New here from West Virginia

Hey folks,

I'm new here from the northern panhandle of West Virginia (think 20 miles from Pittsburgh). I'm doing some research for my 2005 Silverado. It is a base model with a 5.3L and the dreaded 4L60-E transmission. I bought the truck about 3 hours after having a Kia Rio totalled by a driver that didn't pay attention and pulled out in front of me. Had I had my brains about me and not been in a fog, I would not have bought this truck, but would have bought an HD model or at least a Z-71. However, it is what it is.

So being stuck with a 'Z' engine code (flex fuel), no tow package, and not even damned cruise control, it's time I do some upgrades.

I took care of a pair of engine codes that made it hard to figure out what the root cause of the actual problem was. First was the evap purge solenoid, which had thrown the "gas cap" engine code - 10 minutes to change out. I cleared that one up and was still getting a "catalyst inefficiency" code, which seemed to have gone away ever since I changed out both lower bank o2 sensors - 1/2 an hour tops. I also changed the valve guide seals on it - (6 hours), which was not difficult, just time consuming, which helped clear up a humongous cloud of blue smoke on start up. It still smokes a little bit on start up from time to time (blue), but mostly it's good to go.

Now that it's running as it should be, it's time to start planning for the inevitable "engine failure". With 220K on it, no ticks, no leaks, it has nothing that says "old and worn out", but I know from experience that "IT" happens, so it's better to be prepared instead of being stuck.

So I have a line on a 6.0L from a 1500 HD, and I also am looking at purchasing a 4L80-E and dropping both in eventually.

As for my handle "ResourceReaper", I am a software architect, and one of my favorite things to do is to reclaim computer and server resources on old / poorly written software, so I picked up the nick name through my career as the Resource Reaper, and it just stuck.

That 5.3 flex fuel motor is somewhat to be desired and honestly most likely it could use some valve train work and that's about all it needs. I would suggest selling that motor to fund your 6.0/80e swap. Your right about the 60e being trash. If you are great with software and have good automotive knowledge then hptuners/efilive would be a good investment. Having a base model does have the perk of being very lightweight compared to other models meaning going fast will be a little easier. Have fun and lets see sme pics. Also I know I have seen some GM vehicles where simply adding a turn signal lever equipped with cruise is plug and play without making any other changes.

I can't remember what the general rule of thumb was. I want to say, for every 100 lbs you lighten, that's .1 sec improvement in your 1/4 mile time. Since someone ganked my tow bar and cut the connector, I'm already a little lighter...