yes exactly and ikr, the crazy part is this use to be an extremely reliable truck. Ive driven it on 11 hour 1 way road trips before and it never missed a beat. Also I've done way to much work and had way to long of nights turning wrenches on this truck to give up now, I wouldn't be doing myself or the truck justice if I gave up now. I'm dedicated to making a 10 second pass in this truck.

 

Being turbo'd isn't going to make it unreliable, once you get this worked out . Mine is running 10.7s regularly now and I drove it 22hrs / 1200 miles each way on a trip this summer on 87 octane even , nothing more than drain the catch can on each end of the trip , also done 2 HRPT with it turbo'd which end up being 3500 miles door to door in a week - no issues. You will be enjoying it soon

 

wow that's bad ***, it ran consistent 11.7 on Nitrous and I'm made a lot of changed since then so hopefully im not to far out. Heads should be ready next Thursday so next weekend I should be able to slap everything back together and get this boost controller hooked up and I definitely plan on getting my tuner to put it back on the computer. I just want to get it checked out again when I put the controller on it just to make sure it likes it.

 

Totally agree with GMCGreg, on my last turbo car I spent a full year driving the car here and there finding all the little issues that pop up when you modify a car to large extent like turbo charging.
Once all the little things were addressed, some turned into big things like clutches, transmissions and gear changes but afterwards the car was very reliable.
My son and I would go on long cruises all the time and every time I drove it alone, I drove it like I stole it lol.
As long as you don't lean on it too hard, you'll get the longevity and reliability you're looking for.

 

yeh I think it will be OK, it was very consistent on Nitrous and I took it to the track on a regular basis and everything help up ok, it never broke once at the track, I should have it back together this weekend. I'm just waiting on the machine shop and he's telling me Thursday, they had to get another head so that tacked on a few extra days, I've already got the replacement piston, so ill put the few pieces i took apart on the bottom end back together this afternoon when i get in from work and once i get the heads that wont take no time, ive learned this truck pretty well so nothing really takes to much time and these 5.3 are so easy to work on. The only 2 other things i plan on doing is hooking up this turbosmart boost controller I bought and I want to put a catch can on it so I have to do that as well.

 

So arp says 2004 and older cylinder heads final Torque pass is 70 pounds, that seems awful light to me.

 

I drove my '67 a lot over 2 summers and fixed a lot of little things, you pretty much just have to bite the bullet and do it. The worst was when I was figuring out radiator fan relay issues. Had to direct wire the fan on to get home one time.

 

Don't think you can go wrong with ARP specs , remember 70 ft/lbs on fine thread studs with their lube is more clamping force than a coarse thread bolt dry or with a bit of oil

 

Mm.. quite a bit of discussion on this with quite a few saying it's now 80 ft/lbs . Apparently ARP changed it , I would call them

 

yeh that's what I've been doing. I put the bottom end back together yesterday, well thr piston, rod, and all the accessories I had to remove to get to it
I'm just waiting on the heads to come back from the machine shop.

 

I noticed that too, after I posted this I did a little searching around and seen that some people were saying they went to 80. 70 just didnt seem very tight go me, that was easily achieved the first go around. I had cut a stock bolt with groves and ran it all the down in each hole prior go installing the studs also so I know I had them all the way down
I'll give them a call today, the paperwork said 70 pounds, but at the same time I bought them off my tuner and he keeps all kinds of performance parts in stock at his shop, so possibly they a little shelf life and maybe it changed after he purchased them.

 

Heads should be ready by Thursday, I went ahead and moved my intercooler into the front grill. Had to do a little modifying to make everything work but I got it in there. I put the transcooler under the bottom basically inside the front bumper. Besides getting a few 45 degree coupling and 1 90 degree everything pretty much went on fairly smooth. Had to trim a few pieces of the piping and re bevel the ends. Had to remove the hood latch and put pins. There was no way that intercooler was clearing the stock bracket.

 

Got the heads back today, looking pretty good. Had to cut to .040 to get the surface right on the 1 head we kept

 

I thought this was pretty bad *** too, they guys had some model heads made of some kind of plexiglass looking material that they use for shows. These guys do good work

 

Don't know what else to do with this thing, replaced the damaged head, had them both cut to .040 and the replacement port n polished to match the other. Replaced the piston and rod. Added boost controller and catch can, fired it up and all ran well. Let it run about 30 minutes with a funnel In coolant fill cap all was well. Took it for a spin around the neighborhood, didn't get on the gas as I was nervous too. Arrived home and turned it off and let it cool then went back s few hours and topped off the coolant and gave it a crank with the cap off and once again coolant spraying everywhere just like it did with the blown head gasket, this time I noticed coolant under the valley cover on the front by the water pump. FML, idk what else to do with this thing

 

Did you reuse the water pump? What do you have for heater connections and a thermostat?

 

Did you try filling through the top hose ? Hole in stat ? Inner disc on stat has holes ? Steam lines are not blocked and go to cool side of rad ?

 

my water pump is fairly new, around 6-8 months
it's a stock ac Delco pump, also thermostat is good, I pulled it and put it in boiling water and it works as it should and it opens when it's on the truck, heater lines are factory. They run from heater core(firewall) to 2 spigot that's beside the thermostat.

 

it's not a fill issues, something is wrong that im over looking. I had it all bled and its was doing ok and they it starting spraying water everywhere again out the spigot and my exhaust is moist again and i see coolant under the valley plate

 

Something cracked then ?