Might be time....Motor and trans swap/replacement

[metelhead]

Might be time for me to consider motor and trans swap/replacement; 323k miles- runs fine, but I'm starting to get nervous on longer trips...My last trip to Death Valley she got a little warm (once) and has been sipping some antifreeze lately. Honestly I have been searching for the next ride as well...but not finding much I actually want to throw money at- or at least the kind of money is being asked for..

So back to considering what sort of options and costs come along with a motor/trans swap...Not looking for 'built motors' or anything fancy. But would definitely think about moving away from the 5.3 to 6.0 or 6.2. The 5.3 is a fine motor but could use more torque. If I had a wish it would be to put 20/21' Diesel in this, but that might be outside of my budget.

But before I pull up to any shop and ask, I thought I'd start here first...
1) given that I like my tahoe and it certainly has more than paid for itself....am I just throwing good money away by considering this route?...is thinking 10k-15K about right for something like this?

2) if not; what is a good approach to going about this; find my own motor and trans for a shop to install?

3) if I upgrade to 6.0 or 6.2, I'm assuming many of the bolt-on from the 5.3 won't fit/work, correct?

4)Staying with thought 6.0 or 6.2, will I need to a new rear end, torque convertor etc..?

Thanks in advance for all my questions...as you can see I'm still vetting if this is a reasonable route. Josh
*note- all the suspension, arms, shocks, etc were just recently replaced about 10k-20k miles ago.

 

[Joseph Garcia]

If the rest of the truck is in as good a condition as the photo (you've already replaced the suspension components), I'd certainly consider replacing the motor and keeping the truck.

I believe that you could put a 6.2L rotor into it with minimal issues, BUT, I will leave it to the experts on this Forum who have done this work, to advise you in greater detail on your question.

 

[m1949]

As I'm in the process of replacing the engine in my 06 Escalade, which I bought to rebuild, I prefer the environmental awareness route (LOL) of doing an engine swap. Two ways to go, perhaps three. You can go the salvage yard route and find a 6 or 6.2 with decent miles. Advantage there is cost and minimal labor. If you get it with the ecm its pretty much drop-in, plug and play. Another route is to buy a GM performance engine, which is what I did. It too is pretty painless. The LS364/450HP is a rebuilt 6.0L LQ9 with LS3 heads and a LS6 cam circa 02-04 Corvette. You'll need a different manifold for the rectangular ports and new efi rails and injectors for better pressure. I went with a new truck manifold but if you can find a manifold from a 6.0L TBSS it will give you better performance. The engine is set up to run with your existing ecm. I bought mine from a local Chevy dealer for around $5,600 including a new manifold fuel rail, injectors, coil packs and spark plugs. Summit racing sells them at a competitive price. They will set up the engine and even tune it before shipping it to you so all you need do is install the bolt-ons and drop it in. Jpeg also offers the same engine at a decent price. As for the trans, my Esky came with a 4L65E that was working fine, so I had it rebuilt. Cost me $1350, but that's N. AL prices. The third option is to see what is available from here. I think I saw a 5.3 someone has for sale. Utube has a bunch of videos of the LS364/450HP.