Project “Polar Bear”: 1989 V2500 Suburban

[Larry]

Thumbs up. How many days is the time elapse over?

Hey Marcus! The time lapse was taken over 2 weeks and was pain in the friggen *** to make. GoPro has some major issues with their software as it took me 4 evenings to make that damn thing. I got to give GoPro's help line a lot of credit though… a really nice chick named Maria was more than helpful in trying to figure out the issue via phone and email. Probably the best customer service I experienced over this entire project so far has been GoPro. Who would have thought GoPro of all companies would be the big winner in customer service on an engine swap project!???

Well….the swap is done, she runs but has some teething issues as to be expected with a major repower project.

Current issues as of this evening.

1) TPS issue is fixed. I had two TPS codes and she was really running like dog meat once you tip into the throttle. I ran though GM Strategy Based Diagnostics for the P0122 and P1122 codes and found the new TPS I got off EBay was defective. A quick run into town for a new Napa TPS fixed that issue.

2) ECM needs some tuning badly to accommodate the RayLar cam. She runs like crap and the fuel trims are all maxed out at 25 while the ECM tries to compensate for the cam. It does not have any codes…. In speaking to Larry at RayLar that is indicative of needing a tune to accommodate the cam. Kinda bums me out as I was under the impression this cam was smaller and worked with a stockish tune. Ah, nope. Speaking of nope….she does have a pretty nice cam lope and perhaps more lope than I wanted in a quazi daily driver SUV. We'll see once it gets a decent tune.

3) Still waiting on a new Spectra Premium CU774 4 core radiator. I ordered one from Pepboys EBay store on 2-14. It arrived 2-20 via FedEx Ground all beat to hell. The lower radiator snout was bent, twisted and shoved into the tank. Got the run around from Pepboy's several weeks and finally told them to stick it up there *** and got my money back then reordered from a different EBay store. The next one arrived 3-19 via UPS in the same condition. Lower rad hose snout bent and shoved into the tank. It is obvious Spectra is doing a less than sterling job of packing their radiators. There is a replacement on the way to me directly from Spectra in Canada now but don't have an ETA as to when it will arrive. I have my doubts it will be in much better shape. We'll see!

4) Because of the radiator debacle above I threw the little 5.7L radiator in it just to be able to run it on the car trailer to get over to the exhaust shop but it will not run more than 10 minutes or so and gets hotter than hell. I am fairly certain that issue is a rag I stuck in the old radiator when I pulled it out to keep it from leaking on the floor. I guess I forgot to pull it out when I decided to reuse it. Where ever it is stuck in the radiator it is preventing cross flow as one side of the rad is hot and the other is cold. I pulled the upper hose off of the engine and spun the water pump which it flowed great so I am not concerned that the flow issue is in the engine itself. It has to be the radiator.

5) Lastly and she is pumping oil out of the bell housing like the BP Deep Water Horizon. It's either the rear main seal or Cam plug and I'm betting cam plug. I was nervous I did a sucktastic job installing it and I suspect that is the case. So….the NV4500 is coming out in the next week or so to see ****** is going on. The good in this is the fact this NV4500 has a 5th gear synchro problem where it won't accept 5th gear until it gets pretty high RPM's. So since it needs to come out I'll send it to my guy to have fixed up. The other good news is this NV4500/241 pop out quick and easy just due to the exhaust configuration. I bet I can have it on the floor in under and hour unlike the K10 with the NV4500/205 and its particular exhaust configuration requires at least 4 hours go get out.

On to the story….

I started prepping the 5.7L for removal on the afternoon of the February 25th. The 8.1L was ready to start about 1 AM on March 12th but I was missing the new 4 core radiator and a few air induction pieces. In all reality, 2 weeks for the swap working from 9 PM to midnight and a few afternoons was pretty quick. Had the issues not came up it would have been a nice record. The K10 had some major teething issues 7 years ago when it when through this same surgery.

Gutless 3fidy before plucking!

Mileage at swap time for future reference. 142,063 Not sure how many miles the old 5.7L had on it but I don't think it was more than 50K as looks like a GM service replacement engine.

 

[Larry]

Off to the races!

Flywheel PN, pilot bearing and Crank sensors location for future reference

With clutch and pressure plate and oil sending unit pig tail

On the driver's side of the engine the center bolt boss needs to be carved down for engine mount saddle clearance. I did not grab a picture of this during the K10 8.1L swap so here ya'll go…

After

After ORD HD engine crossmember install. The 8.1L will not fit a square body GM 4x4 truck with the stock engine xmember due to oil pan clearance. I suppose you could be a hack and cut chunks out of the OEM xmember but that would be pretty crude.

