Shack

New guy here from NC. Just bought a 1985 square body and I'm going up tomorrow to pickup a 5.3/4L60E for a donor for it. Look forward to learning about these. My background is primarily C-130's and Powerstrokes.

Shack

76larkman

Hi welcome to site. you"ll find its an easy drop in. Slider mounts on ebay as well shorty headers. I found them easy fitting no special stuff. I even was able to use driveshaft I had. Only thing I did do was to move tranny crossmember back just enough where tranny pan could come off easy. Just had redrill some new holes in frame. Lt1Swap.com has great wiring info. I remounted pcm and a used cavalier fuse panel(95-05) on a bracket I made onto driver fenderwell. For speedometer get a 90-91 suburban/blazer cluster as its electric. Fits direct but wires need moved around on plug. Hope this helps. Fuel pump ways are many but I have injected suburban tank in mine.

Shack

Thanks! A buddy of mine did the 5.3 swap in his Monte Carlo but used a T56 trans. He's been helping me tremendously and frankly, he's the whole reason I'm doing this. One thing I'm doing is using the update OEM gauges but from Dakota Digital which uses the big 5" gauge on the right as a tach instead of fuel and the fuel is moved to the left of the 4 small gauges. We found that I would need the Dakota Digital Sending unit to work with the 4l60e/electric speedometer and those are like $30 or so. I just got my painless wiring harness for the entire truck and then i bought a 7-circuit aux wiring harness from Painless for under the hood for the engine components, exactly what my buddy did. He also told me about those ebay headers and the slider mounts. Looking forward to starting this.

Going up tomorrow to get the drivetrain. This place has a pretty sick deal too. $1750 for engine/trans/pcm/harness/all accessories. 30-day warranty and I pick the vehicle I want it from. Not a bad deal. The overall plan is 12" lift and 39.5 Boggers on 1-ton axles but right now making it drivable is the priority.

76larkman

Don't get rid of harness somebody will buy it. I only used truck harnesses so far. I bought complete 5.3 06 motor dressed for $500 no tranny as it 4x4 has 100k on it. Mounts and headers makes it easy. Ls bug gets addictive. I have 2 in progress and an extra engine on stand.

Shack

Yeah, I'm not ditching the harness. I'll hold onto it just in case. Just picked up my engine today. Came out of a suburban that was rolled. Unsure of the mileage, it wasn't posted on the truck.