1999 454 Cam, injectors, PCM, efans (help a newbie)

[KevinF]

I went with Comp Cams 01-415-8, Comp Cams valve springs, 28lb injectors from an LS1, new double roller timing set, new FPR. The distributor bushing and gear was fine.

Only hiccup was that it didn't start after putting everything together. Eventually removed and reinstalled the coil and crank trigger and then it fired right up. Not sure which was the culprit, but nothing too dramatic.

Didn't do efans, and haven't done the 0411 yet. It runs, albeit not awesome, on the stock tune on the black box computer. I imagine that poor black box is pretty confused about the parameters it is seeing with the cam and 50% larger injectors.

I am now having reservations on buying HPT or EFI Live and jumping into the world of tuning due to time constraints.. I'm also having reservations about paying the local LS racecar tuner guy $500 to tune my big heavy tow rig.

No more pics of the truck because everything looks the exact same except for the shiny new coolant hose fitting in the intake. I will attach a pic of the simple but highly effective valve spring tool I built to do the job with the heads on the engine.

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[83GMCK2500]

Thank you for the update. I was wondering how the repair & upgrades were coming.

 

[KevinF]

I'm terrible about doing updates.

I completed the cam and the truck ran OK with the factory black box. That is, it did RUN. I then did the 0411 swap and bought HP Tuners pro. The truck ran better after I moved the distributor over a tooth and got cam retard offset to 0, when it had been at -26.

Then all last summer I had issues tuning because there was a misfire/detonation issue at medium RPM medium load. I hit a small deer with the truck in the fall of 2015 and parked it for winter. In the spring I had a trans line rub through on my 98 5.3L truck so I pulled out the 454 truck again. I cleaned injectors 4 and 7 and swapped them with injectors from different holes to see if the misfire would follow the injectors. I also noticed that the plenum gasket was wet, so I probably just didn't have the upper plenum adequately sealed. After putting it back together my misfire/detonation was gone. So now it is the summer of 2016 and I will continue learning to tune.

 

[Mangonesailor]

Good to hear everything is going well. I haven't even put in my 28# injectors yet. Once I flush them though, then I'll put them in.

I did get headers on them while I had a chance and would definitely recommend them. I picked up a lot of noticeable power and torque from them. Now that you're cammed and tuning, you should look into them.

 

[KevinF]

Did they fit OK on your 97 4x4? Did you have to add o2 bungs or anything? I have heard they make a big difference.

I did make a little bit of an injector cleaning rig. I clamped a piece of tubing to the injector, pressurized it with about 20psi of air and manually pulsed the 2 injectors with test leads and a battery. I flushed back and then forward (with Seafoam).

 

[Mangonesailor]

I used Gibson titanium ceramic coated shorties. Heres what I can tell you about them:

The quality of the headers look great. You can order them with or without the EGR bung. They come with the O2 bungs welded into the downpipes. The EGR fit like factory, however I had an issue with the driver's side downpipe o2 bung. I could not rotate the downpipe to where it needed to be to clamp up to the existing system without the O2 sensor hitting the belly pan of the truck. Thus, I had new exhaust from the headers to the tailpipes put in. It was in my "long term plan" anyways, so now its done. Exhaust guy was going to use what gibson gave me but he said the pipe wall was too thin to bend with his bender. He showed me some other pipes he tried to make, but in the end all new piping had to be done. He's picky, I'm picky, he did a pretty good job of it.

The header flanges you will need to modify, slightly. The flanges are just a little too tall and will bump against the head bolts on either side of the motor. I notched them on both side and they fit like a glove.

I thought with the injectors I would use a vacuum brake bleeder but in reverse. Just pressurize the bottle by hand and then cycle each injector. After that I'd put them in the truck and the gasoline should take care of the rest.

Gibson told me as well with their ceramic coating it is advised that before you start the engine you should spray them down with brake cleaner to purge them of any oils. Start the engine and let it get up to temp. Shut it down and let it cool off completely. Once it is back to ambient temp then go for a short drive, let the engine cool off again, and you should be good to go and not have any issues with the coating peeling or rust. I've got about 10kmi on mine and they look fine. He also said if any rust appears then some green scotch brite should clean up the rust and not mar up the coating.