I have a 97 Silverado Turbo Diesel. On steep grades I seem to have no power and it smokes heavily. I have changed to a 4 " exaust, a high performance intake and have replaced the computer with a B & D computer. It strikes me the rear end may not be what I thought it was, thus no power and the RPM's not staying high enough when pulling. How do I determine what the rear end ratio is?

 

Ratio is determined with Divding the Driven gear by the Drive gear so lets say you have a Ring gear with 41 teeth and a Drive pinion gear with 10 teeth.....which would equal 4.10 ratio. Also having fresh transmission fluid and engine oil and differential fluids will make it alot easier in pulling things.