Eargesplitten
Newbie
I threw a rod in my 180k mile ‘92 K1500 with a L05 a couple days ago and am trying to decide how to approach this. I’ve decided that no matter what I do this truck is never going to be a heavy duty long haul power machine so I’m not inclined to spend LS swap money on it.
From what I read a 454 will bolt straight in (manual transmission) albeit I should probably replace engine mounts and will need to beef up the front suspension to handle the extra weight. I found one known good fully dressed plus headers with 130k miles on it for $1k. I need to see if it includes the wiring harness and ECU. If it doesn’t have the ECU but does have the harness, do I need a whole new ECU or just a chip? Any feedback on this with the understanding that I’m just trying to get it up and running with a bit more low end grunt, not making a fast truck? Does the 454 need a bigger radiator? I’m thinking about going electric fans.
An l31 or another L05 are also options but big numbers tickle my lizard brain and with the gearing on this thing it wants to stay from 1-2k RPM anyway which suits the big block. An L31 or L05 also seem to be more expensive than this 454 from what I’ve seen.
From what I read a 454 will bolt straight in (manual transmission) albeit I should probably replace engine mounts and will need to beef up the front suspension to handle the extra weight. I found one known good fully dressed plus headers with 130k miles on it for $1k. I need to see if it includes the wiring harness and ECU. If it doesn’t have the ECU but does have the harness, do I need a whole new ECU or just a chip? Any feedback on this with the understanding that I’m just trying to get it up and running with a bit more low end grunt, not making a fast truck? Does the 454 need a bigger radiator? I’m thinking about going electric fans.
An l31 or another L05 are also options but big numbers tickle my lizard brain and with the gearing on this thing it wants to stay from 1-2k RPM anyway which suits the big block. An L31 or L05 also seem to be more expensive than this 454 from what I’ve seen.