I have an L92 sitting in my garage with a VVT delete, custom cam and supporting parts, and heads fresh from the machine shop with new springs seals, etc and valve job.

Getting ready to put it into my 2008 GMC Sierra.

I'm very familiar with yanking and swapping motors in the new body style GTO, but have never swapped one into a full size truck.

Was sort of looking for any tips/tricks/suggestions on the best way to remove the motor. I have an engine hoist, but it seems almost like it will be too short to reach. What am I missing? How much of the radiator, front grill, etc do I need to remove to physically remove the old 5.3L? I know this is a common swap, so hoping to borrow some wisdom and experience from you guys.

Thanks in advance.

 

Take bolts out of hood hinge and roll it back as far as it goes and support it/strap it to the garage/car port ceiling.
Remove intake completely
Remove exhaust manifolds/headers
E fans/radiator
Roll alt an bracket to the right (ziptie so it doesnt fall)
Ziptie all of the engine harness out of the way

 

Tomorrow is the big day. Wish me luck.

Hopefully it will go well.

 

Well this turned into a PITA.

Nothing specific, just a lot of things were difficult to reach. Spent most of 10 hours on it Friday and about 3 more on Saturday. New engine is in, but not completely wired up and no accessories bolted up yet. Figure another 4-5 hours to get it in running order. Maybe less if I use air tools.

Will go at it again this Friday.

Things I noted:

I didn't have to remove the radiator or supports, but did need to remove the bumper and grill.

Motor mounts take a BIG breaker bar to remove.

Take the balancer off with the motor still in the truck if you are moving it over. You'll thank me later. I did not do so and found that getting another one was easier than getting the bolt out without an impact.

Take pictures....lots and lots of pictures. There are wires in lots of places that need to be removed and more importantly put back.

Otherwise it was just a lot of wrenching in hard to reach places. Top three Trans bolts were difficult. Farthest back bolt on the coil pack on the passenger side was literally touching and nothing short of a 10mm wrench was getting on it.

Will report back when its running.

 

Congrats man. thats a sweet swap to do yourself

 

Well....after much time....a lot of sweat and few bloody knuckles. Its done and running good. Now for the arduous task of getting the tune squared away.

I did have one major Oh Sh*t moment when I cranked it up only to hear TICK TICK TICK TICK TICK......

The shortblock I bought had a bad lifter and camshaft when I got it so I replaced the cam with a custom grind and replaced the bad lifter. I neglected to soak said lifter before install and it took a good 15 minutes of idling for it to finally get primed, pumped up and quiet down.

Super excited to get it out on the street and start dialing it in.

 

why did you remove the bumper and grille that makes no sense to replace the motor. as for the crank pulley all you have to do is put a breaker bar in one of the opening and bind it against the oil pan. then proceed to break the bolt loose with a long breaker bar or a high tq impact.
to remove the top bolts out of the trans you either use a long extension or you remove them from the top after you remove the intake.

 

The boom on my engine hoist wasn't long enough to reach without removing the bumper. The grill was just to protect it from getting beat up.

I have removed a bunch of crank pulleys, but never AFTER the motor was out. Locking the crank in place was easy. Preventing the motor from rolling over the engine stand was a different story. I did eventually get it by bolting a long bar on the back for leverage.

I took the top trans bolts out from the top. It was just a pain.

Thanks for the hood tip though. That was a big help.

 

Hm you must have had a small engine lift. My lift was able to adjust out far enough and still have another hole to pin off to.

Glad you got it swapped out

 

Got a lot of idle and cruise tuning done last week. Installed the Wideband and got WOT nailed down this weekend.

Cant believe the difference in how quick it is for a big truck.

Had a bit of a scare last night though. Driving along and the stabilitrack light comes on. door locks open and close multiple times and the clock reset. Truck didn't stall or anything, but it was freaky.

Did some research and it pointed to needing to clean the 175Amp "MegaFuse" or whatever its called. So I took that apart and used a wire brush to clean it up...boy was it dusty and dirty inside that plastic cover.

This morning it was perfect again. Hope that's all it was.