I've been building this thing for months. I got the pushrods I needed on Thursday and realized everything else I needed was on the current motor. So I decided to spend this weekend on the swap. My Dad has a shop at his house with plenty of room so we loaded everythin up in his truck and headed out there. We worked on it Friday afternoon and all of Saturday and Sunday. I wanted to drive it home Sunday night but I still hadn't hooked up the exhaust so I had to wait. We did fire it up though with just the headers on. I had made a few necessary changes in the tune so it would run and it fired up in two turns of the starter. Oil pressure came right up and it sounded like a dragster!

I had to travel for work from Austin to Corpus on Monday. On the way back I picked up a stock cat back at a salvage yard in Lockhart for $50. It was too loud when I had the TR220 in my 5.3 with the Magnaflow and LT's. I took a vacation day on Wednesday and went to the shop, hooked up all the exhaust and took it for a spin. After a little tuning, it almost drives like stock. Of course, I'm eager to get into it and see what it's got but I can't for a while. I put 100 miles of cruise tuning on it and changed the oil this morning before work. I'll change it again after another 500 miles.

Anyway, no knocking, good oil pressure, plenty of power. I'm very happy with the results! This was my first complete engine build. I just thought I'd brag. Maybe I'll get it broken in and have it dynoed sometime.

 

congrats man! I can't wait until I get to this point.

 

Why not get into it? Gotta heat up them rings I'll be creeping into boost in mine, while keeping the RPMs low for the first 100 miles or so.

 

Sweet! Show us some Pics!!!!!

 

I really only took a picture or two when I was pulling the 5.3. Then I got so involved that I never took any more during the swap. Totally selfish, huh? Now it just looks completely stock. You can't even tell I did anything.

As far as not getting into it, my book says not to go WOT for a while. It also says not to baby it so I don't. But now it feels like everyone is zooming around me like I'm the slow guy in the way. I want to just bail on them but I don't. After the next oil change (600 total mile on the engine) I'll hook up the wideband and finish tuning WOT stuff. That will be fun.

 

Go ahead and brag man, its your first successful build!! If you have already got 100 miles on it, i think you should go ahead and be putting your foot into it alittle.. For the rings sake, and also because we want to hear how it does LOL

 

congrats bro! in for the pics, and vids.

 

Here's one I took to use if I needed to see where something went:


Pulling out the 5.3. This will be for sale soon:


Here's the new one. Looks just like a clean version of the old one:

 

Congrats man, I just got mine done a few months back so I know how good it feels when its all done and fires up no prob with good oil pressure. It's the moment right BEFORE you fire it up that you get worried! lol.

 

Ha! Very true!