Hey Guys, I had a huge post written up and accidentally clicked a link which wiped me out....so here it goes again....

2006 Silverado 5.3
L33 5.3 HO motor "B"
203k miles
Original Owner
Always kept up on maintanence and ran royal purple through it


Issue Ive been having:

1.) About 4 months ago for a 3 week period on startup id have a cloud of white sweet smelling smoke shoot out the exhaust, which led me to believe Ive got an internal coolant leak. At the same time, my reservoir also started going low.

I ran UV dye through the coolant system and have found no trace of it upon multiple uv light inspections, including around the water pump and radiator.

2.)This led me to believe I have the doomed Castech heads, however after many hours of research people where saying that the 799 heads weren't affected, even though the 06' L33 was listed as a potential victim on the GM service bulletin. After speaking to a friend who has buddies that work at Nissan/GMC, they both said it'd be worth replacing the engine with a low mileage junkyard motor. I'd like to get another 4 years of life (100k miles) out of this truck since I'm still in college and the truck body and interior or very well taken care of.

If i choose the route of head replacement, would it be worth/ safe for a daily driver to throw the extra money into a ported set of 799 heads from a reputable company such as Texas Speed, advanced induction, etc? Or just stay with a OEM set of 799 heads?


If you where in the this situation, what would you do? Id be doing the work myself along with the help of some very experienced guys, but would a head job just be putting a band aid on the gaping wound? Or is an engine swap truly the way to go?

Also the truck burns a quart of oil every 1200 miles or so.

Thank you all for the info, Ive researched heavily into this problem, but not found the exact answers Im looking for.

Also without pulling the heads off would a leak down test be a sure fire way to diagnose if the heads are cracked or not? Is it possible is could be an intake manifold gasket gone bad or a possible head gasket gone bad?

Thanks again,
Ben

 

Sounds like it could just be a head gasket. In which case your heads will not need to be replaced. On the other hand that oil consumption isn't too good, so maybe a junkyard motor wouldn't be a bad choice.