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Been lurking for more than a few months now. I finally bought all the parts I need to do my very first head and cam swap on my truck. A rare 2000 Silverado 2500 LS 4x4 with a 5 speed.
Being as I have a 2000 LQ4, I have the iron heads and baby LM7 cam. Makes for a great torquey setup with the NV4500 trans, but there's a lot left in it.
Originally I was going to just do a head swap since my iron heads have exhaust manifold studs broken in the front and rear on both banks. Then I figured if I'm gonna do a head swap, I MAY AS WELL swap the cam since it's not much more work at that point. Now I'm doing the entire top end...
-I bought some lightly used 241 heads off of FB marketplace for only 100 bucks. Installed some BTR LS6 springs then got them cleaned up with a good valve job done at a local shop. Should put me right around 10.0:1 compression.
-Just posted this in the Camapalooza thread, but I just bought the Cam Motion Titan 1 Truck Cam 208/214 110+4.
-Going with Morel 7717 drop in lifters from Cam Motion. They had the best deal at $195.
Previous owner was nice enough to delete the EGR and cats, and add shorty headers. Not as good as long tubes of course, but with the stock 2500 exhaust being way larger than 1500's I'm leaving it alone till after the swap.
I already have the NNBS/TBSS intake swapped over (with 35lb injectors) as well as E-fans all tuned with HP-tuners.
My rough calculations lead me to believe I should end up with ~60-80 hp gain at the flywheel and ~50 at the wheels. All theoretical of course, but either way it will have way more power.
Probably wont be able to get up to New England Dragway to get some "Stock" quarter mile times before I do the swap, but I definitely will after over the summer.
I will be going to a dyno to see where I stand now (stock + efans + nnbs intake) in the next couple weeks. Once the weather warms up a bit and I actually get a nice dry weekend I'll get on with the swap. I'll be losing sleep from excitement until then lol
Finally updating this. I got the baseline dyno run done. Dyno'd in 3rd (out of 5 in a NV4500), so effectively the same as 2nd on a 4l60 gearing wise.
We ended up figuring out the damper springs in my clutch are bad since we started getting really wavy results on the dyno after this run (even with full smoothing on). It was also pretty lean under 3500, so I bet I'd be closer to 330 wtq if I had that sorted and could dyno in one to one drive.
I'm happy enough with the results seeing as this is with an iron headed, small cammed early lq4 and 4x4.
Now to just get some good weather for an entire weekend to throw the cam and heads on...
Just got the heads put on this weekend. Took all day Saturday and Sunday.
I was originally gonna put the cam in at the same time, but I couldn't get the harmonic balancer bolt to budge, so I figured I'd do the cam later this summer.
Got the lifters put in and the heads already have a valve job and btr springs, so I'm ready for the cam.
Just went for the first test drive today. Definitely picked up some torque with the little compression bump. Sounds angrier when I get into the throttle, but I haven't floored it yet.
On the plus side, I can finally track down exhaust leaks now that I finally have all 6 bolts on each header.
I finally got the cam installed yesterday! Only had to buy a plug-in Milwaukee impact to get the balancer bolt off.
Today was too hot to really go out and to tuning to get fueling dialed in, but I did go for a little drive and fudged the VE enough so OLSD isn't dangerously lean.
Otherwise, it's close enough when in closed loop and the engine runs great! I haven't done a full WOT rip yet, but I did blast from 2500 to about 3500 rpms in 3rd and it definitely felt stonger.
I'm proud I finally accomplished my first h/c/i even if it is a mild build on my daily driver truck.
I even took a couple pictures this time if anyone is interested.
I finally got the cam installed yesterday! Only had to buy a plug-in Milwaukee impact to get the balancer bolt off.
Today was too hot to really go out and to tuning to get fueling dialed in, but I did go for a little drive and fudged the VE enough so OLSD isn't dangerously lean.
Otherwise, it's close enough when in closed loop and the engine runs great! I haven't done a full WOT rip yet, but I did blast from 2500 to about 3500 rpms in 3rd and it definitely felt stonger.
I'm proud I finally accomplished my first h/c/i even if it is a mild build on my daily driver truck.
I even took a couple pictures this time if anyone is interested.
I guess I lied when I said "pics".
I must have been sending pictures straight to a friend through instagram. So here is the one picture my phone saved. Edit: this is actually a great pic cause you can see one of the heads too!
Before I took any thing out. Not bad for 180K...
I almost wonder if one of the previous owners had the timing set replaced cause nothing had any wear on it at all. The inside of the engine was also MUCH cleaner than the outside.
Old cam came right out and the new one went right in. Nothing was really super difficult. Took 8 hours all together, but I spent at least an hour inside cooling off during breaks, so I see why people love swapping cams in these things. Too easy.
Congrats on the firsts h/c/i. Clean build and truck. You don't see many with the 5 speed.
Thanks! I was living in MN when I bought the truck. There were 3 2500 5 speeds in total I could find across the country when I was looking. An OBS in Idaho, a 2WD NBS work truck in Virginia, and the truck I bought was about an hour north of La Crosse Wisconsin. Made for an easy choice lol
It was also only $5k with 153000 on the clock back in 2018.
Originally Posted by Ls7colorado
NICE!, what headers are you running?
Good question lol. The previous owner was nice enough to put the shorties on when they deleted the EGR. If I had to guess, probably the cheapest set available 10-ish years ago.
I'll eventually step up to LT's, but with the 2500 exhaust being dual 2.5/2.75 back to the dual-in muffler, I figure it's good enough for now.
Thanks! I was living in MN when I bought the truck. There were 3 2500 5 speeds in total I could find across the country when I was looking. An OBS in Idaho, a 2WD NBS work truck in Virginia, and the truck I bought was about an hour north of La Crosse Wisconsin. Made for an easy choice lol
It was also only $5k with 153000 on the clock back in 2018..
Tuning is one of my favorite parts probably because it never really ends.
I've finally got her good and tuned. Pulls strong through 5500 up to 6k now instead of falling off after 4500. Torquey as hell at all rpms. I can still putz around in overdrive at 25-30mph.
Puts a good smile on my face.
Here is the % change from before to after the cam swap.
Moh powah!
02-22-2022, 02:13 PM
First time build! 
