smokeshow

Thanks for the nominations! It means a lot coming from a bunch of knowlegeable people such as yourselves

The story begins in October 2007 when I bought the truck new off the lot with 15 miles on it. I had just enlisted in the Air Force and was headed to a base in Montana where winters regularly reach and stay below 0 for weeks. My old truck, a 1992 GMC Sierra RCSB was a hell of a truck, but I didn't know if it would survive those winters.
Soon as I bought the new truck, it got Flowmaster dual exhaust to rough up the sound, and also some new speakers. Other than that, I had no plans to do any real performance mods to it. It stayed like that for about a year until I came back to Arizona on leave and had some engine problems. Truck only had about 8k on the odometer, but as I was hauling some hondas out to the local track, it was getting stuck in 4 cylinder mode on the highway grades. I had enough of that, so I contacted Justin at Blackbear to work on the tune. Shortly after the truck got a set of 2" drop shackles to level out the ride.

Here it is, and even with the stock wheels!


Customized speaker box


I got orders back to Arizona in the summer of 2009 and promptly put on some SS wheels.


Then came the preparations for a blower. The engine got some work: DoD delete, an LPE GT7 cam, LS7 lifters, comp pushrods, and LS6 valvesprings. The transmission was also beefed up to take the boost. It received corvette servos, 18 single sided clutches, kevlar band, beast sunshell, Transgo HD2 shift kit, a tru-cool 40k and a 2800 stall converter from Roadrunner converters. It also received a Volant CAI during this part swap, but was later gutted for more devious reasons





Then came the downtime to save for the blower, but it just so happened that extremely discounted TVS1900s from Roush popped up on ebay. After deliberating for a while and initially missing the sale (which had me really bummed that I missed a sweet deal ), a few more popped up the next day and I snagged one. It took a little over a day to install...would have been quicker if it weren't for a mandatory Air Force paintball tournament on that saturday morning



The blower really woke up the little 5.3. With that setup it was pushing 6psi. It was definitely an exhilarating feeling for the truck to just break 'em loose at will like that.

That was just the beginning...soon, ideas began to form as to how I could push it a little faster. Since these roots blowers are only good for so much boost before they begin choking the high end, I began to wonder how I might work a turbo into the system. I had read through kbracing's thread on his compound idea, but I didn't like the blower pulling 200hp+ off the crank to boost the already-compressed air. After some drawing and a LOT of erasing, I finally figured out how I would be able to combine the instant torque from the roots blower and the high end pull of a turbo in a sequential boost system. I won't share the intricacies of the design just yet, as I am still debating on whether to apply for a patent for this system...but basically as the turbo begins to create boost, the blower gradually gets bypassed to minimize parasitic loss at the crank and maximize efficiency of the system as a whole.

The turbo of choice was a Borg Warner S475, 1.32 A/R on a T6. The addition of the blower allows the otherwise giant turbo to spool with ease, jumping to 9psi within 2 seconds of WOT.













End result is a 5700lb truck that ***** and gets, no matter what speed or RPM I haven't been able to even scratch the surface of the potential thats in this setup because of the smaller displacement motor. Hopefully sooner than later, a forged 370 will find its home where the 5.3 sits now. The 5.3 will then be relocated to a 1998 S10, and be followed up with a 67mm turbo, but thats another project
My end goal is to knock out a 10.90 in the 1/4. I think with the right powerplant and this setup (and funding lol) it can be done. Special thanks go out to Alex (BigRed Cummins), Kyle (kbracing), and Todd (vanillagorilla) for their help and insight during this build. It's been a long road including hot days and late nights, and its thanks to those guys.

2008 Chevrolet Silverado 5.3L

mods:
Lingenfelter Performance GT7 cam
DoD delete
Comp pushrods
LS6 valve springs
LS7 lifters
Edelbrock shorty headers
ARP head bolts
Custom y pipe w/ high flow magnaflow cats
Tru-cool 40k tranny cooler
Roadrunner 2800 stall converter
Built 4L60E (rated 750hp at truck weight)
Magnaflow 4" SI/SO diesel muffler
AFE 5" air filter
Roush TVS1900 supercharger @ 6psi
BW S475 turbo @ 9psi
Custom built boost management unit

20" Silverado SS wheels
2" rear drop shackles
Line-X bedliner
MT ET Street slicks (for the track)

Autometer 2 gauge pod
Dual Autometer Phantom boost gauges
Door gauge pod (from 2007chevy5.3l)
Innovate LC-1 wideband w/ XD-16
6" Alpine door speakers
600w Kicker 4 speaker amp
2 10" Rockford Fosgate subwoofers
600w Kenwood mono sub amp

future mods:
Forged 370
Fuel system rework
AlkyControl meth kit
Detroit TruTrac
Caltracs
4L80E
and a more reliable drive shaft



I have yet to bring it to the track or dyno it in its current configuration, but will get some ETs posted as soon as I can make it down to the track. Thanks again for all of the nominations!