Minor Upgrades Create Crazy Power on a Junkyard 5.3L Vortec - Engine Power S7, E10

when a junkyard engine makes crazy horse power in the dyno cell there's only one thing you can say holy welcome to engine power where engine tech and real-world dyno numbers go hand in hand this season has been filled with awesome builds they include a 292 inch inline 6 with artificial atmosphere a stroke small-block Chevy with a big blower a big inch EFI and the list will grow as we continue pumping out these shows for you this engine is going to receive a totally different approach than the ones we just mentioned they had a lot of new parts in a pretty big price tag now this is a Vortec 5300 LM 7 LS engine it has an iron block aluminum heads and it was introduced in 1999 now this engine is known as the garden variety of the gen threes when introduced the LM 7 produced 270 horsepower and 315 pound-feet of torque through its production years it increased in both the horsepower and torque Department's the final gen 3 l m7 made 295 horsepower and 335 pound feet of torque now the camshaft is very small duration at 50 thousandths lift is 190 on the intake and 191 on the exhaust lift at the valve with a 1/7 ratio rocker arm is 466 thousands and 457 thousands and it has a 114 degrees low beam angle this engine was pulled out of a Silverado that met its end with a hard front-end collision we were told it was a good runner with no known issues instead of just cleaning it up and dropping it in a project wouldn't you want to know its condition especially if you wanted to run efficiently for any amount of time this project is getting the badge name low buck for tech and it's for good reason we're going to tear this engine down thoroughly clean all the parts do some block upgrades and spice up the oiling system including the oil pump then the entire engine is going back together with minimal new parts now there's some cool things we're going to show you that will allow us to take this little 325 cubic inch engine to the next level and make it a bracket racer or a little Street strip bullet when this engine was pulled pretty much everything was left intact we won't need several parts and pieces like the wiring harness so it will go first the factory connectors are easy to remove simply press on the retaining tab and pull the connector coil packs are an important component to hold on to they aren't expensive to replace look at their look at the couple leaves yeah now this was a runner typical looking intake runner and well that's why we're taking it apart and clean I mean other than it's being dirty if it ran it'll run again that's right we're going for power numbers so we definitely won't need the power robbing accessory drive plus it was a little damaged during the collision now there are several components that make it up they range from the water pump power steering pump AC compressor idler and tensioner pulleys the alternator and balancer the exhaust manifolds are cast-iron we will be using a set of dyno headers later so these go in the scrap bin this now gives us a good look at the outside of the engine and I must say it's definitely had some issues leaking around the seams but that really doesn't bother us because it's easy to fix oil leaks on an LS because the way the gaskets are designed there is some truth to the saying it's all in the pan will there be bearing material foreign matter or even heavy sludge due to lack of oil changes we are gonna find out right now well for as many miles as they say it's on it typical LS pan typical LS or some little chunky just build up down here just like in the corners of the pan like typical yeah but I mean until they weren't very religious on changing the oil right they knew when they got to three four thousand miles over well clean and reuse absolutely so far so okay any high mileage well used engine is gonna be a little dirty you can never really tell what's going on until you tear into it man see the corrosion down in here mmm no one looks brand new that's what makes these covers hard to get off and usually rip that seal there we go ripping but look the one that looked good ripped off don't look good rip yeah for the sake of your spark plugs and your engine always loosen the spark plugs by hand before power tools go on them the valvetrain looks decent until we take a look at the push rods the one on the right is in great shape but the one on the left reveals a heavy wear pattern with lots of metal worn off the ball end the wear pattern is even more pronounced on the rocker alright let's see what happens over here yep same thing one right there okay this is the exact reason why you tear an engine apart very slowly and look at everything because this will tell you that you have an issue the cylinder head bolts tell a story as well they are a little on the loose side which makes us think this engine may have gotten overheated at one point look at that there's no prob way yeah if there's no breakaway on that how about that that was running or was it or was it see that that you never know never know for getting the truth there are still quite a bit of cross hatching on the cylinder walls that's a good sign that this engine was taken care of to some point as we dig into this more tech we keep getting hit in the face by the smell of old burn oil like any high mileage engine this one has its wear and tear whether or not this was a runner we're certainly gonna make it one up next with just a couple of hand tools and a little bit of time your engine can run its best we'll show you how why is it important to balance your engine the answer is in today's tech tip balancing an engine minimizes vibration helping the engine run smoother maximizing engine life balance ringing requires offsetting the weight of pistons and rods by adding or removing weight from the crankshaft an engine can be balanced internally externally or a combination of both an internally balanced engine only has modifications to the crankshaft