What converter do you have, what injectors, and who's tuning? With the right combination, dialed in shift points, and good tuning an 80/87 is a blast to drive and I've towed another Duramax on a trailer numerous times with it. With too tight of a converter and too low of shift points you will hate it. The not so secret key is that big turbos take more air to spool and higher RPM=more air. The bigger the injector (with proper tuning) the better they spool too. I won't run anything smaller on my DD truck and will likely run an 83/96 in a T4 next.