ok guys thanks for the info, so now im assuming that my heads are either 862, or 706. I hear that the stock 5.3 heads such as these work pretty good even with just a cam , valvetrain swap. Being that I am a college student on a lower budget, I plan on doing this budget build little by little. I was wondering, when I have the motor disassembled too be cleaned over , would it be worth it for the money to have intake , and the stock 5.3 heads ported polished? would i gain any significant power over leaving them as is and just replacing cam/valvetrain? I plan on finding longtubes at a local shop. Im sorry for the long questions, but im in a bad situation. my dad bought me this really nice 1993 1500 with a fully built 350 tbi crate motor. but the motor is blown and has too many miles on it. so with the help of some good buddys im going to complete this 5.3 swap with some amount of time and elbow grease. Dads not thrilled about the blown motor and its not my daily driver, so im going about this more or less alone. my question is this, I think I can get a good price on a tr220 for my 5.3, so my question is would porting polishing the stock 862, or 706 (whichever it is) heads and intake benefit me with a tr220, would it be worth the money for the power it gives.

 

90% of a good combination is in the heads...

 

thats true I was just wondering if getting the stock 5.3 ported polished would give me any significant gain over keeping them stock. Also are there any places that do cnc porting on ls heads, im in the savannah ga area and cannot find a single place anywhere.

 

what kind of budget are you on? wcch (sponsorer on right) probably has a program to run your heads through.

 

well Im not exactly sure right now, I just know that I am planning on parting out the high performance heads, cam, headers, trans from my old tbi motor, which i know wont return much money.I have some money to work with. I am then planning on doing a budget build with the help of some really experienced older friends. They have told me it would be cheaper and more worth the money to find some 243 heads, instead of trying to work the 5.3 heads. I have been advised to going with a z06 cam, instead of the tr220, because they say with the z06 i dont have to get a stall, is this true?

 

Be careful on cylinder head selection, as to not get something with too big of a chamber, causing even less compression than that 5.3 already has. Milling heads will likely be an important option.

Our CNC 5.3s and HT1 are a good combo. It will need gears/converter to show full potential, but the setup screams. Pushed a stock gear/conveter crew cab to near 90mph trap speeds.

CNC 5.3s $999.50/pair
HT1 Camshaft $374.80

I would recommend also Manley hardened pushrods ($100) and LS7 lifters/trays. ($150).

Let us know if we can help you out!

Thanks,
-Beau

 

I just wanted to thank everyone for the great info. I have just been quietly reading along thinking about doing the same thing.

 

Well I did my cam swap like I said earlier in the thread. Major difference. The 210/220 or 212/218 range is deffinitely the way to go. The 210/220 cam I put in has a lot of mid range power. It starts making power at about 1500 rpms and keeps pulling up through about 6200. I also have 241 heads flatcut .050. They feed the 5.3 pretty good

 

The z06 cam's power starts to come on sooner but falls off before the tr220 cam. I spin my tsp 220 cam (texas speed & performance) to 6500 rpm but I bet it would keep pulling into the 7's. A stall converter is one of the biggest bangs for your buck IMO. If I was you I would get a tsp 220 cam with a 3k stall converter and then look at heads in the future.

 

my LS6 cam pulls to 6700 same as my tr220 did