.0L. My thinking was to buy a 5.3L from a bone yard, put a 4.0 stroker crank in it and bore it to 3.90 This would give me more cubes (382) and be under square. I could also build the engine while I am still driving the truck. I do pull heavy loads sometimes (about 15% of the time) in the mountains and can't afford the duramax.
The above would not totally kill my gas mileage like an 8.1 and still give me enough grunt to pull 9,000lbs up a steep grade. Am I splitting hairs?
Any thoughts on how this combo might work vs the stock LQ9?