New Heart Same Soul

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Well, here is what I ended up doing. A friend was able to help me out and turn the spacer I needed. thanks a billion Bruce :)

I figured out how big the spacer needed to be by not only checking to see how much engagement the input shaft had with the pilot bearing, but also looking at how close the pilot bearing was to hitting the clutch friction disk hub when it was all assembled. I ended up with about .125" clearance from the clutch hub to the pilot bearing and the pilot bearing spaced out .421". That put the input shaft fully engaging the bearing at least.

I then spaced out the input spud shaft to take up the rest of the slack.... Now in total I have about 0.100" of slop on the input spud shaft and almost full spline engagement with the tranny input shaft.

Anyways, I hope that all makes sense... here is a CAD mockup of how it ended up not using the input shaft spacer, a picture of the bearing installed, and the drawing of the spacer... Drawing is just for guidance, don't quote me on it... you need to measure your setup to make sure it would work...
pilot_spacer_cad_new.webp
pilot_spacer.webp
spacer_drawing.webp
 
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You probably read it in the other thread about the H55f sst's but I wanted to make a note here as well....

Got the clutch and tranny all back in it and it works great. The clutch always made a weird noise and it's gone. I also like the feel of the LUK clutch, seems to be a nice setup. I'll have to put some more miles on it to see how it's really doing, but I think overall the new setup is a big improvement.
 
Are you using a stockish flywheel or the flywheel that is spaced out .400" I would assume stockish since you were almost running into your clutch disc with the pilot shimmed out. It looks as though your spacer moved your pilot bearing out .421" away from the crank, and you moved your spud shaft too? Wouldn't that suggest that the marks kit would be missing engagement of the spud shaft and pilot bearing even with a standard SBC?
What is this .100" of slop on the input spud shaft that you mention?
 
Yes, the Flywheel bolts right to the crank on my setup.

You are right though, If I spaced it out I would have alleviated the issue of the pilot hitting the clutch when designing the spacer. I saw that there were lots of spacers out there for the flywheel (for flex plates on these engines I think) but I chose not to run one. It seemed like a weird setup especially if it spaced the flywheel out past the boss on the crank which was only sticking out like 3/16" or so. the flywheel seemed hub centric.

Maybe I got the wrong flywheel for it initially though. There might be some that are spaced out more, this was "supposed" to be a flywheel specifically for the 5.3. Actually, I remember having that conversation specifically when I bought it.... i dunno. I bet you a million bucks I have the wrong one.

Anyways, putting all that aside, after spacing the pilot out as much as I could there was still slop back and forth on the spud shaft.... So, I dropped a small spacer that measured about .200" into the spud shaft before sticking it on. That left me with a total amount of "slop" in the spud shaft of like .100"

I wasn't *too* worried about sticking the spacer in the spud shaft because it still had really good engagement on the input shaft.

So, my pilot came out .421" and I moved the spud shaft .200" and I have .100" freeplay.

So, total gap is .721" and my spud shaft was .621" short.

Cranks on the 5.3 are recessed .400" from what I read.

.621" - .400" = .221"

.221 "+ my .100" slop would be the slop in a stock 350? .321"?

Maybe they run that much slop so they can keep it more universal of a design? I need to check and see how long the tip is on the spud shaft, but I think that the spud would still have engagement in the pilot.

Check my logic/math.. I probably missed something.

Yeah it'd seem like it wouldn't fit a 350.. but maye I'm missing something.



But, it is success...



Is shifts a whole lot easier now... actually I think that that's how I wore my 3rd" and 4th gear syncros. Also, it goes into reverse a lot easier than before... before it took a while for the tranny to spin down, not it stops moving fast. That tells me the friction disk was dragging some before. I bet it was since it was just hanging on the input shaft about 12" from the front bearing on the tranny.
 
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I was in the front grill doing some work on the power steering cooler, so I snapped a pic of the 10" pusher fan that comes on with the AC. Hopefully this answers some questions about how it is mounted..
photo 1.webp
photo 2.webp
 
rover67 said:
Finally got around to some videos. It's probably pretty boring.

Last one was kind busy with filming and driving. I was in third getting close to the top.

#1 http://youtu.be/1Bc0A7nhuDA

#2 http://youtu.be/_1EE3EOEcMs

#3 http://youtu.be/tqERT5yv1kI

#4 http://youtu.be/hBMWHyY1m3Q

The swap has a bit over 100k miles now. A few weeks ago I towed a Subaru outback on a car dolly from u-haul back from Salina to Colorado and averaged 9.5 MPG going 75-80MPH in 5th gear.
Click to expand...

Nice scenery!

I similarly towed a es300 on a dolly and got about the same milage (13 mpg going at 65mph, 10 mpg on the way home at 75mph).

I wager my horse is tad lighter though.

:beer:
 
Nice! I like it good work I just buzzed your whole thread. I could never go back to my 2f!
 
Yep, it's right. That's a normal day in the mountains for me. Usually coming up to the Eisenhower Tunnel heading eastbound it's the same story. It takes some work to hold 80 near the top, basically at 6k on the mat. Going 70 changes everything. it's more of a 4th gear affair in that case with lower r's.

Anyways 80mph cresting the hill at the divide is basically as fast as it'll go..usually there's traffic and to go faster I'd have to get a run on it. Over vail pass it'll go faster, but usually there are cops up there.

I really like the motor, it seems to like it at 5-6k. Raising the redline to 6k was great for it since it seems like I spend a lot of time up there.
 
Hey Rover, I am in Pueblo and just read through your whole thread, very clean and impressive install. I dont get up to the Denver/Boulder ared often but If I do could I stop by and take a look?
 
Glad to see the 5.3 is still hanging in there.
 
rover67 said:
Yep, it's right. That's a normal day in the mountains for me. Usually coming up to the Eisenhower Tunnel heading eastbound it's the same story. It takes some work to hold 80 near the top, basically at 6k on the mat. Going 70 changes everything. it's more of a 4th gear affair in that case with lower r's.

Anyways 80mph cresting the hill at the divide is basically as fast as it'll go..usually there's traffic and to go faster I'd have to get a run on it. Over vail pass it'll go faster, but usually there are cops up there.

I really like the motor, it seems to like it at 5-6k. Raising the redline to 6k was great for it since it seems like I spend a lot of time up there.
Click to expand...

Hey Rover,

Is your motor stock, or has it had head work, etc?? I have read that it is best to stay under 5k to avoid valve float (w/ stock heads at least).

Also can you post pictures of how you routed A/C related hoses, dryer etc??

Thanks
 
It has competition cams springs and pushrods in it. The motor bent a few valves the first time I took it out after the swap was complete so when i pulled the heads to rebuild them I stuck slightly upgraded stuff in.

BUT, I was under the impression that stock components on a truck motor could go to about 6k with no issues. You may want to research it.

AC drier is in the stock location and lines are pretty much in stock locations also, just going to the GM AC compressor. I'll look for some pictures.
 
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Brake Booster Check valve. Kinda never did one of those. The V8 held vacuum in the manifold for a few seconds after the motor shut off so it worked OK. Only got scary when the motor dies on big stuff. So, with the impending yearly pilgrimage to Moab I decided to install one.

Wouldn't ya know it's a $9 part from my friendly GM dealer.

GM 20861501 Power Brake Booster Vacuum Check Valve

It's got two 3/8" hose barbs on it and is stocked everywhere due to the fact that it was part of a service campaign.

I'm not sure if the manifold for the 5.3 was supposed to have a check valve (NAPA didn't show one) and I don't remember where it was on the 2F, so I did this.
 
rover67 said:
Brake Booster Check valve. Kinda never did one of those. The V8 held vacuum in the manifold for a few seconds after the motor shut off so it worked OK. Only got scary when the motor dies on big stuff. So, with the impending yearly pilgrimage to Moab I decided to install one.

Wouldn't ya know it's a $9 part from my friendly GM dealer.

GM 20861501 Power Brake Booster Vacuum Check Valve

It's got two 3/8" hose barbs on it and is stocked everywhere due to the fact that it was part of a service campaign.

I'm not sure if the manifold for the 5.3 was supposed to have a check valve (NAPA didn't show one) and I don't remember where it was on the 2F, so I did this.
Click to expand...
I need to do the same thing....on the booster check valve.
 
Awesome thread marco. I have close to 20k miles on my swap now and it still runs fantastic. I think the 60s and 80s were made to have a vortec motor in them. :popcorn:

At any rate, I wonder if the booster check valve is a good move for me. I don't have one currently. When I got my 5.3 from the recycler, it had the entire vacuum hose attached, including the little part that plugs into the vortec truck brake booster. There was no check valve in place. I just connected it up and never worried about it again.


Also, on your tach, did you try using the dakota digital adapter? It works with the 80 tach after setting the tach signal using HP tuners to 6. I sometimes get a little twitch from the tach, but it's accurate when compared to what the scan gauge and hp tuners shows.

gotta get together to compare swaps. :cheers:

Corey
 
I didn't try the dakota digital adapter, I went with an autometer adapter that takes the signal off of the coil power wires. This was before folks knew a whole lot about it (I didn't know about pull-up resistors, or modding tach signals in HP Tuners) so I went with what I could find would work at the time. The adapter is pretty much integrated into the harness so it's gonna stay.

Since then I learned there are easier ways to do it and wish I had done it simpler to make it less cluttered. It was especially frustrating to learn that you could mod the tach signal with HP tuners especially since I have it and have used it a bunch.

As far as the check valve goes i didn't run one for the last 100+k miles and it works ok, it only got kinda interesting when the motor stalled on BIG obstacles. Now I get three pedal pushed with boost after the motor is shut off. I'd add one if I were you.

maybe the chevy boosters had an internal check valve?
 
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