5.7-5.3 swap info needed!!

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97 silveraydo

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I've looked around for the information for this but haven't been able to find another post with a lot of info yet. But I have the opportunity to buy a 5.3 out of a 99 Silverado. What all beside the motor and computer will I need out of the 99. Also what other parts are required to do the swap? Thanks in advanced!!


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craig98

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Pull the harness as well. Motor mounts, fuel fittings are the main parts you will need. I'm sure someone can tell you more about what you need. I can't remember exactly what all I bought since I did my swap almost 3 years ago haha.
 

Shaun

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It depends on what year truck you're putting it in. The motor mount plates i think are the same for all 5.7 to LS style swaps in our year range. You can use the stock exhaust manifolds if available with the engine, just make sure you also got the 8" pieces that have the o2 bungs. What are you doing about transmissions? If you reuse yours, whatever kind it may be, i think you'll need some sort of adapter/spacer for the crank shaft or fly wheel. If your truck currently has a 700r4/4l60e, and the new motor comes with a tranny, use the newer tranny. I had a 700r4 with my 5.7 in my 1990, and my drive shaft and trans cross member worked great with the new 4L65E that i put in with the new motor. A lot of people say to use the 1" set back motor mount adapter plates. I did, and ended up having to drill new holes for the trans cross member 1" behind my original holes. No big deal. Since the swap, I've swapped out my stock exhaust manifolds for the schoenfeld long tube headers for LS swaps into 88-98 pickups (1302LS1 i think is the part number). But now my headers are rubbing the fire wall heat shield. So, when i get a good long weekend, I'm going to swap out for the original adapter plates (which is what schoenfelds website says are compatible with the headers), since I've got some beefed up 243's that have been waiting to be installed, and I'll already have most everything out of the way to do it. You said it's a99 silverado, so it should have the mechanical fan on the front. That's fine and will work good with your existing fan shroud. But there's a ton of other factors you need to think about. I believe 97 and 98 trucks (i could be wrong) have fuel pumps that's flow enough to feed an LS motor. Otherwise, you'll need to swap out for something like the acdelco ep381 (like i did), or something else like a walbro 255 or aeromotive stealth 340 (aeromotive #11169 is what I'm switching to with my head swap and supercharger install. It's a direct fit replacement). You'll need fuel lines and adapters to go from your fuel filter & return lines up to the new fuel rails. I could go on and on about this for hours. A lot depends on what year truck you're swapping into. Later years (95-98 i believe, but could be wrong), require you to keep your existing pcm and have the harnesses mated together. Our i believe you can have the 411 pcm flashed and set up to run an LS, and your stock gauges and whatever else. If you want to keep ac, you need to decide whether you're going to run the 5.3's ac compressor, which will require you to notch and box the frame to fit. Or you can get an adapter bracket that retrofits your trucks existing compressor to the top passenger side. That's the route i went in my truck, since i don't have access to welding equipment. And you don't necessarily have to "Crack" the system,if you have a good working ac system. And you'll also need the appropriate spacers for the bracket. Not knowing what year your truck is, I'm just going to tell you what i did for my 90. I got a pcm tray, drivers side battery tray, under battery washer bottle, and throttle cable out of a 97 suburban. This allowed be to run the harness pretty close to the way it is from the factory in the newer trucks. And allowed me to hook my pedal to the newer style throttle body. I left my passenger side battery tray for my k&n filter to rest on. Anything else I'm forgetting, I'm sure someone will chime in. Miscellaneous sensor adapters (coolant temp, oil pressure). You can use the radiator hoses from the 5.3 on your truck. Try googling gen III 5.3 swaps into your year truck, and you should find plenty of info. These swaps have been done a million times over, and have been heavily documented all over this website, and other websites like ls1tech.com, and ls1truck.com. good luck, and i hope some of this helps you. Here's a video of my truck shortly after finishing the swap.

