2013 Chevy Silverado 3500
The 2013 Chevy Silverado 3500 is a frontrunner in the hotly-contested heavy-duty truck category. It continues to impress with its comfy ride, stout towing capacity, potent engines, and responsive steering feel. The standard engine is a 6.0-liter gasoline V8 motor connected to a six-speed automatic transmission, pumping out 360 horsepower and 380 pound-feet of torque to either the rear wheels or via an optional four-wheel drivetrain. But the crème of the crop has to be the optional 6.6-liter Duramax turbodiesel V8 mill with 397 horsepower and 765 pound-feet of tire-shredding torque. The diesel has a heavy-duty six-speed gearbox and is also available in RWD or 4WD. The Chevy Silverado 3500 can haul up to 7,222 pounds of payload and tow up to 18,000 pounds with a standard ball hitch (up to 23,100 pounds with a fifth-wheel trailer).
Suspension Tuning
The factory suspension in a 2013 Chevy Silverado 3500 offers the best compromise between ride and handling. But if your Chevy truck is a workhorse, the suspension components can succumb quickly to premature wear and tear, and you’ll feel it when towing near the limit.
- Restore ride quality
- Improved dampening
- Better Durability New
- can make a world of difference in ride quality when the truck is both loaded and unloaded. The main suspension component is actually the torsion bars in front and the leaf springs in the rear - these are the components that bend and compress in order to absorb the bumps in the road and the load placed on the truck. It is the role of the struts and shock absorbers to dampen the movement of the springs, thereby providing smoother compression and expansion without experiencing any jarring. When the shocks are worn, you'll likely notice via a much rougher and bouncy ride under all road conditions. Aftermarket Silverado 3500 shocks feature heavy duty outer monobodies and specific internal valve tuning to provide smooth operation over the entire payload range.
Diesel Tuning
- The 6.6-liter LB7 Duramax diesel V8 first appeared on Chevy trucks in 2001. It’s one hell of an engine, that’s for sure, but it’s far from perfect. There are a few kinks in the diesel’s armor, and one of them is the stock fuel injectors, which are known for having faulty ball seats inside. When this happens, your chevy truck will succumb to hard starting, excessive exhaust smoke while idling, and even fuel leaks in the engine oil. When replacing the fuel injectors in your Chevy diesel, make sure to replace all of them to prevent problems from cropping up in the future. Another known fault is the lack of a fuel lift pump. The LB7 Duramax diesel engine has a common rail fuel delivery system with direct injection and a single fuel pump, but the lack of a fuel lift pump puts extra strain on the factory fuel pump. Installing an
- offer better filtration, improve the throttle response, and enables the engine to cope better with high-performance mods. And while you’re tinkering with the fuel system, it’s a good idea to check for leaks from the fuel filter housing O-rings, which can rapidly deteriorate in older Chevy diesel trucks. Leaking O-rings will cause a bevy of engine problems like poor acceleration, hard starting, and it could even trigger the check engine light.
