A good freind of mine has a bone stock 95 2500 Cummins 12v with 356,000mi, auto trans, 4x4, 35x12.50s and he uses this truck almost exclusively for towing his race car trailer that weighs in at prob 9-10k fully loaded. My question is the truck towing the trailer is desperately underpowered coming out of tunnels and going up on-ramps, what are some cheap performance mods for this truck that won't affect its reliability? He's currently going through a messy divorce so it has to be cheap and neither one of us know jack about oil burners so any help will be appreciated. I have been told that I can adjust the fuel up a little on the pumps governor housing is this true or is there a better way to go about it? I'm working on him about making or buying a cold air intake, and the exhaust is falling off so hes going to have to do something about that soon too.

 

has it been re-geared for the 35's yet? Is the tranny stock? Adding power and pushing big tires will smoke that trans if it hasn't been beefed up, especially with that kind of mileage.

If those items are addressed, you can definitely get a bunch more power out of that rig for very little money. Where are you located?

 

Has stock gears, 3.92 I think, and the trans is as far as either of us can tell the original one, all stock. Really don't want anything big just need a little more for the inclines we have to go up, it does good at what it does and gets decent mileage doing it. Gets about double the mpgs that our last tow rig got, but that was a 454 4bbl 4dr GMC 3500 dualie so I guess thats not really saying much. As said above hes in the middle of a messy divorce and doesn't have the cash to do a lot of stuff, like the injection pump or trans. More then likely if anything happens to either of those the truck will get sold before fixed given the mileage thats on it. We are on the part of Virginia thats normally left off the map called the Eastern Shore, its the small puninsula that is south of eastern Maryland and Delaware.

 

35's is lame for an exclusive tow vehicle. The truck would simply work better and seem to have more power with sensible street tires.

 

A good used aftermarket valvebody would help out the transmission and allow him to slide the fuel plate forward a little to bump up the power.

He can add probably 80-100 hp for free but that stock tranny is probably on it's last legs right now.

 

for power a tst power kit with a 4inch exhaust system would be very reliable

 

35s were on it when he bought it they are still too new to replace as of yet, they are 315/75-16 cooper all seasons. And its not only a tow rig but that is its primary purpose now that diesel is so high. He might drive it a little more again now that its down to $3.39 around here. How much would one of those valve bodies run? And forgive my ignorance I'm new to the diesel scene, but what is a tst power kit? I'll get him to do the exhaust prob soon, prob 4" straight pipe.

 

I'd recommend having the pump timing bumped up to 15-16 degrees - and sliding the AFC and fuel plate forward a touch.

Those two items alone on a stock truck with high mileage will get you back a ton of power.

I also vote for the tranny being on it's last legs if it is truely stock and original.

 

You can buy a new aftermarket valvebody for 500 bucks, so used ones should be 2-300 bucks. A transgo shift kit is even cheaper and will up the tranny pressure a little but the aftermarket valvebody is a better option in my opinion. 100 bucks for the shift kit or 2-300 for the properly setup valvebody. After the valvebody, the next meaningful tranny upgrade would be the torque converter, but for 1K, it's a hard one to buy when the stock one isn't broken yet.

 

Thats a lot less then I was expecting, might be able to convince him to take some of the cars sponsor money and get one of them. I hear you on the converter, that prob won't get done to this truck. You got any ideas where I could find a used valve body or the best place to get a new one from.

 

On the rear differential there is a tag that would have the ring and pinion ratio on it. If not, get the VIN#, call the dealer and ask for the build sheet. It will have a ton of information on it. The gears are either 3.54 or 4.10. If you have 3.54's and 315's on it, changing tires will make a big difference.

 

Yea he used to work at a Dodge dealer and had the VIN ran there, I could have sworn he said it was 3.92. It must be 3.54, but like I said above the tires are way too new to change right now and he is on a VERY strict budget while going through his divorce. His ex is trying to take him to the cleaners big time. The way I see it right now it is cheaper to try to get 40-50hp out of the motor then put smaller tires on it, maybe after his divorce we can get a little more extreme. Even with the 35s it still does good towing the trailer its just slow as hell getting onto the interstate, which makes it kinda interesting with cars going 70-80 mph around you. It will pull the trailer fine to 75mph just takes a little too long to get there.