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Replacing LS1 with 5.3

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Old Feb 10, 2009 | 06:51 AM
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Default Replacing LS1 with 5.3

I had some bad luck here recently. I am going to replace my ls1 engine with a 5.3 outta a truck. Im going to run the truck engine stock for now. I have a question abut loading a truck tune onto the car pcm. I have hp tuners with a licensed 5.3 tune. Can i just write the 5.3 calibration to car pcm? Another question is whats up with the timing tables on the 5.3 they only run 11 degrees at w0t?
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Old Feb 10, 2009 | 12:41 PM
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Your best bet for a starting point would be to copy the tables from the 5.3 tune to the cars current tune. There are settings in the cars operating system regarding other parts of the car (how the alternator is wired, what transmission you have...) that may not be compatible with the trucks file. You will need to license the car PCM anyways in order to flash to it, so do a read entire on that, save the cars file, then copy over the spark and VE tables (as well as injector flow rate tables if you swap the injectors and so on).

The spark in the trucks is very conservative because a truck engine needs to be able to pull the GVWR of the truck and trailer up a hill, possibly at full throttle, possibly for extended periods of time, whereas a car would almost never be at full throttle just to get up a hill...cars see far far far less sustained full throttle time...trucks get weighted down with heavy payloads and trailers and whatnot all the time.

I would NOT advocate running the car spark tables with the 5.3...I would re-tune the 5.3's spark tables...but I'd do so carefully after I had the engine running successfully using it's original tables. There will most certainly be more power and more mpg in the 5.3 with tuning work above and beyond it's stock tune.
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Old Feb 10, 2009 | 12:54 PM
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Originally Posted by Mike454SS
.....

The spark in the trucks is very conservative because a truck engine needs to be able to pull the GVWR of the truck and trailer up a hill, possibly at full throttle, possibly for extended periods of time, whereas a car would almost never be at full throttle just to get up a hill...cars see far far far less sustained full throttle time...trucks get weighted down with heavy payloads and trailers and whatnot all the time.
......


... trucks are calibrated for cheapo 87 octane and F-bods/Vettes/GTOs/etc are cal'd for premium fuel.
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Old Feb 10, 2009 | 01:57 PM
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Also, the trucks use tables that add more spark on top of the high octane table according to fuel enrichment - be very careful or you could end up with way too much timing!
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Old Feb 10, 2009 | 03:53 PM
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All 3 of us are correct...but I still say it's important to use the original flash for the car and adjust it for the engine.
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Old Feb 10, 2009 | 04:13 PM
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Okay guys Ill start coping the data over.
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