stick and a horse/ 5.3 cam help
07-06-2018, 03:56 PM
#21
On The Tree
Thread Starter
What cam did you end up choosing?
Personally I would pull them and mill them, I love compression. Make sure you run premium fuel afterwards also.
If I remember correctly the last time I had a set decked/milled it was about $100. New set of OEM gaskets and head bolts are fairly cheap too. It would be worth it to at least lap in the valves while the heads are off for optimum valve sealing and compression too.
If you take a little time you can do your own bowl blending, it isn't near as complex or hard as porting the runners and it yields very nice gains. You could do it in a day easy. The bowl blending and a multi angle valve job is where you see a good amount of your gains with head porting btw, so if you did those couple things you could get a lot of power for little cash.
If the heads are off it also makes the valve spring changing much easier and less stressful.
Personally I would pull them and mill them, I love compression. Make sure you run premium fuel afterwards also.
If I remember correctly the last time I had a set decked/milled it was about $100. New set of OEM gaskets and head bolts are fairly cheap too. It would be worth it to at least lap in the valves while the heads are off for optimum valve sealing and compression too.
If you take a little time you can do your own bowl blending, it isn't near as complex or hard as porting the runners and it yields very nice gains. You could do it in a day easy. The bowl blending and a multi angle valve job is where you see a good amount of your gains with head porting btw, so if you did those couple things you could get a lot of power for little cash.
If the heads are off it also makes the valve spring changing much easier and less stressful.
Thanks for the input, I ended up going with the tsp stage 2 212/218 .550 .550 112 lsa.
07-15-2018, 05:19 PM
#22
On The Tree
Thread Starter
Got the springs and cam installed. Hauled the truck to get a dyno tune. I’ll post the results tomorrow. I hope she drives a lot better, thanks again for all the input and advice! Got my first LS cam swap down and it was a pretty good experience, I’ll definitely be doing another in the future it was pretty simple. By the way don’t waste your money on the harbor freight valve spring compression tool https://m.harborfreight.com/universa...not%20provided , I threw mine out in my metal pile, get yourself the bar type or make your own out of some good flat strap. It goes way better
07-15-2018, 06:46 PM
#23
I'd do one of the drop in truck cams and LS6 valve springs. Stick to one of the smaller truck cams, the bigger they get the more low end you trade off for top end. Do a cold air, headers, and good exhaust or just upgrade the muffler to a straight through. Bump up your fuel octane a bit and add timing to get a little more low end (and overall power) out of it if you don't wan't to pull the heads and mill them for compression. Or do both. Compression would help with your goal.
I'd do a better stall than the trailblazer, because like mentioned it has a small lock up clutch, you don't want a tiny lockup to lockup while pulling a trailer, it'll become a no longer locks up at all lockup, quickly.
Gears are kinda long in a 4L60 so I would consider also doing gears or lower diameter tires to help also. Or a 6L80 swap would be super cool haha
I'd do a better stall than the trailblazer, because like mentioned it has a small lock up clutch, you don't want a tiny lockup to lockup while pulling a trailer, it'll become a no longer locks up at all lockup, quickly.
Gears are kinda long in a 4L60 so I would consider also doing gears or lower diameter tires to help also. Or a 6L80 swap would be super cool haha
07-16-2018, 11:33 AM
#24
Got the springs and cam installed. Hauled the truck to get a dyno tune. I’ll post the results tomorrow. I hope she drives a lot better, thanks again for all the input and advice! Got my first LS cam swap down and it was a pretty good experience, I’ll definitely be doing another in the future it was pretty simple. By the way don’t waste your money on the harbor freight valve spring compression tool https://m.harborfreight.com/universa...not%20provided , I threw mine out in my metal pile, get yourself the bar type or make your own out of some good flat strap. It goes way better[/left]
07-16-2018, 12:29 PM
#25
On The Tree
Thread Starter
Cool let us know how it goes and how it pulls! I've used that valve spring compressor and it worked okay for me, definitely a bit of a pain at times. There trick flow/comp/crane style seems to be the one's that people like most and there's one that style on BTR's website for $59 if you need one again..
I’ll keep that in mind for sure!
07-16-2018, 07:10 PM
#26
On The Tree
Thread Starter
Well just picked it up from the shop, he got 308hp out of it and it pulls way harder. Can’t wait to do some more driving with it, I don’t know about fuel mileage yet because I can’t keep my foot out of it. I’ll be taking the boat to the lake next weekend and see how it does with a load. Thanks again for all the input, I definitely be hitting y’all up on my next project!
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