A lot of you have seen my old build, which was a turbo Silverado. Last month I picked up a new truck for a build. It won't be a crazy fast build, but will come at a decent clip.

The eventual plan will be your standard turbo, trans and suspension build. However, it will be pretty budget oriented and in the beginning will just be a 5.3 swap with perhaps a TH400 and converter in the mix.

I plan to track total money spent with occasional updates as well as I will be weighing all items removed that aren't going back in. The truck started off a little heavier than I expected...more on that later.

To start with here are the details:
The truck was purchased on June 3rd 2017. It had right at 190,000 miles. I drove it home about two hours with no issues at all. The truck did have some rather ugly add ons. Vinyl stripes, bug deflector and clear lights. The truck was mostly mechanically stock except for an ABS delete and a cold air intake.






Of course the first thing I did was remove the bug deflector and all the vinyl.

 

After that I went and weighed the truck out. I expected it to be a little heavy, with all the SS option stuff, spare tire, hitch, and the bed cover. However, I didn't expect it to weigh...3,500 lbs.

Anyway some basic weight stuff has started. The first thing I did was remove the bed mat. Not much, but there is 20 lbs.



After driving it for a few weeks I ordered some parts and started tearing down the front end. Here is what I have done this week.

 

I ordered in some solid engine and frame mounts. They arrived and I decided to weld the inserts in.


First the inserts were cleaned up and welded in place.


After this they needed to be repainted. I finished out Friday hitting them with a few coats of primer.

 

A few more things have come out and were weighed. These items will not be going back in;

Bed Mat: 20 lbs
Cruise Control Box/Bolts/Cable: 3.5 lbs
A/C Compressor: 15.4 lbs
A/C Accumulator: 2.5 lbs
Condenser: 8.5 lbs
A/C Lines: 5.5 lbs
Engine Bay Side Heater Box: 12.5 lbs

Total Removed: 67.9 lbs.

Along with the bed mat, so far I am making decent progress with still quite a lot of stuff to come out.

 

cool project.......I'll e following this one.

 

I finished up painting the frame mounts, nothing special, just a few coats of flat black.



I also went ahead and made an HVAC delete plate. I kept it simple for now, traced the heater box and cut it out of .040 aluminum.


After that I shot it with some primer and put on a few coats of spray on bedliner.


I got a few more things removed and weighed then added to the weight reduction total.

Radio & brackets: 5.5 lbs
Spare wheel & tire: 50.6 lbs
Jack & Accessories: 9.5 lbs

This brings the total removed to 133.5 pounds.

 

Yeah the 2nd gens are heavy...I'd bet that it weighs somewhere around 3,400-3,600lbs

 

A decent amount of work was accomplished this weekend.

Firstly, I removed a few more things and got them weighed.

Front Swaybar, Brackets, Endlinks: 22 lbs
Dash/Door Speakers, Padding, Liner: 7 lbs
Power Steering pump, pulley, lines: 14 lbs
Windshield Wiper Motor, Arms, Brackets: 9 lbs

I believe this brings the total weight removed to 185.5 lbs.

I got quite a lot more weight removed, however I didn't bother weighing it since I will be putting most of it back in.



I need to do a little clean up work and then start putting stuff back in.

I have a 5.3L already picked up from my previous build, turns out it needs new headgaskets. I have new gaskets and bolts, I also had a set of 862 heads cleaned up and milled .006" to true them up.

Hoping to get the engine back together this week and then bolted in after making the adaptations needed to the crossmember to clear the oil pan.

 

After a lot of time there is finally some progress being made on this thing. Work slowed down at the end of last year and between that and a few personal issues I had to focus extra funds elsewhere.

Since the last update there have been a few changes.

I am now waiting on a Leash Electronics board and will be rewiring the trucks basic functions from scratch. The truck will also now be using an MS3Pro instead of the stock ECU. I did this because of the ease of use for gauges, but also because it will be a good opener to learning about tuning. I also decided to go with the Hummer pan kit to save some effort. The previous pan I had did seem to have a slight crack by the top of the flange. While this wasn't the reason for the change, it did help push me that way. I am also picking up a full manual valvebody from FTI.

The rest of the wiring was removed from the engine bay and interior in preparation for the new wiring job.


There is a pretty big pile of parts starting to build. Not shown is the converter for the TH400.


Lastly, I did weigh the interior side of the heater box, ducts and heater core. This removed another 16.1 pounds. This brings weight removed to 201.6 lbs.

 

looking good, some tubular a arms will help with the weight . speedway motors makes so decent uppers for a low price.they also free up some space close to the headers. i had the same headers on my s10 and they hit the stock a arms on the passenger side ( slightly) so i went with the tubular ones from speedway