Thread: LS1 swap into 53 Chevy

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Originally Posted by v8nutz

I researched those hookers for my stude 5.3, they are really nice, they are almost identical to the 2010 camaro manifolds. I really wanted them but I could tell from my measurements they wouldn't work for me. Nice progress, you're moving right along.

I got some from a C 5 vette if they would work for you, They seem to be a popular one for swaps. They are a center dump header.

I decided nothing off the shelf would work for me, I had to build my own headers.

Looks great, Seth!

Thought I'd update on the 53. Wed night I was really cranking on the 53 thinking of my awesome plan for Friday and surprising the Mrs. Worked pretty late building a good time cushion. Thurs I did the same and at about 11:00 I thought i'd better double check the driveshaft for fit, I was told the 700 and the 4l60 were the same length, guess what, driveshaft was 2 inches to short. At that point I realized telling Kari about my plan for Friday was my only chance at brownie points,this thing wasn't going to be done. Friday morning after searching at the local yard and calling a couple of machine shops, by 11:00 I was getting another shaft shortened to fit, nothing else done yet that morning besides getting a driveshaft. Spend the rest of the day and evening getting all the ridged stuff done, like the exhaust, hoses, fan shroud, head shields, and what not, that all went as good as could be expected. Sat, my goal was 3:00 have it running and leave the house with it by 8 o'clock. I wired everything up with confidence and like it was going to work the first time. about 3:30 I called Kari to the shop for the first fire up nothing, crank but no start. Checked connections and found nothing wrong and Kari went back to the house. As soon as she got the the front door I called her back, I had the ECM on the wrong key terminal, it lost power when cranking,Fixed that and it fired right up. Tied up some odds and ends and we were heading for Dairy Queen at about 9:00. So far we've put about 150 miles on it and it's all good. They gave me the wrong O2 sensors so I'm running wihtout any at the moment so its running pretty rich. Besides the water pump, power steering , engine and trans, there's no leaks either All of them are an easy fix, just not today. I got to clean up some wiring stuff, get A/C brackets and try to figure out something different with the air filter but the non critical things are going to wait till this winter. Took it to Sioux Falls today and people were taking pictures of it so that was kinda nice to see, driving it sure is fun!

Kinda a fun B/F and after pic.

Congrats Seth! While not the perfect ending, it sounds like you're on your way to it.

Thanks, this thing has quite a bit more zip than the 348 and seems like it uses a 1/4 of the fuel. I'm not going to check until the o2 sensors are in. Not that mileage is my biggest concern but kinda curious. It's a much quieter engine in the cab going down the road, but it doesn't have the rumble of the 348 out the pipes but that,s ok. It's a cookie cutter engine but the reason they make cookie cutters is because so many people love cookies

Nice one mate!
Its been a saga; but you've got it 95% (or more,) finished.
Pleased for ya!

Congratulations! Like all these projects. it's been a battle, but you won. Nothing like riding around in something that you built yourself. Enjoy.

Very cool to read that some one was able to meet a dead line! That's awesome. One really nice thing about cookie cutters is lots of places make parts for them, write tunes for them, and the stuff is very reasonable. You didn't make any bad decisions. You can make those engines look just as attractive as any other engine. I've seen them disguised as old Ford engines too.

Wow you did that swap pretty damn fast, very nice.

It had to be done fast, summers here and we need to get some miles on this thing
This whole project has been a fighter though. Throwing in a 5.3 doesn't mean you won't have problems though. I've been fighting a idling issue with this thing for the last couple of nights. When you first started it up it would hardly run and would get better as the engine warmed up, but never good. Did a lot of swapping sensors around and swapped the MAF with another one and that did help a lot but not enough. Did some more diagnosing ( aka google and you tube ) and the problem was leaking intake gaskets. I replaced them tonight and it's a day and night difference, idles smooth and exhaust doesn't stink anymore.I It even fixed my noisy fuel pump for some reason. I'm really liking these LS motors though, It hardly took about an hour to put intake gaskets in it.

I didn't like mine very much when I tore it down and started putting it back together, Jeez all the special procedures and tools for every little thing. Nothing at all like rebuilding a small block chevy or ford. Oh yeah and parts are way more expensive too. But I do like a modern motor, I don't think I could go back to a carb and distributor now. Your progress make me feel guilty for not working on my truck.

Got two out of the four leaks fixed now, had a cut o ring on my steering pressure hose on the rack. That was the worst leak by far. Put new water pump to block gaskets in for the water leak. I almost put in a new pump also, but from experience, I'll trust my 140k mile pump not to leak out of the seal before a new Chinese pump from the parts store. The engine oil leak is just a missing gasket on the drain plug, and the trans leak may or may not have quit. That was coming from the torque converter area and leaked so little I don't know if the drop ever hit the ground. The seal may have worked itself in. A/C is next but I think I'll start back on my other progress thread as I'm pretty much where I left off when I pulled the 348.

You've done an amazing job on the engine swap, and getting all of the more modern stuff working right. As the say way down south, Good on ya', Mate! It's a crash hot beautee! Now rattle ya' dags and get out there and give it a hear!

(Translation jb?)