/93 350 ci upgrade

My GMC has a 350 and while hauling the camper, it's pretty slow. It's just basic so far, and wondering what others might do to gain a little more power for the least expensive price.

One friend said go for the K&N air filter substitution...but I can't imagine this would boost that much.

any thoughts please

Artum Snowbird

350's are great engines but as does any they get tired and thats all there is to it. Adding lots of extra power to an old engine will quicken its demise. Best bet for more power and reliability is to rebuild the entire engine. Then while you have it out you can make internal upgrades because there's not much serious power that is a "bolt on mod".

Ahhh, but she's still a baby really. It only has about 90,000 miles on it, pretty as a picture still. I bought it off an old man of 85 years when he retired from driving and after ten years, he only had about 65,000 miles under his belt.

So, likely 20 HP would make a difference, 50 would be a lot better...
Any suggestions? Mike


350's are great engines but as does any they get tired and thats all there is to it. Adding lots of extra power to an old engine will quicken its demise. Best bet for more power and reliability is to rebuild the entire engine. Then while you have it out you can make internal upgrades because there's not much serious power that is a "bolt on mod".

Well a basic truth is the more power you get out of an engine the less longer it will last. You will never even notice any power gain from an air filter. I would say a cold air induction intake kit, preferibly a ram-air setup, throttle body spacer and also some type of cat-back exhaust system.

Go to www.truckperformance.com they have a lot of stuff to look at.

I posted under another poster about my gains, I too pull a camper "though I tested my main power gains without the camper" I did notice a big diff with the camper on as well,
I modified my own cold air intake, I still pull cold air from outside the engine bay but doubled the amount, installed the biggest cam the computer would work with, cam was from Edelbrock, true double roller chain while I was at it, dynaflow catback, flowtech shorty headers, MSD ignition componants, trans cooler is a must, my trans has been completely rebuilt needing all hard and soft parts replaced, used all B&M stuff, and trickshift fluid, and a new converter.
Rancho 9000's
an oil cooler came stock on my truck or who ever owned it before me installed it, I installed an old school brass 4 row radiator custom built to fit, I was tired of cracking plastic units that even though they were the largest available for my truck they were inadiquate at best, since the install of the old school brass I have never come close to overheating even climbing a heavy grade "the grape vine" at 70 mph with my camper and pulling my boat in the heat of a so, california desert day, that's about it for performance so far, though I have a set of vortech's to go on as well as a 454 TBI.
for the camper comforts I have a dual battery setup, 1 is deep cycle wired to power the extra's only, like the camper etc, as well I have an 800 watt inverter installed under the hood wired to the deep cycle with the high voltage run back to the camper and box, "instead of running the 12 volt back to the camper and installing the inverter in the camper, I like to use the a/c voltage on my truck even if the camper is stored.
I personaly do not agree with the notion that more hp means shorter life, if properly maintained and quality replacment componants are used more hp is a godsend for pulling a load, your motor strains less to atain and maintain the speed desired, I have 187.000 mi on my truck I pull a camper and a boat often, as well it's a daily driven work truck, I generaly put from 300 to at times 1000 miles a week on my truck in the so, california punishing conditions.
the most inportant thing is to pick and choose componants carfully, and installing hp upgrades is fine as long as it's well thought out, and upgrades to help maintain the motor are installed as well.
personaly I installed the items to keep my motor going strong for a long time first, then I started in on gaining hp.
properly thought out you can gain a little of the best of both worlds, hp and mpg, though large gain's in one direction means a fairly significant loss in the other.
I have asked so many questions of so many people over the past few years in consideration of which way I should go on my truck, including calling the tech lines for the different performance parts manufacturer's 'they were actually very helpfull' especialy on the limitations.
your right your truck is barely broken in, you can expect lots more miles out of her, just take the time to research and plan thing's out I think you'll be suprised and quite happy with what you will come up with. good luck on your project.

The basic fact is this the truck has hardly any miles on it and what you should prob do is go with a cold air intake either ( K&N or AirAid ) also you can get a updated computer chip for that truck since you wont be able to use a programmer. Doing that should give you around id say 20-35hp the chip alone should give you atleast 20 easily and if u really want to go all out you can get a few parts from www.performanceproducts.com they handle alot of truck parts and the prices are good . Then there is the exhaust if you were to get tru duals it would both sound good and run alot better so u would gain hp/trq and also a few miles per gallon. I own a 94 gmc sierra ext short box and i got about 10 additional hp from just my cold air intake and i plan on soon buying a new chip.

Hopfully this helps you out