Goat 5.3

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

It is rubber mounted actually and I just like things out of the way I guess. I hadn't seen anyone else do it so I thought I would try.

New issue - I got the engine to start for about 1 second today. It's quite loud but then again I've only got headers on there right now. I can get it to fire when it first cranks every time but then it just dies on me after about a second, even if I hold the ignition to the start position. Any ideas?
 
Last edited:
Just got the firing problem figured out. As it turns out, the wire coming off the harness that goes to the fuel pump isn't enough to power the fuel pump, only enough to energize a relay which then powers the fuel pump. I guess I need another relay.
 
Last edited:
Finished... or is it ever.

Well, I'm mostly finished. My oil pan is still pretty close to the diff so now I need to save some coin for an OME lift. The middle pic is showing where I mounted my oil pressure sender (the black cap inside the headers just below the spark plug as you see it in the pic). It is tapped into the bracket on the oil pan that would go to an oil cooler. The third pic is the after market tach install. I was gullible enough to think I could just stick it in there and wire it up to the tach signal wire from the new engine. Turns out you need to create a power up circuit with a separate power wire attached to a resistor then attached to the tach signal.
2010-05-21 23.06.11.webp
2010-05-21 23.07.05.webp
2010-05-21 23.06.36.webp
 
Next is the cross member which took me forever to get installed. It came from Advance Adapters and is mounted to an FJ60 tranny mount, mounted to the adapter from AA. Below that is a pic of the welded oil pan that had to be cut to give me clearance for the diff. I now have about 2 inches clearance and only had about 1/2 inch or so before the cut. As you can see, the front driveshaft is still not installed. It is getting modified to be more narrow because it is rubbing against the tranny oil pan. Lots of fabbing going on. The last pic (I know it's horrible quality) is of the throttle pedal install for the drive by wire. For anyone doing the drive by wire setup, I highly suggest you have the person wiring your harness for you to give you the 3 wires it takes to complete the cruise control. I'm going to have to dig for mine when I get the motivation.
2010-05-21 23.07.32.webp
2010-05-21 23.07.47.webp
2010-05-21 23.44.10.webp
 
Looks good. Do you have your engine up pretty far? When I set mine in I set it about an inch from the firewall and other than the driveshaft being close to the pan I have plenty of clearance. But I am still going back and installing the camaro pan for extra clearance at the front of the pan.
 
I have my engine up as high as it will go without doing a body lift. As for being forward, it probably could have moved back closer to the firewall, but the further back I put it the more the tunnel for the tcase moves down and causes me to have to tilt the motor towards the back, throwing off my pinion angle. I ended up making longer shackles for now, and moved the bump stops down, so I should be good until I can get a lift on it. I do have the camaro oil pan by the way. A hint for when you order the camaro pan, if it is like mine, you will actually have to use a Corvette oil filter which I believe is PH10060.

Just took it camping this weekend and kept getting a P0101 code when going up hills. Wouldn't set the code driving normally, but up hill climbs set it every time. Guess I need to start looking into my MAF sensor readings.
 
Last edited:
Looks good took mine out for a test drive yesterday and am thoroughly pleased with the tune and trans set up can't wait to get it on the freeway to see how she does pulling the boat or climbing the mountains around here that I use to have to stop every so often to let everything cool down.
 
Speaking of cooling down. I don't know what you are doing for a fan, but I'm just using the belt driven fan that came with the motor, no elec fans. I did notice on this last trip up into the mountains that the truck would overheat, but I don't have a fan shroud on it yet. I figured I would try without the shroud and see if I could sneak by, but it looks like that is yet another minor thing I have to get done before I can drive it hassle free.
 
Careful with your pull-up circuit. This can put an added load on the PCM and has been blamed for toasting them. With 03-07 PCMs there are internal pull-up circuits that can be enabled when tuning, so you get the proper output for the tach. I built a signal conditioner that prevents an extra load from being applied to the PCM. The diagram is here:

and its in the 5th page of my build thread https://forum.ih8mud.com/60-series-wagons/316476-phishincruisin-gets-vortec.html

Cooling related, I'm running the Contour fans with mine and it stays nice and cool. The computer controls the fans turning on and off, and I haven't been hot enough to kick the secondary fan on yet.
Are you running a steam vent line?
 