external parts like a balancer and flex plate flywheel have a neutral balance so they won't affect other rotating parts if the cranks counterweights are too light the engine must be externally balanced this involves adding weight to the home on it balancer and/or flex plate or flywheel generally speaking internal balance is the better option external counter weights can cause the crankshaft to flex at high rpms which can cause engine damage however either type of balance is fine for most engines we're continuing on the teardown of the 5.3 liter Vortech it's looking pretty good for the most part like a decent running high mileage engine a lot of this stuff looks kind of nasty but it will clean up I think okay nicely done oh yeah very looks good or not we need to go old Pat sorry about that [Music] it's crucial to label parts as you're disassembling any engine everything needs to go back exactly where it came from this is why I'm very interested yes this is the go-to moment dude what the heck high mileage LS and the bearings look new Wow there's still a little bit of coating on the skirt and I wear protection in that that's unbelievable and the bearings still has a little bit of crush so I gotta wear some places it really looks like an engine with a hundred thousand-plus miles like the groove behind the main bearing a thorough cleaning in the jet washer will knock off years worth of grime we will run ours at 150 degrees for an hour or so with all the heavy stuff removed we'll sand all the gasket services with a hundred and eighty grit sandpaper we're just cleaning the surface not removing material on the deck we'll use a flat long bar to send evenly across the entire surface keeping with a budget theme we are just going to ball hone the cylinders this hone is 320 grit for going easy on the cylinder finish first lube the cylinders with some 10w30 and get going we'll do roughly 20 strokes per cylinder making sure not to stop in one place while the drill is running keep the drill at moderate speed and try to achieve around a 40 degree crosshatch angle now we're left with a reconditioned surface that should help seal up our ring package we just finished washing the oil pump that came out of our budget 5.3 so now it's time to do some budget tech on the pump itself now these steps are going to improve the pumps lubrication pressure as well as the longevity even though it's a use pump now the first thing we're going to do is go inside the housing remove the sharp edges where the oil flows on the inlet and outlet side being careful not to touch the area where the o-ring seals for the pickup we'll also take the G rotor gears and dimple every single one of the lobes now this will create a pocket of oil between the gear and the actual thrust plate last we're gonna shim the spring to increase the pressure about 78 to 80 mm let's get started we'll start with a die grinder with a carbide burr the goal is to smooth out any sharp transitions in the casting go slowly and use a light touch we're just softening the edges and a heavy hand can do big damage fast next we'll drop on a cartridge roll to smooth everything out now we have an OEM pump that flows more like an aftermarket one the only cost was a few tools and a little bit of time to dimple the G rotors we'll start with a center punch to help guide the drill bit then we'll use a 3/16 bit to make the first pass followed by a quarter inch bit so now that we have the gear dimpled we're going to go ahead and sand it down because you don't want any of the high spots to catch the front of the thrust plate so with a little flat surface some sandpaper a little penetrating oil will knock the edges right off now go ahead and keep sanding this with the 500 grit sandpaper until the center stays black and quits coming off with the gray that way we know the edge is knocked off that's good use plenty of assembly grease when rebuilding the oil pump once the G rotors are in place and lubricated secure the cover and use Permatex blue thread Locker on the fasteners we like the gel formula because it stays in place on the threads the bypass and spring drop back into place we'll use a couple of washers to shim the spring this will increase the spring tension which will hold the bypass closed longer therefore increasing the oil pressure in the pump coming up the Vortech gets buttoned up then beat on in the dyno so the whole premise of this motor is to see how much power we can make even with a power adder but one of the things you want to do is take it apart like we've been doing now here's one little step into us it's kind of one of the most important especially if you're going to add a blower or nitrous or even turbos and that is ring gap so what we're going to do is we're going to remove the top end second ring place them in the bores individually and see what they gap at right now just out of the engine our biggest gap is 30 thousands on the top end second so we're gonna try to get everything to meet that spec simply place the ring into the cylinder and use the ring squaring tool then measure the gap out of all of the rings we only had one gap that was tighter than 30,000 check now Jedi Rama door was that it was no well I have a gauge here but you said five so I went dead dead on five there's a thirty ready hmm nice theory imagine that next up the crank gets a light polish with our Goodson crankshaft polishing tool both the main and rod journals are in fantastic shape we didn't use a gritted belt at all just the cork belt the result a smooth shiny clean surface will give the engine another pass in the jet water and begin assembly one of the few new parts were installing on this engine is a set of main bearings the cost is under $80 and since the old bearings look kind of rough it was well worth the expense as always we'll check main bearing clearance for all of the bearings it varied between twenty and twenty to ten thousands excellent before installing the rod and piston assemblies lube the cylinders