Hunter18

i have a 2002 silverado with the 5.3 with 124,000 miles. when i had diagnostics read it said that banks 1 and 2 were running rich and somthing about the Mass Air Flow sensor. as recommended i cleaned it with brake parts cleaner and it helped a lot. 2.5 mpg better and torque was back. now, a month later it is back to 12 mpg and wont cherp a tire. any reccommendations? also any reccommendations on wheather to go with a chip or a programmer? what brands? any personal experiance of true factual gains and not just what these brands claim?

tinbender59

clean the MAF again if it clears up again you need to look into blowby problems, could be bad rings letting compression by and sooting up your MAF

silverado13

isnt the mass flow sensor one of those sensors thats one the intake tubing? id go to the junk yard and try replacing that and go from there, and i have a hypertech programmer for my 97 silverado and honestly its not worth it, i just got mine because i bought it from a friend and got a really good deal on it but it wasnt a real noticeable difference

therewolf

Hi Hunter18,

Welcome to the Chevy Forums.

While many people heartily recommend a chip tune, (and it costs less than a handheld programmer) I have to agree that for this particular function, most handheld programmers don't perform as well as expected.

I have a Diablo Predator, and while it's a great tool for accessing and resetting trouble codes,
resetting drivetrain parameters, and interfacing the OBD with a laptop, I really can't claim it's saved me any gas mileage or produced any extra power.

Have you changed your gas or transmission filters recently? As the filters clog, the power starts to fall off.

Hunter18

i have changed the fuel filter, however not the transmission filter. I have heard that changing the filter for the trany when you have high millage (124k) will result in soon to come failure. i have heard that from a few different people. is there any truth to that?

2wd-K5

not in my case i have a turbo 350 (1979) i just did the filter about 10 months ago and it still shifts fine, there is no reason not to change the filter, do you have an oiled air filter? (k&n style) if so it could be messing with your maf, just keep cleaning it, unless you want to buy new

therewolf

More than likely, if the transmission failed over 125k, it was likely beyond saving,because they ignored the transmission filter beyond three maintenance cycles.Think about it, it's kind of like saying "I changed my air filter and my engine blew up".

People are superstitious, when something happens they may not search for a proper cause, but they will definitely want to lay the blame somewhere.

It must be ultimately frustrating to change the filter at higher mileage and see the transmission fail anyway, but I have seen no empirical evidence to back up the claim that a fresh filter is the cause.

My experience has been that transmissions which get a regular transmission filter and fluid change run well for a long time, and your power and MPG is the better for it.

silverado13

i have a very interesting situation with my transmission, ive put in a few replacment transmissions out of the junk yard into my 97 silverado, the transmission i always have put in is the correct 4L60 that comes stock, ever since i put this latest transmission in (about 3 months ago) it seems to be faulty and worn, up until a couple days ago, ive never stuck my foot in it until it shifted because i always felt like it would slip to bad and only do further damage, well a few days ago i decided, what the hell i mind as well see what happens, so i took off from a start and kept it floored until about 5500 rpm where it normally would shift, well at 5500 rpms it decides to shift like it is supposed to. i honestly think that when i first put the transmission in, that it would not have shifted, my only conclusion is that over the 3 months that this transmission has been in use, enough dirt and gunk has built in the transmission that would actually cause it to work better.....ive seen this more common in situations where someone will have a properly working transmission and decide to change out their fluid out of maintance, just to have the transmission start slipping or shifting hard......id say my case is just a reverse case of that, anyone have any ideas