The LS OBS...5.3 swap into 95 C1500 build thread.

208,463 Views | 677 Replies | Last: 3 yr ago by Silvy
Ag for Life
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AG
silverado_lover said:

Not going to hone the cylinders at all, I'm just going to gap the stock rings.

I've been in contact with a few companies for cams and all recommended cams larger than I initially planned on running. I haven't pulled the trigger yet, but looks like I'm going to go with a 233/240 @ .050", .627"/.607", 112+2

TC is a 245mm (9.5") 3200-3400 stall, should definitely be at 3400 N/A and I expect a couple hundred more on the squeeze
Do your cylinders look good? Mine has obviously been sitting awhile and has some rust. It does turn over freely however. Once I completely disassemble it I will see how clean I can actually get it. Seems like disassemble, clean, and then assemble with new rings would be fine for a budget build.

That is a pretty agressive grind. So this 6.0 is going in your OBS truck? (can't remember it's name, sorry )
Silvy
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AG
If a turbo is in the plans, I'd stick with a 5.3 and throw in a good N/A cam and have rest of valvetrain beefed up as well. When you go turbo, just swap the cam out.


Here's how all my cylinders look, bit of a glaze but YOLO.

I was shocked when that was recommended to me, I had my eyes on a 231/235 cam and was expecting them to spec something smaller. A couple of shops also spec'd cams that one would think it was going into a LS3 due to the huge split (225/238 113). Upon more research, it looked like I was dealing with 2 lines of thinking regarding cams that are being sprayed on. Seems the more old school line of thinking is a big split and low-ish overlap, whereas the other shop (Tick) seems to be experts when it comes to nitrous stuff and have great results. And yes, this is for the '95 Seelborado.
Ag for Life
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Yeah your cylinders look perfect. I should have gone the LKQ route from the start, but Craigslist is kind of addictive. Mine look ok and I think im just going to clean it up and roll with it. If it fails I'll just swap it out. This LS stuff is addictive as hell.

Good luck with your build!
Silvy
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Welp, so far this has proved to be a very knowledgeable endeavor since I've never torn any engine down this far.

I pulled all the pistons out to start gapping rings. First piston wasn't wanting to come out, I moved my hand away from the bore momentarily and sure enough that's when the piston dropped out, right to the ground. The rest of the pistons came out without a hitch and I have a replacement piston on the way.

I spent the next couple days cleaning parts, looking things over, and checking ring gaps. I only opened up the gaps of 2 rings and in all likelihood, they probably would've been alright. All top rings are gapped .0065-.0070 x bore and 2nd rings are .0070-.0075, so it's definitely ready for some juice now.

I started to put pistons back in today, and noticed some of the parts cleaner had settled onto most rod bearings. The bearings cleaned up decent, but not as good as I would've liked. So now I need to order some new bearings.

The rod journals look good, the bearings looked good prior to being dickered, and the bearings had GM part numbers and standard stamped into them. Unless told otherwise, I'm thinking I'll just slap some standard size bearings in and keep rolling.
Silvy
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A pre-dickered bearing
agwrangler2001
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Ag for Life said:

silverado_lover said:



I've been in contact with a few companies for cams and all recommended cams larger than I initially planned on running. I haven't pulled the trigger yet, but looks like I'm going to go with a 233/240 @ .050", .627"/.607", 112+2



Silvy
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Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

BigRobSA
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F yes!
Silvy
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Silvy
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kmac30
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Moar!!!
saltydog13
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If you could be so kind as to swap it into my Taco I would appreciate it. Awesome stuff
Centerpole90
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... today's the day they crated my 5.3... soon. very soon.
Silvy
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The 1-7/8" headers don't fit and the other 1-7/8" headers available would end up costing me $650-700. Needless to say, I'm going to be a chump and re-use the 1-3/4" longtubes I had on the 5.3.
Silvy
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The motor/trans is all secured where it needs to be, the transmission crossmember is about 1.5" closer to the engine bay compared to the OE crossmember location.

I spent Monday & Tuesday dealing with what I expect to be my biggest hurdles, figuring out an economical switch from a return style fuel system to a returnless and the 4L80e shift linkage.

Turns out the transmission I have is from one of the two years that doesn't have bosses to mount a shift linkage bracket, I found a company that makes brackets for this particular transmission so that my OE linkage should hook up.

Really not much more to do to have it running, just a matter of putting everything back on the engine, connecting all the connectors, making trans cooler lines, & fill fluids.
Centerpole90
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Is the tailshaft in the same spot or do you have to alter the driveline?
Silvy
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Not exactly sure, where tailshaft is in comparison to the OE spot,but I do know the tailshaft on the 80e is closer than the spot it was in with the 5.3/60e combo.

I had the crossmember probably 3-4" closer to the engine bay (relative to OE spot) and still ran my original driveshaft.
Silvy
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Had my PCM bench tuned this afternoon and fired up shortly thereafter!

Need to fill all fluids, get the driveshaft in, put the grille/bumper/lights on, drive to exhaust shop, and then have the street tune done.

Unfortunately, tomorrow marks the beginning of my 9 day stint of work so exhaust won't be done before then.
Silvy
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Running off a base tune.
Goose
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That sounds delicious.
Silvy
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Had the exhaust built today then met up with my tuner.