https://youtu.be/0raqaxJTy5U
 

97 silveraydo

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It depends on what year truck you're putting it in. The motor mount plates i think are the same for all 5.7 to LS style swaps in our year range. You can use the stock exhaust manifolds if available with the engine, just make sure you also got the 8" pieces that have the o2 bungs. What are you doing about transmissions? If you reuse yours, whatever kind it may be, i think you'll need some sort of adapter/spacer for the crank shaft or fly wheel. If your truck currently has a 700r4/4l60e, and the new motor comes with a tranny, use the newer tranny. I had a 700r4 with my 5.7 in my 1990, and my drive shaft and trans cross member worked great with the new 4L65E that i put in with the new motor. A lot of people say to use the 1" set back motor mount adapter plates. I did, and ended up having to drill new holes for the trans cross member 1" behind my original holes. No big deal. Since the swap, I've swapped out my stock exhaust manifolds for the schoenfeld long tube headers for LS swaps into 88-98 pickups (1302LS1 i think is the part number). But now my headers are rubbing the fire wall heat shield. So, when i get a good long weekend, I'm going to swap out for the original adapter plates (which is what schoenfelds website says are compatible with the headers), since I've got some beefed up 243's that have been waiting to be installed, and I'll already have most everything out of the way to do it. You said it's a99 silverado, so it should have the mechanical fan on the front. That's fine and will work good with your existing fan shroud. But there's a ton of other factors you need to think about. I believe 97 and 98 trucks (i could be wrong) have fuel pumps that's flow enough to feed an LS motor. Otherwise, you'll need to swap out for something like the acdelco ep381 (like i did), or something else like a walbro 255 or aeromotive stealth 340 (aeromotive #11169 is what I'm switching to with my head swap and supercharger install. It's a direct fit replacement). You'll need fuel lines and adapters to go from your fuel filter & return lines up to the new fuel rails. I could go on and on about this for hours. A lot depends on what year truck you're swapping into. Later years (95-98 i believe, but could be wrong), require you to keep your existing pcm and have the harnesses mated together. Our i believe you can have the 411 pcm flashed and set up to run an LS, and your stock gauges and whatever else. If you want to keep ac, you need to decide whether you're going to run the 5.3's ac compressor, which will require you to notch and box the frame to fit. Or you can get an adapter bracket that retrofits your trucks existing compressor to the top passenger side. That's the route i went in my truck, since i don't have access to welding equipment. And you don't necessarily have to "Crack" the system,if you have a good working ac system. And you'll also need the appropriate spacers for the bracket. Not knowing what year your truck is, I'm just going to tell you what i did for my 90. I got a pcm tray, drivers side battery tray, under battery washer bottle, and throttle cable out of a 97 suburban. This allowed be to run the harness pretty close to the way it is from the factory in the newer trucks. And allowed me to hook my pedal to the newer style throttle body. I left my passenger side battery tray for my k&n filter to rest on. Anything else I'm forgetting, I'm sure someone will chime in. Miscellaneous sensor adapters (coolant temp, oil pressure). You can use the radiator hoses from the 5.3 on your truck. Try googling gen III 5.3 swaps into your year truck, and you should find plenty of info. These swaps have been done a million times over, and have been heavily documented all over this website, and other websites like ls1tech.com, and ls1truck.com. good luck, and i hope some of this helps you. Here's a video of my truck shortly after finishing the swap.

https://youtu.be/0raqaxJTy5U

Thanks for the info!! It's on a 97 and I'll be using my previous tranny since I just put it in less then 10,000 miles ago! Is the swap really worth the aggravation? I'm gonna guess the the hardest part is all the rewiring? I just figured with 230,000 miles on the motor I should start looking around to getting it replaced. The original 5.7 runs strong still but with that many miles you never know what could happen


