I am towing a 2005, 26' Trail Cruiser which weighs about 5,000 lbs. I have made a number of improvements so that the current engine tows halfway decent. When we bought the clean, pristine, one owner always garaged Burb, it didn't want to go over 65 mph solo and would barely pull our 4500 lb Tahoe at the time. I was really bummed. Discovered it had never had a tune up in the 126,000 miles before we bought it. That helped a little. I've used an MSD timing control for years when we were towing with the '65 Chevy Van, 292, Th350. So I put that on which advances the timing by 15 degrees, it was a noticeable difference, speeds up when advancing it. The found a guy in Missouri who makes custom computer chips (Fastchip) to add more power at WOT, which happens a lot when towing up mountains. Another very noticeable improvement. While at the Palm Springs 1000 Trails I was looking at the very restrictive air box that reduces the air intake to less than 3" and wondered why I hadn't got rid of it yet. Went to a hardware store, got a 2' long 4" diameter dryer duct, took the air box off completely and just ran the duct directly into the air cleaner. Another noticeable improvement, so now it's doing a lot better than it did at the beginning, but still have to drop down to second on 4% grader or steeper, but can stay in 3rd on relatively level, up and down freeways. One day on I-80 we were headed west against stiff headwind, ran in second all day at 45-50 mph, 6 mpg.
Next had my muffler guy remove the cat and very restrictive Y pipe and install dual exhaust (no emission inspection where I live). Even bigger difference, really loud though. My research has shown that the 383, which is a stroker engine with a longer stroke is the engine I need. I've lined up a remanufactured one for about $2000, so as soon as I can find the money, will install that. I'm very familiar with stroker engines as I towed for years with that 65 van that I installed a 292 ci inline 6 which is a stroked 250. The difference between the 2 engines for towing is immense. Huge torque, which what I think I'll get out of the 383, I hope.
Now, what's DOD? What's LS? What's LT? I've lived in the 6 cylinder world for the past few decades so v-8's are new to me. Thanks all.