94blu1500's LS Swap

[94blu1500]

So here it is:

One week before Christmas of 2013 I managed to basically destroy my transmission in my truck, I knew it was coming but I still tried to do that burn out and the trans let loose . i had terrible slipping between first and second making the truck almost impossible to drive. Knowing that more power would eventually be in store for the truck i began weighing my options. The truck had over 300,000 miles on the original motor and it was feeling its years, and building an obd1 tbi motor didn't seem like the most cost efficient route, a carb motor just didn't fit the bil, so i figured I'd LS swap it. I gathered parts for the better part of 4 months before i started. I found a 2002 suburban locally and bought it intending to use the motor and transmission. Come to find out water logged vehicles are not the best doner vehicles. My Local trans guy wouldn't rebuild the trans and the 5.3 motor had to spend some quality time at the machine shop. I found a gm remand 4l60 from a friend who rolled his truck not long after replacing the trans and continued with the swap.

On the way to the shop

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Motor Out

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Past the point of no return

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new motor in on dirty dingo adjustable mounts.

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Its really just a stock 02 5.3 bored .030 over, .020 shaved off the heads, with a small lunati cam, and yella terra roller rockers. It was completely gone through at the machine shop and might as well be new.

I worked as money would allow through the summer getting more parts together and the wiring taken care of. I also lost most of the pictures i had on my phone during this time

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I finally got the truck back on the road around the first of October 2014. This thing is wicked I still get a big old grin every time I punch the throttle. Its still not finished as there are some things I've got on the list to do but I've put about 6,000 miles on it so far and loved every minute. Justin at Black Bear Performance did the tuning for the truck and i could not be more pleased. Felts Machine shop in Suffolk VA did the machine work on the motor, I would recommend these guys to anybody in the area.

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[DRAGGIN95]

Nice swap man, love the LS motor!

 

[Stepside_fever95]

I plan on doing this to my 94 in the future. Im close to 280,000 on the stock motor.

 

[GMRedline]

What did you use as an engine controller for your 94?

 

[Chris6060]

I have a '94 as well... I'll come to you if I have questions haha.

What did you have to leave from the stock harness? I'm planning a 6.0L LQ4 with a 4L80E though so I won't need to worry about the trans... Other than maybe mounting it in the truck.

 

[94blu1500]

What did you use as an engine controller for your 94?

I used the 02 ecm


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[94blu1500]

I have a '94 as well... I'll come to you if I have questions haha.

What did you have to leave from the stock harness? I'm planning a 6.0L LQ4 with a 4L80E though so I won't need to worry about the trans... Other than maybe mounting it in the truck.

Lt1swap.com has step by step directions to make the stock harness stand alone. I removed the rear O2 sensors, the evaporative emissions valve, and a couple other things that I didn't want to use.


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[Chris6060]

Once you're actually into the harness and stuff, how difficult is it? Seems intimidating is all... and thats coming from a kid who builds computers and rebuilds engines lol

Also, what are my options for gauges? Not too keen on the idea of trying to fit a modern gauge cluster into my old dash... What did you do?

 

[94blu1500]

Sorry for the late reply. The harness is a little intimidating but I done it piece by piece never taking too much of the harness apart at one time and it turned out pretty good. The gauges in my 94 are actually separate from the ecm so I found the wires at there respective sending units and marked them so they didn't get cut out. The only thing I didn't save was the tach wiring because I already had a aftermarket tach. I used an adapter and run a stock 94 oil pressure sending unit dehind the intake of the ls motor.

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[94blu1500]

For the temperature gauge Green95Hoe's thread really came in handy I used the three prong temperature gauge sending unit and the old plug from the tbi throttle position sensor.

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