Good morning all new member here. I have a 04 Z66 and was wondering if anyone has put in a performance chip? What was the outcome? Trying to boost my mpg.
Realistically speaking, unless you're willing to gut performance so that it can prevent you from opening up the throttle, there's not a lot to gain in the mpg department. If anything, there's a placebo effect there that's getting you to hypermile the truck.
you can surely lean out the mixture a bit, but the amount of fuel is in relation to the throttle position. Seeing as your foot also controls the throttle.. well.. im really not certain the gains from a tune itself on a 1st gen is going to net you anything crazy. None of us want to drive it like a prius that cant get out of it's own way, but sometimes that's what it takes.
Now, if you have a lead foot and need the help of a computer, well, i guess it's something to look into. Just dont believe any magic bullet. If it's doing something it will effect performance.
The absolute best i've gotten in my tahoe is 16.3 mpg thus far. With an overall average closer to 15. The avalanche is a bit larger,so i'd be tempering your expectations with these as a best case scenario. These numbers are calculated. Not from a computer (if mine had one).
https://www.fuelly.com/car/chevrolet/tahoe/2001/raekal/1090838
The original average when i bought it a few months back was 13.7 mpg. Between a set of new plugs and running injector cleaner in the fuel i've bumped it up a couple. I'd highly recommend running a quality fuel additive cleaner into a few tanks of gas. Check your plugs for wear. Mine were original at 117k and the electrode was mostly gone.
In order to get to the higher numbers in this thread, you're unfortunately going to have to get a newer avalanche. They're that much more efficient with the AFM system, but that comes at a cost. Most of the guys running range plugins are doing so with newer trucks to disable the AFM system to save themselves future headache rather than improving gas mileage. If anything, they're losing a bit in the process.