Yeah, I've been thinking about adding a diode to the tach signal going back to the pcm to make sure none of the power in the pull up circuit actually makes it back to the pcm. I've seen several people that have been running it this way for years though. I may be pushing my luck. I don't really care to run the electric fans, I'm just as happy with the belt driven one, not to mention that I was never given the wires from my programmer to hook them up electrically anyway. I'm sure I could fish them out of the pcm, but I'm fine just doing it the old mechanical way. It shouldn't be a problem getting a shroud in there. If it is, I may start evaluating other options, but I don't think it will be bad.

Are you meaning the line going from below the throttle body over to the center pass side of the radiator? If so, I plugged that line. It seems like that is what everyone has been doing with that line.
 
Thats the line I'm talking about. Some plug it, some don't. I recommend tying it into either your upper rad hose or your heater return line. If you plug it you should really be careful with filling your coolant and bleeding it to get all the air out of the heads. Having air in the heads can cause overheating as well, and the steam that builds really needs a way to escape.
To be completely honest, I think installing contour fans might be easier then installing a shroud and making it fit properly. My 5.3 runs cooler then the 2F ever did. Green 33 and blue 42 are high and low speed fans, respectively.
 
I am running both mechanical and single electric fan that I had in the garage. I wired mine up with a stand alone controller and a switch to turn it off manually, if have to hit a water crossing. But from the little bit I have driven mine I have not seen any overheating and that is even with the elec fan off. Like phishcruisen said make sure you bleed the cooling system really well.
 
Put the fan shroud on this weekend and went on a trip and sure enough the truck is still overheating. It does fine around town, but when I start getting up around 3k rpm on the highway the temp starts to rise. I keep throwing more coolant into the reservoir and it just sucks it back up. I've probably put 2 gallons in there. I'm really hoping this isn't a head gasket issue. I did notice that when I have the rad cap off and I start the truck it slowly starts to seep out the radiator. If I have the cap off and I press on the accelerator pedal it spews out. I don't know if it is just the water pump forcing it out or if that is exhaust doing it. I can pretty much keep it under control by turning on the heater, but that is not a long term solution. Any thoughts?
 
Take off the oil filler cap and look at the bottom. If there is a vaseline type substance, then you're getting coolant in the oil. Pull the dipstick, and look at the oil. Is it milky, foamy or unusually runny? Any of these are also signs of coolant in the oil. Finally, Autozone has free cooling system pressure testers. Pick one up, follow the directions, and see what the results are. Doing the test with the engine static and running will help diagnose where the leak is, if there is one. My .02 having just done all this on my 2F.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I like your truck.
 
Updates

Just wanted to give a quick update on the Goat now that I have been driving it for a while.

The overheating was largely due, I think, to a bad radiator cap. Still doesn't stay at a constant mark on the gauge like it should (and yes I have verified the actual temp), but is much better and never really makes it over the half mark, verified at 200 degrees, so I'm feeling ok about that.

The only real issue I have been chasing for the last month has been 3 DTC codes. P0101 (MAF Sensor),P0172 (Running rich),P0175 (running rich). I swapped my MAF sensor with Rover67's and the problem seems to have gone away. The funny thing is that it is the exact same MAF sensor, so I'm still a little stumped on that one.

My mpg so far has been around 12-14 with 19.2 being the best I have seen. My wife also allowed me to splurge and get a heavy OME set, so here's a pic of us actually enjoying the truck now.

I'll probably just keep updating this thread as I do stuff to the truck, so more to come... eventually.
IMG_20100702_194755.jpg
 
Last edited:
Let's do steam vent lines on our trucks.

also, I think we need to add the OEM filter boxes if we can fit them.

Looking good!!!
 
Yes, the steam lines would be great to get done, and the oem filter box would be great being that we are running at around 150 degrees on the intake air temp. Those and my axle rebuild will probably be my next fixes.
 
Glad to see you are getting it figured out. Been driving mine for a few weeks thankfully no codes yet and other than the lower radiator hose popping off the other day my temps mostly stay around 195-198 unless sitting in traffic and then only goes to 202. Even after the hose popped off and I lost some fluid the temp only got to 220. Next on mine will be rebuild the rearend and put the camro pan on. Pulled a pop up camper the other day and it was just fine.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom