A while ago I decided to build a ride with a turbo'd LSx. My inspiration came from being at the track with my '64 Nova which has a 421" SBC with nitrous and watching a few guys running junkyard SBE's with turbo's and beating the bag out of them and alot of other cars at the track. Since I wanted to get into EFI tuning I thought a little junkyard training would be a great place to start so I did a little research which landed my on the Sloppy Mechanic's site. I power watched about 12-14 hours of video's. I followed that up with about 10 hours of reading on this site. I was now armed with what I wanted to do and to make sure I didn't back out I decided I better buy something fast. Since I was not going to make up my mind on the ride I wanted I needed to start with something else and since it was Sunday AM at roughly 2am I knew I wasn't gonna buy my engine...

The easiest and quickest thing I could think of buying was a turbo, So I went right to Amazon/ebay with me and I landed a chinesium 76/65, right out of the Sloppy playbook. I also ordered a wastegate/bov too but those washed out of my build so you can put 2 in the loss column!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/5hQgYAbWLm6HRCXe6
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On monday morning I started calling a few yards in the area, I live in NH and Just Chevy/LSx4U has been scooping up a crap ton of LS based engines for a few years now, IMO they are a great organization but I felt if I looked around I'd find a deal. My favorite yard, American Salvage, had just what I wanted, It's a drop out from a 2005 Chevy Express. It is a 4.8 with a 4L80e with 93K on it. Came with all the accessories including the P59 ecm and harness. As I understand it most of these Gen 3's came with Gen 4 rods too so I planned on checking for them later.

Went to pick it up a few weeks after buying the turbo.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/hMysDgr14PsuRj2R6

Once I got it home I pulled the VC's and it looked clean
https://photos.app.goo.gl/LbdsSAJXff862QPg8

Since I still didn't know what I was going to drop this engine into I figured I'd start the first phase of learning about these LS based engines by building my own harness. Every site I was on said I should probably buy one but I really knew nothing about these engines and what made them run so I thought doing this would help and after going threw it I'm going to do it again,
https://photos.app.goo.gl/HasnVxELBAYeTHnF9

https://photos.app.goo.gl/n1iVrvD6XnGTBJnTA

https://photos.app.goo.gl/zwDmEBUSK1aUqh1U8


I also ordered some upgrades for the engine based on my readings and vid's. First was the cam/springs and trunion upgrade. This also gave me the opportunity to check for gen 4 rods, and I indeed do have them. I also shimmed the oil pump spring.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/JWqik2jArDkKdj1U9
*** Something to note, I thought about gapping the rings but didn't, decided to leave the intake/heads in place as well as not messing with the rob/main bearings to "keep the magic in".

might get one more use out of this...might.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/KAWSBbpnSt2mUw9J7

Bought some SD80 injectors and had them flowed then installed using the stock rails with shims. I did rebuild my rails, peeling the end caps off was not fun but the o-rings were dry and leaking so I gave it a shot and it worked out.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/99ijtufoVkaoKz786

cleaned up pretty nice with a little tape and rattle can work.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/YkRKd3KeXUAwyiSf8


At this time I was still looking for a ride, was starting to think truck build, just wasn't sure what vintage, my initial thought was a '64 chevy but needed to do alot more research so I decided to buy HP Tuners and see if I could get the engine started. So back to hours of reading here and a few books I bought. Between reading I also started building a turbo manifold.... I'm not a welder so that is number 3 in the loss column, I did get better at sticking metal together though so not a total loss.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QSc5mHYZgiPZAv5A8