1st ever big block GMT900? (frankenburban 2.0)

The cat back($300) suggestion was related to MPG and I've had experience with K&N having stock housing drop-in elements (mpg also)..........and yes of course RACECAR first....

fidelity101 said:

Okay so initial impressions..

 

• You can feel the added weight over the front end
• [...]

I might have missed it,but how much heavier is the new engine? 

In reply to artur1808 :

about 200-260lbs

The 6.0s weigh about 500-530lbs and this engine is 760lbs iron block, iron heads aluminum intake manifold.

I can't decide whether to tell myself to hate this or love it.  Been debating what to do with the 5.3 in my 2k Silverado. Turbo, 6.0 swap, 6.0 + boost, just rebuild the 5.3... Options. This thread puts a whole new option on the table. I've found a 6.0 long block crate for under 4k, but if I can do this over the 6.0..... For less money... oh damn.. Not worried about mpg's I'm only getting 12-13 as it is. 14 if I hold it at 60 rolling down the interstate. My truck only does truck things. Doesn't need to rev to the moon, nor do I want it to.

In reply to Mr. Lee :

If you have a 1/2 ton avoid the 8.1 swap, you will need to upgrade a lot of stuff and fabricate mounts and other stuff because the frames are different and then you still don't have the heavy duty stuff like springs and brakes stronger frame etc, plus a 4l60 will explode if you put an 8.1 in front of it.

fidelity101 said:

In reply to Mr. Lee :

If you have a 1/2 ton avoid the 8.1 swap, you will need to upgrade a lot of stuff and fabricate mounts and other stuff because the frames are different and then you still don't have the heavy duty stuff like springs and brakes stronger frame etc, plus a 4l60 will explode if you put an 8.1 in front of it.

The concern is that the 4l60 will explode if you do pretty much anything including eleminating the stock torque management and unleashing just the stock motor on the transmission. 

In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :

If you look at the 4l60's girlfriend funny it will explode too, they are very sensitive little bitches...

What did you figure out about the intake?

I just ran the 8.1 ducting and it fit fine.

fidelity101 said:

In reply to Mr. Lee :

If you have a 1/2 ton avoid the 8.1 swap, you will need to upgrade a lot of stuff and fabricate mounts and other stuff because the frames are different and then you still don't have the heavy duty stuff like springs and brakes stronger frame etc, plus a 4l60 will explode if you put an 8.1 in front of it.

Looking at car-part I can pick up a complete motor for 13-1500, that's half the going rate for 6.0's around here.  Leaves a lot of room for upgraded springs, trans parts etc. IMO the 4l60 get's a bad rap from the majority that does not take care of the their transmission.  I'm on my original trans (it was one of the arguing points on the price when I picked it up a few years ago) @ 206k (knocking on wood as I have a few hundred miles of towing to do this weekend.) Trick is keeping it cool, and fresh fluids.

There is also a co-part location within 30 miles of me. It may be time to start watching for 3/4 and 1 tons there. Might be able to pick up a complete donor for the same money that would include heavier springs/rear axle. 

sounds like you should just buy a 3/4 ton truck and save yourself the time and money.

Agreed, but it's redneck central, and everyone wants a 3/4 ton so they can lift it and put low profiles on it. Not to mention they think their backyard lifts are made of gold or something.  

Besides, I want the 5.3 for SWMBO's '02 S10 

In reply to Mr. Lee :

My part of red neck central doesn't see unreasonably high prices on 3/4 tons unless they are also diesel. Gas 2500s sometimes go for less than a nice 1500.

In reply to Daylan C :

Quick search around me, cheapest beater that probably needs axles rebuilt etc is 3500, one crackhead that wants 13k for his 454 88 dually with 70k on it. Cheapest 8100 truck was almost 10k and needed love. Don't need the dually, but wouldn't send it packing either.  I've got MAYBE 3k into my 2k Silverado. Needs another 3 to be perfect. 

Happy Friday everyone!

I put a little L'Air de Panache on the dirty girl, stock airbox may seem unassuming but the badge is a subtle hint...

picked these bad boys off of ebay for like 30 bucks from thailand or somewhere... lol

I could not find an OEM one without the allison logo - didn't want to be a poser and I doubt it could clean cut the chromed plastic neatly...

I LOVE this truck man!

Mr. Lee said:

I LOVE this truck man!

 

Thank you! next up is onboard air but I have a lot of rx7 stuff ahead of me first, that will probably be a spring/summer mini project.

Got the engine and transmission dialed in now which is perfect timing because Saturday/Sunday is our regions local day/night rallycross, we run Saturday evening's heat during the night time so this will be its first tow under the new powerplant, excited to see the differences.

last night I "raced" a challenger and won... had I not lifted but I think my power to weight may be similar haha, its gonna be boat on boat action or I'll be going boat hunting on woodward during the warmer months.

