In about 3-4 weeks I will be heading for USMC recruit training. I can't wait to become one of the few, proud, devil dogs. Anyway, I will get a few thousand out of it.

I want to throw $1000 at performance goodies for my truck. I am ordering my eaton posi tommorow , so I will get some of my traction problems corrected.

For the 1000 dollars, I have a couple of options here.

Option one:
I can go with a 75 shot of nitrous to go on top of my 5.3 Liter. I could set that kit up for about $500, and then spend $300 or so on some good hooking tires.

Option two:
I can go ahead and make my 5.3L a 6L! If I'm not mistaken, the only difference in Gen III truck motors is the bore, not the stroke. I could bore it to a 6L, and then buy some 6L pistons. The rods will be exactly the same, correct? So really, I could use the same rods and crank..... maybe throw some ARP rod bolts on it, and bam.... bottom end is done. What about the heads though? Will they flow will enough to feed 6 liters? Do 6L pistons raise or lower compression? What's the cost for boring and honing the cylinders?

I don't want to go too crazy, because I don't want to bust my tranny. The Team Tripp performance tranny is rated to 450HP, so I would just like to go with one or the other, not both. I figure I can make 400 crank HP with the 6L on the LS6 cam revving to about 6200. Maybe 415-420 crank HP with the 75 shot with this 5.3L.

So? What insight can those who have gone either of these routes can you give me?

 

I thought the 5.3L could only be bored to 5.7L??? Oh well, good luck with that. I haven't tried any of this out, but I would try and bore it to a 6.0L. Maybe you could make a little more horsepower with 75 shot and 5.3L on the strip, but not so much on the street, unless you sray on the steets (I mean street racing, unless you don't do that), but it's a waste.

 

I did some looking, and it appears that the 5.3L and 6.0L have the same stroke (3.62"). It is the 4.8 with a smaller (3.27") stroke. It is the same block, so it would seem that its just a matter of boring it and tossing those pistons in.... but I'm no engine expert.... Let me know please.