Hunter79764
Full Access Member
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2021
- Posts
- 344
- Reaction score
- 534
- Location
- Grand Prairie, TX
- First Name
- Shawn
- Truck Year
- 1987
- Truck Model
- Suburban V20
- Engine Size
- 350
A few of my thoughts to echo others above, 300k isn't that tired, 250-350k is very common on these and I'll add my wife's 01 suburban 5.3 had crosshatch at 345k.
At the same time, if you find a junkyard 4.8/5.3 (or even 6.0) and 4l60e combo with reasonable miles, pulling and reinstalling is not that difficult. It will run on the factory 4.8 tune, but you will want to get it adjusted before you do much WOT stuff. Doing it yourself with HPTuners is easy enough, or you can send in the PCM to LT1Swap.com to have a factory tune to match the new engine.
On my 01, I took the engine separate from the trans, but if I had a better hoist and help situation, probably could have pulled them together. I couldn't get the crank pulley off because I didn't know that you should heat it with a torch before hitting it with an impact (I've since done 3 or 4 with no issue), and the depth of the pulley made pulling the engine out much harder. Since then, I also realized the top bar of the core support comes out rather easily, and that would have made it easy as well.
At the same time, if you find a junkyard 4.8/5.3 (or even 6.0) and 4l60e combo with reasonable miles, pulling and reinstalling is not that difficult. It will run on the factory 4.8 tune, but you will want to get it adjusted before you do much WOT stuff. Doing it yourself with HPTuners is easy enough, or you can send in the PCM to LT1Swap.com to have a factory tune to match the new engine.
On my 01, I took the engine separate from the trans, but if I had a better hoist and help situation, probably could have pulled them together. I couldn't get the crank pulley off because I didn't know that you should heat it with a torch before hitting it with an impact (I've since done 3 or 4 with no issue), and the depth of the pulley made pulling the engine out much harder. Since then, I also realized the top bar of the core support comes out rather easily, and that would have made it easy as well.