Overall it feels great, super torquey and cubes for days! This thing climbs to 80 mph pretty quickly for on ramp merging. Fuel economy is pretty bad but I  need to fill up and drive normal and see because we have been doing all sorts of erratic driving that isn't fuel friendly for the sake of the tune and yes from a dead stop it will spin the tires and they weight about 100lbs each with the wheels. Glad this isn't my daily and fuel is still cheap.

News for you. A 5.3 isn't very good on gas with erratic driving either.  Filled up a few nights ago, and burned almost a quarter tank with a 60 mile round trip today. Granted I was playing with a flatbiller with a jacked up, low profile tired, diesel who thought he was going to walk off and leave the little gas powered 1500.  I let him stay 50 yards or so in front of me and used him for cop bait. Made it to my appointment on time, when I had just called the Dr.'s office and told them I was going to be late due to an accident blocking up traffic 20 minutes prior.  I don't usually push the truck that hard, but I was running late and he was convenient. 

Truck towed great this weekend, the factory tow haul mode settings are terrible so it always wants to downshift twice, even when you give it only 10-15% throttle... I managed to get about 8-9mpg overall on a roughly 250 mile trip. I could easily by 9-10 with out it dropping to 5th all the time, it didn't need to be when it had plenty of power/accel for 6th gear... I need to research and see if the 5-6 clutches are strong enough because that may be why the trans always wants to keep it in 5th on the highway unless I'm towing at 77mph+. Cruise control it would always kick down from 6th on the slightest sight of a hill and take forever to shift back up, totally useless. I think this could get 10mpg  towing without it shifting all over the place for no reason, around town was great - I may wanna lower the shift points a touch but it is so understressed around town it pulls 5k lbs like it wasn't there and I could drive normally to keep up with traffic and etc. For reference I got 9mpg with the 6L towing at a similar pace.

Anyways there may be some bigger problems... I had done a heavy load/hard accel onto the highway (towing) and along came a HUGE (impressive) cloud of blue smoke came from behind me. I know I'm leaking oil from the pan but maybe the leak isn't as bad compared to whats being burned... I didn't set a CEL or anything that time but on the way home I had done a similar mash the gas to merge and I had a service stabilatrack/service traction control light flash along with a blinking CEL (like a misfire), the engine was running rough at idle felt like a misfire but then cleared up I couldn't tell if there was a smoke cloud behind me due to the low light and rain. Seemed like it fouled a plug or two temporarily creating the misfire.

I'm wondering if I got a valve seal issue or its just residual gunk in the engine that needs to be cleaned out from sitting for many months. It only occurred when you rev it past 3700-4000+ rpm. I may give it the seafoam treatment and see. When I dropped the pan and took the valve covers off I had to clean a pretty good layer of gunk out from the bottom the cylinder head has this same amount.

time for a leakdown test and comp test...

Oil burning could be the intake gaskets, known issue there.

As for the transmission shifting, sounds like the programming need a bit of tweaking. You should be able to tune it to hold gears longer, or at least wait on the downshift to a higher throttle angle. May be tied to manifold vacuum as well.

In reply to 81cpcamaro :

This has the improved gasket being a late model 8.1 so that should be resolved but like any gasket they could fail. I wonder if I floated a valve? Maybe revving it to 5000 or 5100 was too much. I may drop redline to 4700 for safety.

The transmission shifting is still tuning oriented for sure. The stock haul/tow mode is terrible but I haven't had a chance to get it adjusted yet.

So a bit of google-fu on the subject had me pondering but I think the issue could be the PCV actually... which is also making the oil pan leak worse.

The 8.1 it uses an internal PCV system and it grabs its fresh air through the airbox with a port in the throttle body itself that feeds to an orifice at the bottom of the intake manifold. Now with the throttle body spacer to go from a 3 bolt to 4 bolt throttle body I am now effectively blocking that port so the PCV is essentially plugged cause high crankcase pressure blowing oil into the combustion chamber and causing my E36 M3 oil pan gasket job to leak further. This would explain why its in the high RPM/load range only.

Take a look at the 3 bolt vs 4 bolt differences on Raylar's site:

RAYLAR ENGINEERING big block intake manifolds

Luckily my earlier idea was to add a PCV system so I have the provisions already there, I will still do a comp/cyl leakdown test for piece of mind but if those results are good I can go ahead with pan gasket repair and install a PCV system.

Glad it looks like something simple. 

I hope it's something simple.  This was a really neat project and it gives me some inspiration for my old Blazer.  It's got me wondering what kind of diesel I can put in her.

Yeah the question is now how do I route it because there are a million different ways to do this...

or is my catch can routing wrong?