Been a member of LS1tech for awhile, and have been modding my latest "toy" (11 second NA 2000 Camaro SS) for about a year now.

On a whim, I went and traded in my old faithful 97 5.0 liter Silverado for an 02 5.3 liter Silverado with Z71 suspension, and fully loaded. Since my trucks are workers/daily beaters for the most part, I love at least making them run reasonably well without dumping a ton of money into them. Today I went after work and had a Flowmaster 44 series muffler welded into the stock piping and got the front door windows tinted.

I also have HPTuners software that I bought for tuning my Camaro, but plan to purchase the tuning license for my truck as well.

I quickly browsed through the "bolt-on sticky" and have already planned at least a few things that are listed, but mainly want a dependable, reasonably fuel efficient driver that will run well and not have any issue trailering my car once in a while. It already feels MUCH quicker than my old truck, but I'm sure there's plenty of room for improvement.

Is there anywhere on here that lists differences between the truck engines? In other words, I don't even know what my engine is called, aside from a 5.3 liter...I know it has aluminum heads, iron block and a 78mm throttle body, and not much else, lol...I know the car "names", like LS1, LS2, LS7, etc...what about the trucks?

Is the 5.3 a "GOOD" engine? I assume so, since it appears to be LS based, and surely should have asked BEFORE buying it, LOL...

Thanks for any links, tips, pointers, whatever...

Here's the pics from when it was still on the lot...I haven't been able to get pics after it is MINE, lol...

 

Welcome to the site,The 5.3 in my truck has 127,000,And no problems am very happy.

 

Do you have any paper work on the truck oil changes etc...?

 

No, unfortunately, I don't. The truck appears to be very well taken care of, generally speaking. I'm a heavy equipment mechanic by trade, so I di at least crawl all over this thing before buying it. All fluids look great, engine looks real clean (yet not freshly steam cleaned or whatever), oil fill neck from what I can see is also clean inside, never smoked in (which is a plus for a non-smoker). It drives well, seems real solid and quiet, drivetrain-wise. It's well optioned and everything works (also a plus). Clean 1 owner CarFax report as well.

 

Nice truck

You have a LM7 motor, It's the standard, most common ls based motor ever built. I think they out number all of the LS based motors by 3 to 1 in terms of number built, so yes, it is a good motor. They share the same iron block as a LR4 which is a 4.8. The only difference between the two motors is the 4.8 has a shorter stroke, longer rods and flat top pistons so they both maintain the 9.4 compression with the same heads. There is also a L33 motor which is a HO 5.3 with a aluminum block and a bit more compression.

These motor have a lot of potential just like the LS1's and what not. Look around, there are a lot of guys doing some pretty incredible things with these motors and these truck. We are hard core, lol.

Other thing you might should know about, one of the most common upgrades on this site is the 6L swap. There are 2 different 6l out there, the LQ4 which is the most common and found in most 2500 trucks which is a 9.4 compression motor with dished pistons and the LQ9 found in the SS's Escalades and VHO's. It is a 10 to 1 motor I believe and rated at a bit more hp. A lot of guys around here have done this swap and really like it. It's a direct swap with only a bit of retuning needed to do. Me, I'm a little different I like to do thing the uncommon way, lol.

 

Thanks for the compliment, and the tips!

So plans to do a swap...unless this one bites the dust anytime soon.

I've been trying to read up as much as possible this week, but time was limited most of the week.

Glad to hear it's as stout and even more popular than my other ride.

 

The 5.3L is the baddassed engine in the whole fuggin world!!

i do ok by mine. Welcome to PT....let the modding begin. You will chuckle when your Z71 is faster than your SS

 

I agree with Trever 1t ,On the 5.3

 

Don't know about all that, lol...The SS has been 11.67@115 naturally aspirated (11.70's most all the time), and I just about got everything together for the 150 shot...so it'll be a little faster than it is now...I can't afford to make the truck faster than that one will be, although it'd definitely make me chuckle, haha. For that matter, I can't make the truck faster than the car was when it was near stock...lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFgzLu59a5Q

 

how come the Z71 is faster then the SS?

I am kinda new with the chevys, i used to be a nissan owner but i matured. lol. i have sine fell in love with my truck.