Mean Green Garage.

The garage isn't actually green; the truck is though. I am starting with a 1995 C1500 Silverado edition extended cab truck. She currently has 291k miles on the engine and about 170k on the trans.

The goal of this project is to have a truck I can take to the strip for street race days and also cruise around with whenever.

My plan starts with the motor. The tired old TBI 350 is getting pulled in the next week or two now that I have the garage set up for it. While I could potentially put time and effort into rebuilding this motor I am opting with a junkyard 5.3l. I have done some reading (feel free to correct me if you read this and I'm wrong) but there have been a pretty decent number of success stories throwing turbos on these engines which would get me the bonus power without affecting the gas mileage too drastically. I also would need to pass emissions tests for Washington state so that will deter some of the more agressive cams. So with all of that being said, I am looking at either modding a diesel turbo or possibly a pair of smaller turbos either pulled or rebuilt. Unfortunately I can't yet afford a good turbo setup but once I get through with the project I will look at replacing it/them with something better.

The trans is a rebuilt "Built" 4l60e with a shift kit and beefed up innards so I will probably keep it until it gives and put the requisite spacers on to make it manageable.

The rear end is the stardard 1/4 ton with 3.73 gears and will also stay until I destroy it.

The interior is half stripped down and will be replaced with some seats from a newer truck and dash will be molded and customed once finished.

I am looking at ways to incorporate a car pc into the dash as well as a real time OBDII interface.


All in all I have a long winter if I want to have this finished by next summer. I will gladly accept the advice of anyone who cares to post and will try to keep pictures coming until the whole project is complete. Also I will try to keep a running list of parts used and rough prices.

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Welcome and it sounds like a big fun plan to be sure. Inexpensive turbos can be found all over the place from lots of manufactures for around $300-500. 5.3s make for great swaps. The 4L60e will be a ticking time bomb. I would suggest getting the 5.3 swap done and waiting to get the turbo kit built until later. You will be very surprised by the power in a stock 5.3

Howdy Kerrige, I am a little worried about the trans as well but it will have to work for now. It is still in pretty decent shape adn should give me a few months of light playing before I need to jump to something a bit better. Both of my vehicles now are 5.3's; a tahoe and a trailblazer ext. I am happy with the power they have but I would still like to have somewhere near or over the 350-400 range.

The turbo setup is something my buddy and I have been discussing for a while. He has a 5.3 with the 6.0 top end and an agressive cam and other that's carbed. They are pretty good and I am half tempted to do the 6.0 truck intake and 243 heads with a mild cam but I can't say that Im not really interested in what I could do with some boost. Similarly once I finish off the body work I would like to not have to tear it all back down again for a while if I can avoid it.

All that being said I will heed your advice as you probably know a lot more than I do.

Thanks,

PB

So I put some more time in this weekend and pulled the drive shaft, passenger fender and door, exhaust and more interior.

I still have two connectors on the trans to disconnect before I can pull it but I am hoping to have the motor and trans pull this weekend.

I hit a snag on the dashboard trying to disconnect the wiring harness from the dash. It tilts forward just enough to put my hand in there before the wiring hangs it up. I am not sure what it is that won't come loose but I am about this close ---><--- to taking a sawzall to it and calling it a day.

I'll get some pictures up this weekend of the progress so far and hopefully a bit more.

PB

Another weekend of forward Progress. We got the motor and trans out and continued onward with the dash harness. Still having trouble pulling it all out but I am pretty sure I will figure something out in the mean time.

I am considering getting rid of the old trans and picking up a newer 4l60 with the 5.3, but we shall see what kind of deal I can find on that.

I did make the rookie mistake of dumping trans fluid all over my garage floor, which is nice. So I will probably spend a while this week turning 30lbs of kitty litter into 60 lbs of kitty litter.

So I finally got back out to the garage this week after several days of work and life taking up time. I poked and prodded the dash for a while until I figured out the cipher of wires, straps and screws and finally got it undone and pulled out. it was pretty fragile and ended up cracking a few more places that it already had but I am getting rid of it anyway so I am not that concerned.

The motor and trans were pulled last weekend and I got some shots of that up as well. I am going to put that up for sale this week and work on finding my 5.3.

Now that the harness is ready to come out entirely I can finish stripping the interior and start the body work. She is really going to be quite the project but I am hoping to have a pretty fast and very original looking truck when it's all said and done.

I have been doing some searching around on car pc's and think I am going to use a Wii with some homebrew since I can get them pretty cheaply and they are solid state. paired up with a touchscreen and controller I should be able to get it to do what I want.

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