You can have performance, reliability and efficiency. It is all in how restrained you are when it comes to using that power. When my old 14.x second Bonneville can get close to 30 MPG with 4 adults in the car over a 600 mile round trip and not require anything but gas the whole time, well, you can have all three.

Anyway, I would look into exhaust, cold air intake completely isolated from engine heat, and a tune. No way to tell exactly what you would get performance wise, but it should be a nice kick in the pants for sure. And if you are nice to the 'go' pedal, it should be decent on gas as well. Do too much to shift the torque peak higher in the RPM range and you'll hurt your low RPM efficiency.

 

I agree. Was your Bonneville supercharged? And @ hicklinc, I apologize. I assumed you didn't want to spend too much money because that's what a lot of us on here attempt. A lot of performance for a little bit of dough. If you have the means you can drop in a new GM engine with active fuel management if you want to go all out. I had assumed you wanted to keep the 4.3. I'm sure there are good upgrades out there for the 4.3 but as I mentioned before, anything substantial=$$$. (i.e. turbo/supercharger)

But as others have said on here before, it's a truck. One member has even go as far as saying something along the lines of "I've learned a long time ago not to buy a truck and then complain about the gas mileage."

 

i'm looking at turboing it right know but i dont know that much i want to keep my 4wd so will that new GM engine with active fuel managementwork and about how much and where would a good place be to look for some of these parts

 

welcome to forum.

 

Changing an engine really won't affect the use of your 4WD. If you go turbo, the concerns with 4WD is keeping it free of the elements you'll come in contact with while wheeling and waiting for it to spool up.

You could always look for a freshly wrecked new GM truck with the AFM engine. Or you could drop some serious cash and order straight from GM.

 

You won't lose your 4x4 turbo charging it.

Putting in a new engine is quite a bit of work... A little easier with a body lift, though...

 

i'm newso what is the afm engine and can i swap any v8 into my jimmy and keep the 4wd what are my options i would perfer to do a engine swap over turbo

 

Yes you can do an engine swap and keep your 4x4.

It's trickier with the newer LS series engines (5.3L for example) because of the oil pan, but otherwise it fits in the engine bay a little better than a 350.

The LS series of engines is a little shorter, if I remember right.

AFM is Active Fuel Management, where if you're not stomping on the gas, the engine drops into 4 cylinder mode.

 

so the engine with afm is a v8 5.3L that drops to a 4 cylinder when at low rpms

 

Some of the 6L have it too.