Hey everybody! This will be my first major thread. Ive been wanting to do a swap for a long time. Didn’t know which engine I was going to use but finally decided on the big liter! And I found one at a semi-local (55 mi away) salvage yard thru car-part. That’s a great site to find stuff!!!!! Anyway, went and checked it out today and it was a complete pullout. Manifolds, fan, maf/airbox, complete harness, PCM, and even the damn fuse box. Thing was ready to go. Needless to say its sitting in the back of my truck right now…

Ok so heres my plan. Your gonna have to bear with me on this as this process will be done in steps up to the final goal. I use the truck to carry tools to work when I need to, get around town when its raining or im too lazy to ride, and tow a couple skis to the lake or river and eventually want to get a 20’ boat. That will be the most the truck will ever need to tow.

Now on to the goals…
1) My main priority is smog. I live in cali and I drive it on the street….yes im gonna go through the BAR process. I don’t want to but im not gonna be paying someone every two years. I don’t want to deal with that so its out of the question. My reg is due in oct so I need to get this done by then.
2) 4L80e swap. Want/going to need the extra strength due to #3
3) Small turbo with about 6psi or so to stay safe and maximize hp potential on stock motor
4) This is more of a hope as im not to sure about it and I need your opinions. Possibly stroking it later on to make up for the lower rpm range that the turbo cant get to. But I don’t need info on that right now.

1-3 are what I want and 4 is just a maybe at this point. Yes I know the order is not necessarily normal but that’s not a concern for me due to my situation. My main concern over smog at this point is getting the motor in the truck and running. I have a 3 month warranty from the yard that I don’t want to miss out on IF I HAVE TO USE IT….KNOCK ON WOOD!!!! I just want to get it in there and drive it around to make sure its all good (which it should be cuz they tested it before pulling it out) Then ill work on getting all the required smog equipment in place and go from there.

What I want to know is what is the minimum I need in order to fire it up and drive wiring wise? Being that I have a 4l60e in the truck already and that’s what was supposedly behind the 6.0 (possibly 65e or 70e but they are basically the same from what Ive read…)
1) it should mate up and the harness should plug in right?
2) Do I need to get the stupid spacer to make that happen? Im reading mixed answers on that
3) What sensors are required for it to run? i.e. smog equipment stuff like o2’s and others. I don’t have anything after the manifolds… I realize it may throw codes but will it still run without them for the time being?
4) Since I have the computer and fuse block that came with it, theoretically it should already be set up…

Is there any reason to flash anything on the pcm? Will it not run if the vats is not removed? Does it need to be adjusted for the converter due to the motor having more torque than the 350 AND being in a lighter vehicle?

is there anything im missing? I THINK that pretty much covers what might be needed to get it just running but this is my first time with this so I know im going to miss some things. Sorry for the long post. Just wanted to get everybody on par with where im at and where im going. Cant wait to start diving into this!!