Has anybody deleted everything from a vortec 350?

[letitsnow]

I am wondering if anybody has removed all of the stuff that isn't needed to make the motor run - EGR, Evap stuff, intake sound baffle, cats?

If so - did it run good? Any effects on mpg?

I know that I will probably go to h*ll for thinking this - but I have to wonder how a motor like this that makes pretty efficient power runs without any fuel vapors or exhaust being dumped back into the intake?

When I am pounding my fuel injected dirt bike through the whoops at 60 mph, it seems to work fine without a charcoal canister or egr system. No radical fuel smell etc.. It makes me think that a truck that is driven on the road shouldn't get shaken up so much as to need to purge fumes into the engine. Maybe I am totally wrong, who knows. Just seems like a lot of extra bs. I want to free that poor motor haha.

Thoughts?

 

[kennythewelder]

How far do you want to take this. I gutted my cats. Little better power, and MPGs. Also have shorty headers, and old school glass packs, so I have no restrictions in my exhaust system. You can delete you EGR, but you will need to have it tuned out of the ECM. As for the evap, I would not mess with it at all. You wont see any gains IMO, and the gas tank needs to vent. That is what the evap does. Your truck holds IDK maybe 10 times as much gas as your dirt bike does. Wha year is your truck? 96 or newer, and you will need to find a way to beat the rear 02 sensors. You can ether tune them out, or get a set of simulators, but you will not pass emissions testing. What are you calling intake sound baffle? On 96 up, you can remove the plastic Vortec box, behind the throttle body, and cap off the hole with a ***** can. There is also a plate on the under side of the throttle body that can be cut off, but only the lip that sticks out. Do not remove the plate from the throttle body plate itself. You need the hole in this plate for proper idle air flow. Then there is tuning. If you have a 96 plus, black bare performance will sell you a tuned ECM to your specs. This will make a big improvement to your performance if you have a Vortec. Here is there web sight.
http://www.blackbearperformance.com/

 

[Jared Jackson]

I do envy the TBI trucks for having a slightly simpler under-hood visual appearance, especially the air intake design...

 

[letitsnow]

Not exactly sure how far I want to go? Am guessing any mpg and/or hp gains will be minor. It just seems so tempting to start pulling parts off!

 

[Schurkey]

When you have better insight than the engineers at GM, you can pull "everything" off the engine and maybe it'll run better.

Clearly you don't care about air pollution.

 

[Jared Jackson]

There are some features that were engineered for specific climates that were not needed in others. At that time, it was beneficial to remove or "bypass" it to improve performance.

One thing that comes to mind is the Throttle Body Coolant Bypass for LS engines. My 5.3 engines in 04 and 05 had a coolant pipe that ran through the throttle body. This was, I think, to help in cold climates make sure the throttle plate did not stick. In Texas, it just made the throttle body hotter. So we bypassed it and capped the lines at the throttle body.

I also think, in hot climates, it is popular to bypass the transmission cooler than is internal to the radiator and pipe it externally. The "heat exchanger" would help warm the transmission fluid up in cold climates. This was kind of counter productive in Texas, IMO.

If you were building a truck that needed all the HP it could muster, you could delete the AC system to free up a little weight, room and HP...

Maybe I read your post wrong but it came off as kind of "insulting."

Engineers are not perfect. One has to only look at the history of the automobile up until today to see that! They have different goals and restrictions they must meet, aftermarket modders don't.

 

[df2x4]

My personal opinions on each of the things you listed...

EGR. It gets you slightly better fuel mileage, and to remove properly you need to have it disabled in the PCM tune as Kenny mentioned. I would leave it alone, especially if it still works properly.

EVAP. Sometimes a pain to diagnose issues with it, but once again if it's working properly I would leave it alone. It keeps some extra fuel vapors out of the air.

Intake sound baffle. If you want to make your truck louder for no reason with no improvements to anything, go for it. It's not going to gain you any power. The factory intake as it is flows more than enough air.

Cats. Really the only thing on your list that might make a slight difference. Personally I would leave them alone though, as I prefer my daily drivers not to reek of gasoline soaked exhaust fumes. If you remove them, you'll need either a PCM tune from someone like Black Bear (option I would recommend) or to install non-foulers in front of the O2 sensors to fool them in order to keep from throwing a constant check engine light.

Ultimately it's your truck and your money, but all of this seems very unnecessary to me.

 

[L31MaxExpress]

There are some features that were engineered for specific climates that were not needed in others. At that time, it was beneficial to remove or "bypass" it to improve performance.

One thing that comes to mind is the Throttle Body Coolant Bypass for LS engines. My 5.3 engines in 04 and 05 had a coolant pipe that ran through the throttle body. This was, I think, to help in cold climates make sure the throttle plate did not stick. In Texas, it just made the throttle body hotter. So we bypassed it and capped the lines at the throttle body.

I also think, in hot climates, it is popular to bypass the transmission cooler than is internal to the radiator and pipe it externally. The "heat exchanger" would help warm the transmission fluid up in cold climates. This was kind of counter productive in Texas, IMO.

If you were building a truck that needed all the HP it could muster, you could delete the AC system to free up a little weight, room and HP...

Maybe I read your post wrong but it came off as kind of "insulting."

Engineers are not perfect. One has to only look at the history of the automobile up until today to see that! They have different goals and restrictions they must meet, aftermarket modders don't.

Actually you want to keep the trans cooler in the radiator. While It does help heat the fluid quicker, the trans temps will be more stable and it will run cooler than the external cooler only when you are really beating on the trans like towing uphill for 5 miles in 2nd gear at 4,500 rpm.

I have the L31 marine intake without EGR, Thorley Tri-Y headers, and aftermarket bullet race cats on my cammed, 200cc aluminum headed L31 in my Express van.

 

[letitsnow]

Thanks for your input guys.

I am not nearly as smart as the engineers at GM. However, I wonder what a GM engineer would build if he didn't have to meet a bunch of regulations that were meant to help, but maybe don't. Also... I have yet to need a government bailout...

All of those little sensors and valves were probably awesome 20 years ago when the truck was new, but you know they will fail as they age. Everything does.

Just having a truck that runs clean (efi) is worlds better than the old carb days as far as pollution, I would guess. Maybe we wouldn't have needed to start using cats if we had perfected efi back in the 70's?

I plan to get a Blackbear tune either way.

 

[letitsnow]

One of my neighbors talks and acts very concerned about the environment. He is always preaching to me about how we need to save it.

When I am biking by his house in cold weather, I can smell that he burns his garbage in his fireplace. Funny.

We have bigger fish to fry than worrying about 20 year old trucks polluting.