best 6.2 possible

[greasemonkeys]

Hi guys, I'm new here but have been reading for awhile (Great site!). My question is this: What would be the best balance between power, reliability, and mileage out of a 6.2? I have an 88 3/4 ton, 4x4, suburban. It has a th400 trans and 4.10s. A gear vendors will be going in shortly. This is my grandpas truck, and then my dads, its been mine for about 2 years. It was also an ex government (forest service) truck, it was assigned to grandpa when it was new and he bought it at auction from them. The truck has about 450K on its original motor and the damn thing just wont die, so I'm going to rebuild and turbo it anyway. I have a choice between a banks and an ats turbo. So, what is the best way to go? Low compression pistons? Any particular type of injection pump? Like I said, best all around. I occasionally tow a car and trailer, see a lot of freeway miles and live in CA. Any help would be great, Thanks!
Cory

[Robyn]

I would do a good rebuild and drop the comp down a little and use a banks system.
I cant say for sure if the Banks is any better than the ATS but I have installed a Banks kit on a rig and it was a nice setup and went in easy.
Be sure to get a boost gauge and a pyro on it so ya dont toast your little beast.

[john8662]

ATS no longer makes a kit for the 6.2, haven't for quite a few years (since about '93). They haven't supported the components for the kits either.

Luckily, they're really simple to fix.

But, I recommend a Banks Kit overall. Mainly because its still available in for sale new, and they're pretty common. The Banks kit works pretty good. It will increase the power of the engine.

I do think it's wise to drop the c/r down slightly though. At the very least, get coated pistons.

J

[greasemonkeys]

I already own the ats kit, it is currently installed on an 85 K5 blazer. I have heard that they spool up a little faster because of a smaller housing, but I dont know if that is necessarily what Im looking for. Dosent that mean that it falls off faster as well? The kit I'm looking into comes with ceramic coated mahl turbo pistons (18.0/1), does that sound about right. Also, I remember reading somewhere that if you lower the C/R 3.5 points that you should be able to support an IP that was calibrated for 250-300 horses without reliability issues. Would this be because of the extra combustion chamber volume and being able to run higher boost pressure? Are there better injectors than stock I could use, or would that be a waste of money? What about the girdle Ive read about, it looks kind of flimsy, does it really work?