1994 Chevrolet K2500 Silverado 7.4L upgrades

Repairs-

• Inner/outter tie rods and sleeves grease fittings
• -Ac recharge

Upgrades :

• Electric fan kit: $3-400

-Intake
I have no ideas what to do about this 2 barrel throttle body I need this motor to produce torque for towing a hitch mounted camper)

- K&N for whatever intake setup I go with




-Exhaust

• JBA Performance Cat4ward Headers: $845.49
• Flowmaster 70 series Muffler: $221.95
• Custom Y pipe downstream of headers
• Chrome exhaust tip (optional)
• Catalytic converter (need recommendations that are high flow and not stainless)

-Brakes

• LugNut 4x4 Rear Disc Conversion Kit: $1020

-Suspension

Looking for beefed up sway bars or poly bushings and any other recommendations

Thanks and all the love yall

CarlShine said:

Repairs-

• Inner/outter tie rods and sleeves grease fittings
• -Ac recharge

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Sounds reasonable.

CarlShine said:

Upgrades :

• Electric fan kit: $3-400

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Don't do it. It'll likely be a down grade. You're not going to get the level of reliability of your mechanical system. Bolting in a fan with a coolant switch is not going to get you OEM level performance or reliability that the OEMs get with their PCM controlled electric fan systems.

CarlShine said:

-Intake
I have no ideas what to do about this 2 barrel throttle body I need this motor to produce torque for towing a hitch mounted camper)

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Others are better than me, at making recommendations here

CarlShine said:

- K&N for whatever intake setup I go with

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Waste of money. You've already got a cold air intake, assuming the hose going to the fender is still in place.

CarlShine said:

-Exhaust

• JBA Performance Cat4ward Headers: $845.49
• Flowmaster 70 series Muffler: $221.95
• Custom Y pipe downstream of headers
• Chrome exhaust tip (optional)
• Catalytic converter (need recommendations that are high flow and not stainless)

Click to expand...

No idea

CarlShine said:

-Brakes

• LugNut 4x4 Rear Disc Conversion Kit: $1020

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Keep your drums. They're large, and designed with towing in mind, and are part of a vehicle braking system. Swapping in car calipers that aren't even secured well to flat brackets is not a real upgrade.

CarlShine said:

-Suspension

Looking for beefed up sway bars or poly bushings and any other recommendations

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Some people report that polyurethane bushings squeak a lot, and can be a bit stiff. I think I've got urethane on my anti-sway bar. You'll want to measure the bar diameter as they do come in different sizes.

CarlShine said:

Upgrades :

• Electric fan kit: $3-400

Click to expand...

NOT an "upgrade".

You'll have to have a giant-ass fan system to have equal performance to what you already have now.

CarlShine said:

-Intake
I have no ideas what to do about this 2 barrel throttle body I need this motor to produce torque for towing a hitch mounted camper)

Click to expand...

As said, others have more/better info than I can give you. Wild Guess: It's not the throttle body/CFM that's holding you back.

CarlShine said:

- K&N for whatever intake setup I go with

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A K&N filter in the stock housing may be a mistake.

A K&N "cold air intake" certainly is.

CarlShine said:

-Exhaust

• JBA Performance Cat4ward Headers: $845.49

Click to expand...

No opinion.

CarlShine said:

• Flowmaster 70 series Muffler: $221.95

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Not a big fan of Flowmaster mufflers. They're not stainless, they rust, and they spend too much money on advertising and not enough on actually making a high-performance product.

CarlShine said:

• Custom Y pipe downstream of headers

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Maybe--unless by "custom" you mean something crush-bent by some local shop.

The Vortec 7.4L applications have two catalysts, and no Y pipe. I don't know about TBI 7.4L. I'd kinda like to put a balance tube ahead of the cats, between the two sides of the exhaust on my '97 7.4L.

CarlShine said:

• Chrome exhaust tip (optional)

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Waste of money.

CarlShine said:

• Catalytic converter (need recommendations that are high flow and not stainless)

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Of course it's going to be stainless. They're ALL stainless.

CarlShine said:

-Brakes

• LugNut 4x4 Rear Disc Conversion Kit: $1020

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Oh, HELL NO!

The LAST thing you need is some crap brake system based on shit_ty engineering that has less stopping power than what you already own. Would you spend a thousand dollars to erase a hundred horsepower from your engine?

CarlShine said:

-Suspension

Looking for beefed up sway bars or poly bushings and any other recommendations

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Ehhh. Maybe "beefed up sway bars". More likely, just the Poly bushings and end-links. Fix EVERYTHING that's worn out or degraded.

Poly control arm bushings. This will not be fun on the upper control arms as nobody I know of sells the steel sleeves for the upper arms. They come with steel sleeves for the lower bushings, but not the uppers.

The steel upper sleeves on my truck were SEVERELY rusted. I had to fabricate new sleeves.

CarlShine said:

Looking for beefed up sway bars or poly bushings and any other recommendations

Click to expand...

I've found the MOOG Problem Solver sway bar bushings featuring a synthetic fabric
liner really tighten things up, do so quietly, and are supposed to last 3x longer. I do
know that they really decrease the 'sticktion' between the bar and bushing, so allows
the sway bar to pivot freely (think driving over expansion joints) and this helps to eliminate
excess harshness from the every day ride quality. (MOOG sway bar bushing upgrade)

Just be aware that there are a couple different diameter sway bars, so be sure to measure
yours before ordering, no matter which brand you end up choosing.

PS: The word of mouth recommended end link bushing upgrade would be the Mevotech TTX
jobs. That's on my short list of upgrade parts.

FWIW --

To reinforce what you have already heard:

-the electric fan is definitely a downgrade on something you are going to use for towing.
-the K&N filter does flow well, but it filters poorly. Your choice...
-reworking the exhaust does free up a ton of HP on the big block. Long tubes > dual cats > dual in/single 3.5" out muffler will yield excellent performance.
-skip the shoddy disc conversion.
-I think at one point Hellwig offered a slightly larger diameter sway bar. Don't now if it's still available.

I agree with all of the above! Skip the engine mods and move to a 4.56 or 4.10 gear. Keep the drum brakes. No on the electric fan downgrade. I do like the headers and true duals that would help!

Hey your all awesome yall

I know I’m just throwing ideas out there and I’m glad yall understand that haha yall are very wise and I appreciate yall deeply

Look into replacing the five blade fan with the 11 blade fan off the Tahoe of the same year range.

Check your fuel pressure/fuel pump. The 94-95 454 tbi ran alittle above 30psi. Also, make sure you have the volume needed.

I don’t remember flow specs of the ep377 off top of my head, but should be easy to look up. If you need to change the pump, I’d look into the 96-up ep381, which has a higher gph flow rating, that, I do remember.