- Starter needs to be shimmed, it's noisy coming in contact with the flexplate.
- The MAF is maxing out, I need to build a 4" intake manifold.
- It's running out of fuel and injector around 4400 RPM

So I need to look into fuel pumps, likely something around a Walbro 450. I can't remember exactly the application, but there are some OE GM injectors that are 42 lbs/hr and pretty affordable. Those injectors would drop right into a Gen IV truck manifold and that's something I had planned on doing anyways.
BigRobSA
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silverado_lover said:

Had the exhaust built today then met up with my tuner.

- Starter needs to be shimmed, it's noisy coming in contact with the flexplate.
- The MAF is maxing out, I need to build a 4" intake manifold.
- It's running out of fuel and injector around 4400 RPM

So I need to look into fuel pumps, likely something around a Walbro 450. I can't remember exactly the application, but there are some OE GM injectors that are 42 lbs/hr and pretty affordable. Those injectors would drop right into a Gen IV truck manifold and that's something I had planned on doing anyways.


LS7 injectors

pt # 12576341
"The Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution was never designed to restrain the people. It was designed to restrain the government."
Silvy
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Thanks brah, but I was able to find the ones that are the cheaps. 12613412, which are found on the L96 6.0 engines. The injectors are so damn cheap because they're removed from the intake when converting to run CNG (L96 becomes a LC8). Looks like a set of them will set me back $60 shipped.

They flow 42 lbs @ 43 PSI & 50 lbs @ 58 PSI
BigRobSA
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silverado_lover said:

Thanks brah, but I was able to find the ones that are the cheaps. 12613412, which are found on the L96 6.0 engines. The injectors are so damn cheap because they're removed from the intake when converting to run CNG (L96 becomes a LC8). Looks like a set of them will set me back $60 shipped.

They flow 42 lbs @ 43 PSI & 50 lbs @ 58 PSI


Ballin' on a budget!


If my 1000cc would fit, I'd have offered them to you. Were for another build of mine that is no longer in the works.
"The Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution was never designed to restrain the people. It was designed to restrain the government."
Silvy
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I reckon this is the first clip posted of her with mufflers.
hatchback
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But muh vertical videos, brah.
Silvy
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That wouldn't be kind to the Snapchat peoples bruh
Silvy
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So I went and had a tuning session today since I finally installed all of the needed items, including:
Aeromotive 340 LPH fuel pump
GMT900 intake manifold w/ 50 lbs injectors
Warr Performance 92mm throttle body
4" air intake tube

My tuner was driving for the 1st highway pull and it definitely made me pucker up. My speedo is off a tad, but so far I can confirm that anything below 50 MPH is spin city.

Up next is swapping out the 10 bolt with open diff & 3.42 for a 14 bolt semi-floater with True-Trac LSD & 4.56.

No speedo vids yet, too damn scary to do anything other than drive lol
Silvy
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I picked up the 14 bolt Monday, it came out of a 2wd light duty 2500 w/ 6 lug wheels. The axle matches right up to my chassis, but the brakes are a bit of an issue. I was planning on swapping on the drum brakes from my 10 bolt for the time being, but the axle flanges are different between the 14b & 10b so the backing plate won't work. I thought about piecing something together like the 454ss brakes, but turns out they have the same flange as the 10b.

I found a disk brake kit for the axle, but at $670, it's a bit out of the price range considering I need to build the rest of the axle as well. All in all, I can build my 10b twice for the cost of building the 14b once.

Realistically, the 10b should last for a while, I'll maybe start to worry about it when she's getting a good bit of spray out of the hole.
sts7049
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can't you just use brakes that were original to that axle?
Silvy
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A few things about the 14b brakes is that they're 6 lug, 11" drums, and could probably use a rebuild.
I want to keep my 5x5 bolt pattern and had planned on shipping the axle shafts out for a drill & fill, but now I'd need to do the same for the drums. The 11" drum brakes are insanely heavy, 3many unsprung weights.

I'm glad I saw the brake issue before I shipped the axles out and started ordering parts. I'm only out $250 on the 14b, maybe I can find someone wanting to do 6 lug swap and doesn't care about weight or just stick it in a corner and possibly build if the 10b doesn't handle the juice
Silvy
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Here's life with an open diff.


I took advantage of cyber Monday and ordered a Truetrac, 4.56 ring & pinion, diff girdle, main cap studs, and a master install kit. Just waiting on a day both myself and a friend knowledgeable on gear installs are both available.
Silvy
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She's down again, transmission issues. Will need to drop it to see what caused the issue, hoping I can have the builder fix it without a hassle if I didn't somehow screw up with the TC install.
Silvy
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Finally pulled the damn thing this evening. Didn't have to remove any of the exhaust, but it sure was a pain to snake it between the pipes. I'll likely trim the bell housing a bit more before putting it back in, should make install much easier.
Silvy
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Guy who built the trans is out in FL and I didn't want to deal with hassle of shipping it to/from him, especially since I thought it was TC installation error.

I dropped it off to a guy in Sugarland yesterday, he tore into it and found that the builder made a simple mistake in the trans. It needs a seal kit, new frictions / steels, and a filter. I was speaking with FL trans builder and he reached out to the local guy, FL bro is going to cover cost of parts & labor.

My TC is currently being cleaned at Circle D and since the trans is open, I'm having the guy throw a billet forward hub in.
 
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