Originally Posted By: Fitz98
I appreciate all the input,
I am a little confused, since I have seen the same vehicle as mine with 17" rims and larger tires. I am not sure about the Z-71, but I thought those were also on 17" rims.
Are the Z-71 and other similar suburbans possibly a different drive train package to accommodate bigger rims and tires?
So with regards to the towing performance and gear ratios, I appreciate that and do not want to change if it will have an adverse effect on the vehicle and would probably just use an offset hitch, but to get the clearance I need for pulling my boat out at ramps, I will need about an 8"-10 rise...seems like a lot.
I am due for new tires and wanted to consider options before just replacing with stock size. They also look under-scaled for such a big vehicle.
I have a 1997 Suburban, 2500, 454 4x4. A couple of points: There were a crazy number of gear ratios available in that Suburban platform. At least 2 on the 1500, and 2 others in the 2500 with 454- 3.73 and 4.10. Not sure on your model which I think is the next generation Sub, but I expect the same availability of gear ratios. You would have to do some calculations to see the end result due to tire diameter changes. I have a Hyperchip programmer for mine (no longer use it though) that had an option to change the effective gear ratio due to tire and wheel changes, so that you could correct for speedometer errors. Thats really just a cosmetic change, but I would assume newer reprogrammers could easily do this.
On the boat trailer problem: perhaps if you could describe why you need the clearance in more detail, a different solution might become apparent. One example already cited was an adjustable drawbar for hight. Another might be a different drawbar but with higher ball mount. If you take the drawbar and rotate it 180 degrees, you can get a lot more height. Also, a longer drawbar might gain effective height while pulling up the ramp, but not a radical change while in normal trailering.
I call them drawbars, but perhaps ball mount is the correct term.
https://www.etrailer.com/Ball-Mount