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97 silveraydo

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It depends on what year truck you're putting it in. The motor mount plates i think are the same for all 5.7 to LS style swaps in our year range. You can use the stock exhaust manifolds if available with the engine, just make sure you also got the 8" pieces that have the o2 bungs. What are you doing about transmissions? If you reuse yours, whatever kind it may be, i think you'll need some sort of adapter/spacer for the crank shaft or fly wheel. If your truck currently has a 700r4/4l60e, and the new motor comes with a tranny, use the newer tranny. I had a 700r4 with my 5.7 in my 1990, and my drive shaft and trans cross member worked great with the new 4L65E that i put in with the new motor. A lot of people say to use the 1" set back motor mount adapter plates. I did, and ended up having to drill new holes for the trans cross member 1" behind my original holes. No big deal. Since the swap, I've swapped out my stock exhaust manifolds for the schoenfeld long tube headers for LS swaps into 88-98 pickups (1302LS1 i think is the part number). But now my headers are rubbing the fire wall heat shield. So, when i get a good long weekend, I'm going to swap out for the original adapter plates (which is what schoenfelds website says are compatible with the headers), since I've got some beefed up 243's that have been waiting to be installed, and I'll already have most everything out of the way to do it. You said it's a99 silverado, so it should have the mechanical fan on the front. That's fine and will work good with your existing fan shroud. But there's a ton of other factors you need to think about. I believe 97 and 98 trucks (i could be wrong) have fuel pumps that's flow enough to feed an LS motor. Otherwise, you'll need to swap out for something like the acdelco ep381 (like i did), or something else like a walbro 255 or aeromotive stealth 340 (aeromotive #11169 is what I'm switching to with my head swap and supercharger install. It's a direct fit replacement). You'll need fuel lines and adapters to go from your fuel filter & return lines up to the new fuel rails. I could go on and on about this for hours. A lot depends on what year truck you're swapping into. Later years (95-98 i believe, but could be wrong), require you to keep your existing pcm and have the harnesses mated together. Our i believe you can have the 411 pcm flashed and set up to run an LS, and your stock gauges and whatever else. If you want to keep ac, you need to decide whether you're going to run the 5.3's ac compressor, which will require you to notch and box the frame to fit. Or you can get an adapter bracket that retrofits your trucks existing compressor to the top passenger side. That's the route i went in my truck, since i don't have access to welding equipment. And you don't necessarily have to "Crack" the system,if you have a good working ac system. And you'll also need the appropriate spacers for the bracket. Not knowing what year your truck is, I'm just going to tell you what i did for my 90. I got a pcm tray, drivers side battery tray, under battery washer bottle, and throttle cable out of a 97 suburban. This allowed be to run the harness pretty close to the way it is from the factory in the newer trucks. And allowed me to hook my pedal to the newer style throttle body. I left my passenger side battery tray for my k&n filter to rest on. Anything else I'm forgetting, I'm sure someone will chime in. Miscellaneous sensor adapters (coolant temp, oil pressure). You can use the radiator hoses from the 5.3 on your truck. Try googling gen III 5.3 swaps into your year truck, and you should find plenty of info. These swaps have been done a million times over, and have been heavily documented all over this website, and other websites like ls1tech.com, and ls1truck.com. good luck, and i hope some of this helps you. Here's a video of my truck shortly after finishing the swap.

https://youtu.be/0raqaxJTy5U

If you could lead me to a good detailed link of a 5.7 to 5.3 swap that would be great! I've looked all over this site and a couple other ones. Everything I've seen everybody's had their own different ways of doing things. And no pictures to really go with it


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Shaun

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Sorry buddy, i don't really know which direction to tell you to go. But i can tell you, that the power difference alone makes it worth it. For me any way. My 1990 350 was a compared to whatever is in your 97. I remember we had a 98 Cheyenne work truck with the vortec v6 engine, and it would blow the doors off of my old tbi 350. Even with close to 1200 lbs of weight in the back, it would kill my truck. I believe your truck is new enough to have the 411 pcm in it, and i believe (and i could be waaaay off here) that you can have that pcm flashed and setup to run the 5.3 motor, with a little messing around and rewiring the harness. But I'm not sure. Try Google searching "how to LS swap 1997 chevy truck" and see what comes up. Good luck buddy,and i wish i could help you more. I do know you'll need some sort of adapter/spacer thing to run your existing tranny with the newer motor. And i believe you'll also need the 1" set back motor mounts, since you'll be using the original transmission. Again, don't quote me on this. That's just what I'm thinking.
 

Shaun

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Try looking under the LSX + carb swap tab, and see if there's any threads on a build similar to yours. Or try LS1truck.com
 

97 silveraydo

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Thanks for all the info guys! But I think the swap will have to wait since I just picked this bad boy up!!
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