Hello everyone. I am in the market for I think a 2001 Burb 2500. As I understand 2001 was the first year GM started putting Duramax LB7's in their trucks. I am going to be fixing this truck up quite a bit. I'm not above rebuilding the engine and having the transmission rebuilt or even installing a different one if I have to. I also want to turbocharge it of course.

My question is what are some of the pro's and con's of suburbans around this year? Is the Duramax a huge improvement over the Detroit engine? Was there some huge improvement made next year that would make me want get the 2002? How is it for ease of upgrades? There's nothing worse than buying a vehicle only to find you should have been looking for this year or that  transmission instead and regretting it.

I am your sponge, go ahead unload on me, nothing is irrelevant, I want start looking for this truck before the money burns a hole in my pocket.

Thanks in advance.  

The GMT-800 Suburban was never offered with a diesel from the factory, as far as I'm aware. The 6.5 was a decent engine from an economy standpoint, but they're not very powerful or easy to tune for more power.

There are several companies that do Duramax swaps into Suburbans.

http://www.duramaxsuburban.com
http://www.thegreencarco.com

I've seen quite a few Cummins swaps into the older GMT-400 style trucks, and I imagine it wouldn't be too big of a deal to do it on a 2500-series Suburban.

As far as the "best" Duramax, I'd go with the LBZ, which was first offered in mid-2006. LB7s are trouble-prone. LLYs are also pretty good, but the LBZ is the real powerhouse, and it comes with the 6-speed Allison, too. Hope this helps.  

none of the burbs came from the factory with a duramax. and if it did come with one they would have a turbo. but like stated above there are companies that do swaps  

Did they just introduced them into their pickups?

That being the case mileage is no object because I would rather have the Duramax and I could save money on the truck that way as well provided it's in pretty good condition. I'm not above doing the swap myself, I am an aircraft mechanic and I worked on road tractors for awhile after 9/11. I wonder if I could get the motor/trans sent to me as well as the technical data regarding the swap. I mean that's half the fun right?

I'll check out those links. Thank you.

If you can think of anything else about GMT-400 vs.GMT-800 for this kind of project please let me know.

Thanks again.  

Man you would think finding a crate Duramax is impossible, same with the Allison trans. Very hard to find.

Banks has a pricey one.  

its cheaper just to buy a truck with an 06 duramax with the allison already in it then to do the swap your self  

It's always easier to do swaps like this with a complete donor vehicle, if you can afford it. I'd try to look for a clean gasser '01 2500 Suburban. Mileage doesn't really matter, since you're going to be replacing most of the wear items anyway (although I'd probably replace the wheel bearings, brakes, etc.)

Then find a nice LBZ pickup (though being pretty new, I don't know how cheap they'd be right now.) Put the two side-by-side, and let the swap begin!  

However, every Duramax Suburban conversion I've seen has required a body lift to clear the Allison, just FYI.  

Thanks for helping me narrow it down some especially with the engine and trans. I do have a few more questions but I think it would be more appropriate for me to post them in the engine swap forum.

Thanks again for everything. You guys were far more helpful than GMTruckclub.com.