i recently bought a 2004 Arrival Blue Reg cab, stepside 2wd with the 5.3. i want to find someone i can correspond with to learn more about this motor and truck, i just graduated from a 1993 tbi truck, i which i installed a cam'd crate engine, edelbrock tubular exhaust, holley projection, custom chip, and all the standard tranny mods. I want to know bang for the buck bolts on, because eventually i'll install either a 6.0 ls2 or a 6.0 truck engine, so no internals will not be necessary yet. i have gibson cat back,k&n filter-stock type ( havent decided on intake yet) superchips tuner, and vara ram velocity stack installed. i'm researching headers, cats, ypipes, stall converters and gears for what i consider to be the best, and reasonable price. Can someone steer me in the right direction? i have lots of questions and love to learn.

 

Ok, the Gen3 motors that we have are compateable with all LS1 parts and some accessoires. If I were you I would keep the 5.3, they run fairly decent. I had the Superchips tune and I am going with a Nelson Custom tune www.nelsonperformance.com he make quite a bit more power than a handheld, more off the idle response, less torque management through the shift points etc. Go with the KN FPIK, I havent heard a bad thing about it yet. Dont descreen the MAF sensor waste of time and you will be buying a new one like me. As far as headers go, Lapole, dynatech, Thorley, Arizona Speed and Marine, and The Other Guys Headers (TOG) are all good. If you are looking at getting a new y pipe and cats go with the Dynatech system it comes complete with all of it with equal length long tube headers. I am ordering mine on Tuesday. As far as stalls go its hard beatting the price on the Inline 6 trailblazer stall (2400), or the TCI 3000 that can be had for $460. But if you want to spend more PI vigilante is the best and yank is also good. Gears go with a eaton posi (if you gave a stall you will blow up the stock unit) and 3.90 or 4.10's strange gears. Also the 4l60e IS A PIECE OF CRAP so when adding power you will probley have problems with it. Transgo makes a shift kit for it that works good, with a vette servo it should be okay under 350 rwhp. With the 5.3 Thunder racing made 340 rwhp with the TR220 112 cam, long tubes, asp pulley, exhaust, intake, electric fans, and a custom tune so if its a new motor build off it and save some money for now. Hope this helps.

 

I had great success in my 4L60E in the '93 truck with a B&M street/strip shift kit, and a jet billet servo, that, along with the custom chip, i was barking gears, very happy, so i pretty much know where i'll be going with that. I have centerline tomahawk 20" aluminum wheels, (23 lb) and 265/50 bfg g force ta kdws, ( awsome tires by the way, worth the money) so i'm planning on 4.11 gears, and the stock posi sucks, so that will be changed too, when gears are done. then i'll do the stall and tranny improve. my main issue now is headers, the gibson exhaust is too damn quiet, ( i guess the 5.3 trucks have lower flow cats than say the avalanche's and hd's?) so cats is first, maybe odbII simulators? and then long tubes? i dont mind fabricating the y pipe myself, i'm experianced. are the dynatech's really worth the 1300 bucks for the whole sh-bang? i wont cam it ever, i'll just upgrade the entire motor later, so i want all parts to apply, and obviously they will. by the way, the vara ram velocity stack, i didn't notice anything at WOT, only partial, maybe a little smoother, less torque management it seems actually.

 

biggest bang for the buck you can do is a custom tune. I am not sure where your at but I would start their and take off the cats and the tune can delete the rear o2 sensors. From their I would personally buy the TOG or Doug thorley headers jsut based on price and still have good quality. Also these trucks are making a quiet a bit more tq/hp then the tbi and a 4l60e holding up over 350 hp is not going to last long. The biggest thing the tune does is take out TQ management. this try's to save the tranny from pulling timing from the engine on hard acceleration and shifts.

 

I'm knocking on wood as I write this, but my transmission feels just as good with 75k miles on it as it ever did. I still have the tq management in, as the only tuning I have is the Hypertech HppIII. The Hypertech knocked damn near a half of a second off of my ET anyway, which is as much as I would expect any tune to do. I'm not saying its as good as a custom tune, but I feel depending on "how far" one plans on going, the Hypertech or any other handheld isn't a bad option. Especially if you can re-sell it later on down the road. It just seems to me that everyone having trans problems has the tq management removed, and what kind of gains does that give? A tenth, two at the most?? Transmissions are just too expensive for me worry about going from a 14.5x to a 14.3x or so...at best...or even another tenth or so on the spray knocking my ET down to a 13.3x or so. If you are making enough power to push one of these heavy trucks to a 12 second pass or better, than that's another story. But it seems like a ton of 14, 15, and even 16 second trucks around here with transmission problems or a history of trans problems. It just doesn't jive to me! And believe me, I LEAN on my truck on a regular basis. Its not like I baby it.

 

my 93 tbi truck was making around 365 lbs at like 2800, i heard the 4l60 has more of an issue with torque, than hp. the shift kit, kevlar bands, and billet servo made this thing shift like my old turbo 400 in the nova. no issues at all.