with brake and oil will also lube the wrist pins as well as the Rings [Music] using a ring compressor they are gently tapped into place [Music] the fasteners are torqued to 15 pound feet then 85 degrees on our Metco half inch drive digital torque and angle meter we wanted to do something a little bit different on the paint job and we think this color does the trick nicely it's Detroit Diesel Alpine green we replace the stock cam with a cam motion ls1 Stage three hydraulic roller this is a mild performance cam that still works with stock components the oil pump is shimmed in three places on the gear using one and a half thousand shims this ensures proper alignment when tightened down since the stock belly plate was in really bad shape we decided to use an ICT valley plate instead the cylinder heads were installed with new stock torque to yield fasteners and torque to 22 pound feet initially then we used a torque angle meter to tighten the fasteners two rounds of 90 degrees finishing out the build is the valvetrain oil pan and one more aftermarket piece a Holley dual plane intake manifold any experienced welder knows that service prep is the foundation for a great weld for any industries makes that job easier with a full line of abrasives for welding and bodywork their two-inch and 3-inch surface prep pads fit easily into tight spaces and they're the perfect size for stripping and cleaning just the right amount of material to lay down a clean bead the pads are available in coarse medium and fine finishes and the attached to four knees roll lock vacuum ped for secure fit and quick changes from cutting and grinding to sanding and buffing there are literally hundreds of products to choose from visit Forney ind comm to learn more Rock auto comm slogan is all the parts your car will ever need their inventory is impressive and so are their prices plus they have a selection of wholesaler closeout parts with even deeper discounts to see these parts simply choose your vehicle then click on the orange RSS button next to your car's engine size then look in the upper right hand corner and click the RSS button next to love a bargain now you can browse a list of wholesaler closeout parts available for your vehicle the closeout price is limited to stock on hand so be sure and check out rockauto.com up next sometimes the engine does what you think it will in the dyno cell but sometimes oh I saw some big numbers dude we're almost ready to fire up the Vortech but first we need to install some electronic components we're using a selection of sensors from Duralast they offer thousands of om quality or better parts for almost any vehicle on the road today Duralast products are rigorously tested for performance and reliability and they are a top choice of professional auto shops first is the coolant temperature sensor followed by the cam sensor depending on your application the cam sensor can be in the front or the back of the engine finishing out is a 24 to three lock dirt crank sensor all right on our budget extravaganza here this engine requires zero break-in so go from three to six and make a hit here we go [Applause] [Music] that is used rings used rod bearings used rod bolts 337 351 pound-feet of torque nice bone stock heads bone stock I mean it doesn't get any dual plane manifold this is the cheapest you can get one of these things running right you can put injection on it but you have to you have much more sensors much more wiring much more messing around with it this is as cheap as you get this thing going 3:46 at 6,000 yep 355 CS trying to tail off now yeah oh yeah definitely in two hundred rpms it drops six so now here's the thing we did this to show everybody how they could get a junkyard engine do a little tech to it and put a power adder on right again I guess the power adder is nitrous and again you know how I am a naturally aspirated guy this is a good way to do it though it really is because this is the cheapest you can do it to make the most power you can bang for the buck so on stick that plants do it we're running a holley sniper nitrous system which has a range of 150 to 250 horsepower depending on the size of the jet so 63 jets on fuel and nitrous yep this 150 150 okay sniper kid three to six thousand six hundred a second it is alright I'm arming it alright oh I saw some big numbers dude no wait a minute holy crap 724 pound-feet of torque 564 horsepower for 150 shot alright this thing made 347 n/a 217 for god bless get the torque that's the right jet 6363 i triple-checked them Wow yep 724 pound-feet of torque now it was probably higher because we loaded it okay oh my god oh yeah it definitely was higher because we loaded it the brake caught it brought it down a hair and then it took off so on our hundred fifty thousand mile we reused pretty much everything engine I think we flirted with disaster right there but we won we want to fit late this time we won all right nice nice nice we made a lot of horsepower but we didn't spend a lot of money the engine was five hundred bucks a set of main bearings was 80 bucks cam lifters and timing chain were $650 the valley cover was $40 the intake manifold ran us $300 the gasket set two hundred ten bucks push rods worth $30 five rocker arms for $90 finally the nitrous kit was five hundred seventy dollars a total of twenty four hundred seventy dollars that's four dollars 38 cents per horsepower and three dollars 41 cents per pound foot of torque very impressive for more information on anything you've seen today there's a powernation tv.com you [Music]

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 2,425,649

Rating: 4.8679538 out of 5

Keywords: Car, PowerNation, howto, how-to, diy, automotive, cars, trucks, automobile, do it yourself, automobiles, auto, engine build, vortec, budget, low cost, 5.3L, horsepower, ls swap, ls engine, junkyard, junkyard engine, Engine Building

Id: oOGoqwDw5Xw

Length: 21min 33sec (1293 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 28 2020