regardless i highly doubt your gonna break the crank no matter which one you go with. unless if someone on here that has broke one could chime in, i havent heard of it.

 

So noone knows what year GM went to a forged crank vs. the cast?

 

All years are cast nodular iron with undercut and rolled fillets. There was never a year a 5.3L had a forged crankshaft. Not even the LS3 6.2L has a forged crank. It too, is cast. The only forged crank I know if is found in the 7.0L LS7, and it's made of 4140 steel because the 7.0L can rev up to and past 7000 rpms so easily. On a stock 6000 rpm truck, cast is all one needs.

 

Good deal, that is what I was looking for. I was really doubting a forged crank existed on a 5.3l engine to begin with, forged cranks are much more expensive to produce than a cast crank because of the forging dies needed to maufacture threm. The only engines I have seen using forged cranks were at Mercury Marine and those are low volume high performance engines compared to GMs production anyway.

Thanks for the feedback, it is much appreciated.

 

The 99's were supposed to have a smaller cam shaft which is the reason for the rating of 275hp vs the 00+'s 285hp.

 

I think the only major changes were with the rods. The newer 5.3L's have stronger rods and full floating pistons. I believe that wasn't changed until 04' though.

 

i think thats the rating for the 4.8???

i thought the 5.3 was 285 then 295.. because my window sticker says 295?

 

The 99' 5.3L was 270hp, the 00'-03' was 285hp, and the 04' and newer were 295hp except the L33 which was 310hp and available from 05' and up in extended cab 4x4 only.

 

damn.. that shuts me up..

 

Sorry, didn't mean to come off as a dick. I'm just trying to be helpfull.