looking for answers in my current situation........
my truck currently has just over 200k mi. and has had the “5.3L lifter tick” for about 35k mi. now!
i’m considering putting a remanned motor in it because my plan is to keep the truck for awhile!!
my questions are:
-what obstacles am I up against if I decided to put a 6.0 L in it instead of just replacing the 5.3?
-are there any aftermarket header companies out there that make a short and/or long tube set of headers that doesn’t make changing the spark plugs a pain in the ***?
-has anyone had experience with speed engineerings true dual exhaust system for my truck and what have been the results?
-if I were to put this true dual exhaust on the truck, what problems might I encounter with the o2 sensors or does it have locations to put the sensors in?
-tuner tips and suggestions....... I’ve been told that I can get 20-45hp just from a simple tune on a stock plant, also who’s product is best for this ?

my initial plan for my daily driver is to put a remanned 5.3 in it with the speed engineering true dual under it, do a CAI and a tune and just drive it......OR should I just rebuild and stud the motor that’s in the truck and just roll out...... the remanned motor comes with a 5 yr/unlimited mile warranty, which is what is swaying me towards this part of my situation
any and all suggestions will be greatly appreciated..... just too many damn options to make a clear and level headed decision......LAST BUT NOT LEAST.......

-do I just keep my motor and rebuild it OR go the reman route?.....and if I rebuild, a suggested list of parts would be great

 

I just went threw this.

My '05 Suburban had 223K on it when a roller on one of the lifters failed and took out the cam. Originally was going to repair it but the more I looked at the motor and priced out parts the more it didn't make sense. Then I started looking into rebuilding it but again the price adds up quick especially when you add in machine shop cost. I then tried to find a lower mileage GenIII 6.0 which is proving to be difficult these days. A lot of people and auto recyclers wanted between 1,600-2,100 for engines that had over 150K on them. I ended up going the reman 6.0 route.

I ordered a reman LQ4 from RockAuto and it was roughly $2,750 w/tax & shipped to my residential house with lift gate service. DCTF part number, they label it has "Famous Brand" but it's an ATK Reman engine, came in an ATK crate. It included every gasket to put the engine in including oil pump and pickup tube. That price included the $610 core which I won't get back since I don't have a 6.0 to send back. Not only do you get a bigger engine but you also get a better cylinder head, the 317 head is a lot better than the 862 head that's on the 5.3. I did do a BTR Stage1 6.0 Truck cam and BTR LS6 Valvespring upgrade. I also did a Circle D 12" 2,600 stall.

My suggestion is go reman 6.0, it's a direct swap. My Suburban was flex fuel so it already had bigger injectors but I did read somewhere on a forum back in June when I was researching this that depending on your setup you can max out stock 5.3 injectors pretty quick. I also use HPTuners so the tuning aspect was easy for me. Even if you don't tune your own truck plenty of good tuners can set it up for you, I started by copying every table from a 6.0 Denali base file into my P59 flex fuel PCM and then tuned it from there.

As far as your exhaust questions I don't know.

 

I think he has 3 threads with the same question, I answered in one of them already.

Don't see any machine work needed here, would only be a few hundred bucks to install brand new lifters and carry on.