2000 Tahoe Limited Towing Issue "BIG TIME"

I have a 2000 Tahoe Limited and I love this thing, but I might be needing something with a little more towing power. I can't quite understand what the problem is with this thing. I need some advise in a bad way before I drive this thing off a cliff. It's got a 5.7 liter, I've put a K&N cold air intake, flow master exhaust, and changed the gears from the stock 3.42 to 3.73. All I'm trying to pull is a 16' enclosed trailer with 3 4wheelers in it. I will pull it, but the poor thing is hating life the entire time. Also, where I usually ride is about 2 1/2 away, and about the last 45 mimutes of my trip to getting there or going home, I get a real bad burning smell like my tranny is about to explode. The only thing I can think of doing is getting a reprogammer and tranny cooler, if it doesn't already have one. How much will a reprogrammer after everything else I have done? PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!

Yep, thats a good start get a hypertech to reprogram the shift firmness, thus increasing the line pressure that will help safe the clutches and also add a new B&M tranny cooler to help keep it cool.

:iagree:

The Fluidyne tranny cooler mod JK did wouldnt hurt ether.

When you changed the rear end to 3.73, you took advantage of the low-end grunt our trucks are (somewhat) famous for, but you neglected the shift points pre-programmed in the computer. Does your transmission "hunt" for a lower gear during steady acceleration? Or when using cruise control? A custom tune is definately in order, to bring the shift points and line firmness back in line with the new gear ratios.

During normal driving conditions, its seems fine except for my tranny smelling really bad after about 5 minutes of drive time. I have a bad feeling that my tranny will be gone before long, but it doesn't seems as if it is doing anything wrong. I've only towed with it once since I put the new gears in it. I basically keep it out of over-drive so it wouldn't be constantly go from a high gear back to a low gear, etc. Even when I kept it out of over-drive to pull, it did not have the pulling power that I thought I would have. I'm to the point now that I don't want to pour alot of more money in it and just get what I know works, a diesel. Especially if my tranny is going to be shelling out on me, I will need to hurry up and dump it.

Mine towed awesome even with the 3.42s and 265/75/16's. I would definitely look into a custom tune from nelsonperformance or blackbeartuning. GMPP also makes a replacement 4l80 2wd that I believe bolts right up. I had the same k&n intake along with some jba wires and full magnaflow exhaust with y pipe. Try getting a decent tune and some longtubes with a y-pipe and some hi-flow cats, installing my y-pipe was the greatest performance increase of any mod I had installed
Stock:

Magnaflow Stainless: