the 5.3 has landed
 

Well finally got my hands on a 5.3 ls style motor for my 98 blazer. Plan to have it in in a week or two.If anybody has any info or advice on the install, im all ears. It should be a pretty gravy swap for the most part. Complete motor with harness and computer.Ive done a few swaps in other style vehicles but not and s10 blazer body style.going to be fun. once the power feeling wears off itll be ggetting a turbo setup tee hee.
Will post pics soon.

Good luck with that engine swap. Please keep up posted on how it goes. In the meantime you may want to look at this place for some transmission upgrades as you are prob gonna mow thru that stock 4L60E pretty fast.

Here is the link for some nice upgrades: Click here

I would by the kit from JTR. They have the motor mounts you need along with the headers. I dont think any other headers will fit. http://www.jagsthatrun.com/

There is actually quite a few manufacturers that are making the swap headers for my app. and i plan on just welding me up some brackets..they are really simple.

Decided to do a lil cleaning and painting on the valve covers..forgot to take a before shot..they were coroded and dirty beforehand..

After seeing how well the valve covers turned out i started on the intake...was never big on the big honkin vortec cover that comes on these...this was the gawdy square cover.

I seen another post that had one of these intakes shaven down and smoothed and looked pretty good..but still had the ugly frankenstein plugs on each side...so i decided to take it a step further and am very happy with the results.

The member Xtremechubs put a 5.3 in his Blazer. His build thread might be worth looking at.. https://blazerforum.com/forum/builds-48/2002-xtreme-v8-ls-swap-34022/

After grinding all the ribs and mounting points off i cut some sheetmetal up and got the torch out. I formed the sheetmetal accordingly and the proceeded to heat them up while in position over the holes and slowly pressed them into the plastic...just enough for the plastic to overlap the metal and lock it in place.

i ran across that one last week...very informative thread...gave me allot of insight on the mods coming up..

I thought it would look weird smoothed across the top and not behind the tb... so i cut another peice of sheetmetal to fill this void.

After making sure all plates were recessed and secure , i added some filler and then got some paint on it..oh yeah, i also cut one of the three throtle cable bracket supports off to clean the top up some more.

After my wife getting rearended in the blazer new years and me getting over being hungover...
I painted the waterpump pulleys and balancer and...I finally got the 4.3 out of the blazer tonight...MAN those bellhousing bolts were hard to get to. I literally worked on it all day yesterday and today trying to get it out. Im just use to bigger cars like chevelles and firebirds lol.

some more pics and took some comparison pics of the 5.3 vs 4.3

I noticed the 5.3 flexplate actually dips in towards the center..funnel like.. and of course the 4.3 looks like a standard sbc flexplate. Also measured the converter holes and looks to be 1/4 inch wider spacing compared to the 4.3. so new holes wll be mandatory.

Also here is the 4.3 manifold versus the 2000 ls1 manifolds i picked up.I took a rough measurement of the 5.3 with the 2000 ls1 manifold on the driverside and compared it to the 4.3 with manifold and its almost 2"wider...i can definitely see why there is the clearance issue with steering shaft.. lots of cutting welding and grinding tomorrow. Going to try to knockout the manifolds and frame notching for the pan and ac compressor tomorrow after work.
Also most of the sensors are swappable on the motors.

Sounds like a fun day ahead of you tomorrow! Good progress man, just take it one bolt at a time. Great project though, I wish I could afford to do the same swap.

Got a little more done last night. I ran across this website that is a huge help on the wiring conversion for the do-it-yoursefer.
http://www.lt1swap.com/2000harness.htm

Well Motor will be going in tonight..of course its taken a little longer than expected but what swap doesnt lol. Got the frame notched last night for compressor and ran outta welding wire. So i still got the crossmember to do. After i get her dropped in place im going to splice in the wiring.
Pics coming soon.