This is a comparo pic of the stock '89 Suburban TBI underhood engine harness (Right) vs. a reworked '89 Suburban underhood engine harness with all of the TBI circuits removed (Left). I had the luxury of having an extra harness so I didn't have to chop up my stock harness that way I could sell the old harness along with the old 5.7L. Basically, everything on the right is the old brains of the TBI 5.7L

I scored a nice rubber plug from McMaster-Carr to plug the hole in the firewall where the old TBI harness ran into the cab to the ECM.

Then sprayed a heavy layer of undercoating over the plug to match the OEM undercoating. Even made sure it was all clumpy and runny just like some 1980's UAW flunky did it. Looks stock! :sombrero:

Ah! This was on a COLD snowy night in February.

Ah..HA!

Very weird. So when I did the 8.1L swap into the K10 the #5 coil pack cleared the brake vacuum booster where I didn't convert the K10 to hydroboost for a couple years after the 8.1L swap. On the Burb, the #5 coil pack would NOT clear the brake booster at all so I was pushed into doing the hydroboost swap now. Hydroboost was in the plan for the Burb but I didn't plan to do it on this round. Oh, well…it has it now!

RayLar spark plug wires with ceramic boots. An absolute MUST if running an 8.1L on headers. Very nice quality!

Hmmm, sexy!

 

[Larry]

Double checking circuits before I throw the reworked '89 underhood harness on. A good wiring diagram like factory GM manuals are a must.

Um, ya…. For a while I had every tote of my GM truck harness hord opened for the sake of using ONLY factory GM connectors and wires with the proper color coding on extensions, etc. Call me anal but at least of if I ever die someone with GM logic can work on this thing.

Then it was time to start on the Howell Engine Development stand-a-lone harness. I want to be clear on this….I am a huge fan of Howell but keep in mind their harnesses are “UNIVERSAL” harnesses which most people may drop on an engine and be good with. I wanted circuits routed in certain locations and in a cleaner fashion so I ended up spending about 4 hours opening and reworking/rerouting circuits to lay the way I wanted them to go. Next time I order a Howell harness for a project I will request they do not tape their split loom unions so it is easier to open to tweak for personalized fitment.

After the engine harness was roughed in it was time to drop the fuel tank and remove the low fuel pressure TBI fuel pump (12 psi) to a higher PSI pump (60+ psi) EP381 pump

Once I dropped the tank it was a rat's nest…..literally

After the new EP381 and sock were installed on the stock 1989 fuel sending unit

In process pic….roughing in the power wires to the passenger's side mounted ECM

Dropping her off at the exhaust shop for new plumbing. It ran at this point but now well. 8.1L Silverado towing an 8.1L Suburban. 16.2L's of awesome GASOLINE power!

Home from the exhaust shop. They made me a really nice new y-pipe with O2 bungs

This will probably be something to upgrade later but due to budget constraints I had them just connect the new Y-pipe to the existing old exhaust which is a single pipe where the old cat converter lived at one time then into a single inlet/dual outlet Flowmaster. It sounds pretty good put pretty poppy with the way the ECM is currently tuned. I'll revisit the exhaust later but at least now I can hear myself think to run it enough to work out the bugs.

How she sits at this very moment.. She still needs A/C lines built, final ECM wiring/routing, missing some air induction pieces and the radiator/fan shroud still need to be installed whenever the Canuk radiator shows up.

Look at that piss-ant radiator and no fan shroud….errr

On to the videos…

Initial fire up. Pretty uneventful fireup. Started much easier and quicker than expected. After it didn't fire on the second crank I had to double check the fuel pressure. The GoPro battery died while bleeding the power steering/hydrobooster

Loading it up on the trailer headed to the exhaust shop. Running pretty crappy with the O2's swinging loose, TPS inop and mistuned ECM

That's it for now. Got my work cut out for me to address the little bugs. More as things happen.

 

[Bojak]

Just awesome. Congrats on now having #1 and #2 baddest square bodies around. Thank you for how well you document all of the work as well.

 

[rayra]

That first crank vid sounded like some old WWII warbird radial Pratt & Whitney firing up.

 

[Larry]

That first crank vid sounded like some old WWII warbird radial Pratt & Whitney firing up.

Haha…for sure, except I didn’t need a shotgun shell to fire up! ….although I always keep a fire extinguisher close by for initial fire ups :sombrero:

 

[centexan]

All I can say is that you are an inspiration to many of us! Great job. I hope 'the big ugly will one day be half as bad *** as your burb.

 

[GJStringert]

REALLY nice job on the repower Larry! You're Chevy threads are among the coolests on ExPo. That cam lope does sound pretty neat haha! Can't wait to see it with all the bugs worked out. Keep up the good work!

 

[hidesertwheelin]

Nice job. Looks great.

 

[huntsonora]

:drool:

 

[56powerwagon]

another awesome install with great info and pics from Larry. Thanks for all the time you spend logging in the info and pics for "us"!!!!!!!!!!!! I have my 8.1 sitting in the garage getting prepped for its new home in my 1988 V30 standard cab.
would like to hear more about the header choice verse the manifolds and what you think as you spend a little time with it and get the bugs worked out.
Thanks again for the inspiration and my credit card thanks you too.....

