The first subject of this thread is very general. Cold air intakes, exhaust upgrades, programmers or PCM tunes, you name it. If it is relatively cheap and offers horsepower or MPG increases with little more than a simple part swap or filter swap, talk about it. Who has what, what works, and what do you recommend?

Eventually I'd like to look more into various items for the truck and the Mustang. The Mustang is stock, while the truck has only a K&N filter and the Optima Yellow Top I bought yesterday. The latter is not necessarily a performance upgrade, but with cold weather and my habitual "'let's cook out, drink beer and run down the battery in the truck" I figured it was worth seeing if they live up to the reputation.

The second subject is self-explanatory. No it doesn't mean bodily or other non-automotive fluids, there are plenty of both in the truck already. I am coming up on 85,000 miles in the Sierra. GM recommends a transmission fluid change at 50k for severe service and 100k normal. Anyone here see a benefit in going synthetic for the tranny? I already run Mobil1 and occasionally Royal Purple in the engine, the rear end has Mobil1 gear oil and the transfer case uses a proprietary AutotracII that GM has not permitted other manufacturers to duplicate.

The power steering reservoir was a bit low (hope it's not leaking and the pump is fine, about a week ago it started getting extremely hard to turn the wheel while stopped on a hard surface) so I ended up trying the Lucas fluid. The stuff costs a bit more than regular fluid, but life-long mechanics like my brother swear by their oil products and highly recommend them.


In short