Most of the stuff to pull the motor was completed today. All that's left is to pull the driveshaft, trans brace and kmember bolts. I cried a little when I let out my freon today... It was ice cold last time I used it... ):

Cheers to keliente for doing the write up of the article on removing from the bottom.

Made progress on the new motor, new rod bearings, new main bearings, new rings, all in the motor already. Waiting on the old motor to come out for cam before installing the heads.

75% complete with the build.

 

Dropped the old motor today... Pain in the *** without a lift or being small.... Had some awesome help though!

 

Torque for dayz and the engine bay photo.

 

The engine will come out without dumping the Freon, just unbolt the A/C compressor and tie it out of the way with a bungee cord or something. Looking good, keep up the hard work.

 

Already sucked it all out. Got a hookup to get it filled back up though.

Old motor will probably be stripped apart by sometime tomorrow after I get off work.

New motor is advancing, bottom end is put together with all new bearings and rings, waiting on the cam then we can bolt her up.

 

Stuck on CAM options for the build. I have choices of my regular 01 LS1 cam, TSP 224/224 114 LSA or a Trick Flow 238/243 112 LSA. Pretty certain the TF is too big for my application. Transmission will keep the stock converter for now.

Motor is a 5.3 with 243 heads, upgraded springs.

 

Of those three I would go with the 224/224 114

 

I vote ls1 camshaft since staying stock converter. With the heads not getting cut or the deck being milled...those dished pistons only have 9 to one compression. Perfect for one of those snail shaped mufflers..

 

Summer time for that

 

Good read. Cool build so far! Looking forward to seeing it buttoned up!

Unrelated side note, I'm thinking from your username you are an RN? If so where at? We're in Fl. over close to Bradenton area. The Mrs. is working on her BSRN now. I'm going to finish mine soon as things settle down here I'm hoping..

 

Thanks for the read! Naw, RN is my Middle Initial and Last Initial, second person to ever question that, haha. My mother is the only one in the medical field in my family. I'm over in Jacksonville.

I need a bigger garage with less junk in it, haha.

 

Picked up the cam, springs and pushrods from my buddy, stoked I'll have a cam to put in.

 

In quite the dilemma here with tuning and initial break in period.

Tune is made for the 5.7 that blew up. Is it going to be okay to run that tune for the initial break in period or should I just get it flashed over to the 5.3 stock tune before starting it up? Just don't want to have any problems doing the break in of the rings... I know it'll run rich but I just want to get second opinions.

 

I have a question seeing as how I'm about to do my swap, after you pull the body off the engine, how do you roll it out of the way and out from under the car with the legs from the engine lift in the way? I see everyone doing swaps this way so I must be missing something

 

Interesting thread to follow. I'm confused, did you buy two 5.3's?

 

Basically what we did was jack up the engine high enough to rest it on the legs of the lift and lower the car back down to jack stands and then roll the lift out. We had literally not even an inch of play when we lowered it to jackstands with it on the lift. The wheels were left on to help aid the process of rolling it. For the transmission, we used an old skateboard to help with rolling it as well.


Bought two 5.3s because one was $140 and other was $400. Intention was to build a second motor in case anything were to happen later down the road. Glad I did or I'd still be sitting here without an engine, haha.

 

Doing some numbers today on the build so far.. Budget build, shopped multiple places to try and find the best price.

Engine(s) - $540
Machine Work Block and Heads (Cam bearing install, Hone, Crank Polish, Clean, Valve Job, Surface and Pressure Test - $480
Bearings (Cam, Rods and Mains) - $125
Gaskets - $146
Stud Kit - $99
Lifter/Tray - $136
Misc Supplies - $20
Cam/Springs/Pushrods - $325
Building your first engine - Priceless

Total - $1870 rounded

 

Going to be doing something similar with an LS1 that is coming out of a miata. Love seeing engine build threads.

 

Tada! Magic, haha. Still few things left to do but she's almost there.

 

Trying to figure out the Compression Ratio on this build.

Bore Size: 3.780
Stroke: 3.622
Head Gasket Bore: 4.1
Compressed Head Gasket: 0.051
Head Combustion Chamber: 64.45
Piston Dome Volume: -2 ( I've seen -7, -8, -9 )

Stock pistons
Any input?