New "Old" Daily - 8.1L

I picked up this '01 Suburban 2500 8.1L 4x4 from my bestfriend. It's got 166K on it. He's owned it the past 11 years and was the second owner (only put 3400 miles/year on it). I liked my '10 Denali XL, but I really didn't like it towing my pontoon up here in the mountains. It made me really regret getting rid of my '04 Suburban, which also had an 8.1L.

I've already installed a Double DIN radio and all new speakers. The OEM paper speakers were destroyed and would only play high notes. I picked up some new leather seat covers for the front buckets, but my upholstery shop can't get me in until the end of next month to install them.

There's a few maintenance items I'll take care of and it will pretty much be like new.

Never liked that body style but it looks clean and ive heard great things about the 8.1L.

Nice score!

Nice! I've always wanted one of those rigs. We were seriously looking for one too, several years ago... but we found a real nice 6.0 Burb that was otherwise optioned exactly how I wanted one so we bought that instead.

Yours is a very uncommon color combo. I can't remember the last time I saw one with champagne and charcoal paint.

Nice looking unit. I like that radio player thing. Especially the fact that if it is an android unit it can run the Torque Pro app; all thats needed is the ALDL adapter then You can set up a dashboard that will read any sensors that You set it up for.
Live constant information feed.

Ive got a '05 2500 8.1L, I love it, constantly getting 12.5 to 13.5 mpg, plenty of low end torque, but, it does burn a bit of oil though

Nice score! Great platform and looks great to boot!

@78C10BigTen I cut my teeth on Squares starting in 1989 and as each series of new truck came out, I had a hard time with the change, but they grew on me. I don't even think I can wrap my head around the new HD trucks though. The 8.1L is an awesome engine for towing.

@bucket I think it was your post that got me thinking about going back to an 8.1L. I've had 2 previous ones. The first was an '01 2500 HD (below) with an Allison. I regret selling this one the most. The other was an '04 Suburban 2500. It was 2WD and I needed a 4WD at the time, so I go rid of it. I should have made it into a 4WD as nothing was wrong with it.

@MrMarty51 I know it has Apple Car Play and the Android equivalent. I not sure the pre '03 Suburbans have all the interface options the later ones do.

@Customblue that's pretty good on mileage. My '01 never did better than 11.5-12, but that only had the 5 speed Allision with 4.10's. Both my other 8.1's had 4.10's, this one has 3.73's. In theory it should get a little better MPG, but it has that Auto 4WD transfer case that never truly releases the front drive shaft, so we'll see. The 8.1's do eat some oil. I just found out why recently. There is an open orifice on the underside of the intake that sucks any oil vaper back into the throttle body to re-burn it. There's no actual PCV system. From my recollection it used a quart of oil every 3K miles, more if I was doing freeway driving.

What is an 8.1L? Let me guess, a diesel?

The 8.1L is a 496 and was the replacement gas engine for the 454.

I miss that engine in my old '03 Silverado.

They do like using oil... it used a lot less oil switching from 5W-30 to 10W-30 synthetic.

Raider L said:

What is an 8.1L? Let me guess, a diesel?

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GM's last effort at the tried and true big block. It probably would have sold better if it weren't for the rising fuel costs that were kicked off by Katrina and then also the onset of the diesel craze.

Here’s mine. 2002 2 wd. Guy i got it from was rich. He had all the badges and plastic removed. Put in TV screens etc. etc. when i got it about 10 years ago had 92,000 and only has 102,000 now. Huge ba—ls these thing have , you basically idle all around cuz the torque is big. Mine had the dreaded crank sensor go out , there is no job as grueling as refitting the crank sensor on an 8.1. Especially when the head of it breaks off cuz its brittle. That was a 8 1/2 hour expletive laden saturday I must say but i triumphed. If you need to change yours I ‘ll give you some insight. Runs beautiful now.


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Mine is a old school 8.1

sirweesarunch said:

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Here’s mine. 2002 2 wd. Guy i got it from was rich. He had all the badges and plastic removed. Put in TV screens etc. etc. when i got it about 10 years ago had 92,000 and only has 102,000 now. Huge ba—ls these thing have , you basically idle all around cuz the torque is big. Mine had the dreaded crank sensor go out , there is no job as grueling as refitting the crank sensor on an 8.1. Especially when the head of it breaks off cuz its brittle. That was a 8 1/2 hour expletive laden saturday I must say but i triumphed. If you need to change yours I ‘ll give you some insight. Runs beautiful now.


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My '01 2500HD had one go out around '06. I had a shop do it, but they told me the same story about how easy they broke off.

My Suburban must have been owned by a rich person too. My friend was the second owner and this one had 4 flat screens in it when he got it. The one in the center consule died, but I'm replacing it with a new DVD player and using the monitor on the new head unit. The front head rests have monitors in them and there's a drop down for the 3rd seat.

If you didn't know there's an FB group for 2500 Suburbans. It's a good group like the folks here. No **** talking.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1733635880235636

Got some maintenance work done on the Suburban. Both diffs, transfer case and transmission got serviced. Replaced the leaky power steering pump and hydro-boost lines.

After seeing some GMT-800 Burbs with bend rear frames like the one pictured I decided to replace my hitch with a much heavier duty version. It's a Draw Tite 41930. 1000 LBS hitch weight and 10K overall. If you use a weight distribution it goes up to 1200/12K. The hitch center line is now 2.5" higher than before and the hitch rails go back further on the frame 15". I relocated the 7 pole trailer plug to the bumper. I don't know why GM never installed it here to begin with.