It's no secret that emissions regulations are a fact of life for new diesel owners. The good news is the performance industry knows that, and it's taking steps to produce more power while the engines remain clean and legal. So far, the '07 Chevy Duramax has proved to be the hot rod of the new-truck market. With around 280 hp at the rear wheels in stock form and a weight of less than 7,000 pounds, it can scoot to 60 mph in about 7.5 seconds and runs low-15-second quarter-mile times. The question is, with all these new diesel particulate filters, exhaust gas recirculation systems, and regenerations, can new trucks still be made faster? You bet.
Pacific Performance Engineering is no stranger to the Duramax-powered market and has been developing programmers for the older models for years. With the current LMM generation, the company felt there was room for more power while keeping the engine burning cleanly. In fact, during testing, PPE removed the diesel particulate filter to get an accurate smoke-level reading so plugging the catalyst could be avoided. This has resulted in a program that can add up to 225 hp at the crank and make more than 400 hp at the rear wheels on a chassis dyno while still working with all the factory emissions equipment.
In addition to adding more power, the PPE Xcelerator for the LMM can also be used to see some gains at the pump. Users have reported an increase of 1-2 mpg, even on the higher performance settings. The unit can also be used to detect problems and can measure exhaust gas temperatures, engine rpm, read codes, and more. The latest release of these programmers will also be able to put the truck manually into regeneration mode to clean out the DPF and make sure it doesn't get plugged and have to be serviced. We got to drive a new '07 with the programmer on level 4 and can report the truck is faster, shifts much harder, and best of all, there were no codes, lights, or limp-mode during our testdrive-proving you can still have a clean diesel and horsepower, too.
This was a full-throttle flyby in a new '07 with a PPE Xcelerator. Not only was there no black smoke, but the transmission shifts were firmed up to the point where the truck would chirp the tires when shifting into Second. |  | 
Yep, the truck is completely stock, right down to the factory megaphone exhaust. |