 

[Chevrolado]

Great job Larry! Looks amazing. Love the time-lapse video too. Awesome stuff as per usual.

 

[Colorado_Outback]

The old harness will run the starter, A/C, oil pressure, temp gauge while the new Howell harness will run only the engine exactly the same way I have the K10 setup. I chose to use an another Suburban engine harness as I didn’t want to chop my original Suburban harness up so I could keep it all together to sell with the TBI 5.7L once it comes out. A TBI 5.7L and harness would be great pieces to swap EFI into something older. Getting exciting!

Hey Larry,
That thing sounds mean with the cam in it!
I'm getting ready to do this swap in my 94 CCLB 3500 that is currently a 350/NV4500 truck. One of the things Im not 100% sure on is chopping up the old TBI harness, when you get a chance can you elaborate on that a little?
Are the starter, ac, oil pressure and coolant temp the only wires I need to retain? Is it as simple as identifying those and chopping everything else?

Thanks!
Greg

 

[Larry]

Thanks guys!

another awesome install with great info and pics from Larry. Thanks for all the time you spend logging in the info and pics for "us"!!!!!!!!!!!! I have my 8.1 sitting in the garage getting prepped for its new home in my 1988 V30 standard cab.
would like to hear more about the header choice verse the manifolds and what you think as you spend a little time with it and get the bugs worked out.
Thanks again for the inspiration and my credit card thanks you too.....

Sorry for the late reply. We'll I went with shorty headers on the Burb as it was highly recommended by RayLar to get the most out of their cam. I typically am a header hater due to exhaust leaks, fried starters, and just all of the bad things associated with headers but so far these Sanderson shorty headers are really nice. Their fit and finish exceeded my expectations and the clearance at the starter is not an issue. I feel most of the things that give headers a bad name are mitigated by running shorty headers opposed to long tube headers. Living with them long term may change my opinion but as of right now, I am pretty happy with the Sanderson headers.

Hey Larry,
That thing sounds mean with the cam in it!
I'm getting ready to do this swap in my 94 CCLB 3500 that is currently a 350/NV4500 truck. One of the things Im not 100% sure on is chopping up the old TBI harness, when you get a chance can you elaborate on that a little?
Are the starter, ac, oil pressure and coolant temp the only wires I need to retain? Is it as simple as identifying those and chopping everything else?

Thanks!
Greg

We'll see about the lope once the ECM tune gets worked out but it does sound pretty mean. Also found some injectors causing issues so that could very well be attributing to the lopy idle and exaggerating the tuning issue. This engine laid around for a good 8 years so the injectors had a lot of varnish built up inside of them. I tried to clean them but looks like cleaning was not enough. New injectors will be here today. As far as removing the TBI circuits to only keep what you need will most likely be different from this Suburban and your truck as they are different generations of platforms and it also depends how you spec your new engine harness from Howell (with or without A/C control, with or without ECM control of the starter, with or without oil pressure feeds to the ECM, with or without electronic throttle, etc). I would suggest getting a factory GM wiring diagram to study before getting carried away with the wire cutters as well as talking to Howell to figure out exactly how you want your harness built. I personally do not like the ECM to control anything other than just the engine and keep the cluster feed circuits running on the original chassis harness.

As I mentioned before, I do not recommend using a donor truck harness to run any late model engine as there is way too much in that harness to deal with and the margin of error is too great. The best $600 you can spend on one of these is on a brand new stand-a-lone harness. Yes, on this old Suburban the only circuits on the old TBI harness I needed to keep was the oil pressure sending unit wire, starter, alternator, the keyed on wire that used to go to the coil now goes to the keyed on power for the ECM. Actually the A/C runs its own small harness directly from the low pressure switch at the accumulator. Again, my Sub could be different from your '94 being different platform generations. 94 and 95 GMT400 TBI is even different from 88-93 TBI as far as wiring and fuel pressures. Study the diagrams well.



Well, the THIRD Spectra Premium radiator arrived last week in usable shape. It too took a beating inside the box during shipping but only the drain petcock was slightly bent. Spectra does a horrible job of packing their radiators! The rear main seal leak is fixed and the NV4500 is out at my buddy's getting a 5th gear synchro issue fixed and as I mentioned a new set of injectors is due in today. The problem I am running into now is time as I have a lot of travel coming up then need to start getting on the K10 to prep it for Desert Trip 2015. Hopefully I'll get this Burb done before too awfully long. Right now having the trans out getting fixed is holding me back. I doubt I'll see the trans back until late in the week if not next week.

Much better with the proper radiator and fan shroud. It's a tight fit!

 

[1stDeuce]

Awesome swap Larry!! Just curious what you're doing for a check engine light, if anything... I assume the 8.1L ECM normally communicates CEL status over the buss. ??

Chris