1987 GMC V1500 Sierra Classic LS swap/build

[NastyBuzzard]

Hello everyone! I have been around for a little while now. Here and there and I finally decided to start a build thread for my 1987 GMC V1500 Sierra Classic 4x4 single cab long bed.

I bought this truck 11 years ago and it was what I drove mostly through high school. My great grandmother helped me purchase this truck so it is very near and dear to me and I will never get rid of it!

So some history. When I first bought the truck 11 years ago for $3500, 350tbi 700r4 combo w/ 3.08 gears, it was supposed to have a crate engine in it that was real fresh and so on. Well about a month after purchasing the truck, it back fired through the exhaust b/c of a stopped up cat and burnt the rings up pretty bad. It started burning oil/smoking then. Still drove it, never getting over 10-12 mpg.

Years of putting a quart of oil in it here and there it developed a bad idle issue and would die going up hills. Still drove it then until I got something else. It was then parked for a while under a tree at my aunts house. Sap destroyed the hood and roof pretty much. Came back, put a battery in, crunk it up and drove it to my new home. Still never could fix it so I put in it in my friends uncle's shop and we started building a big HP 350 SBC for the truck.

$3000 dollars later after selling my 71 maverick to fund the engine build, I had a nice built engine that was supposed to push over 400hp at the crank. Before the install of the engine I dropped the dual saddle bag gas tanks to replace fuel pumps, I thought I was going to be able to keep the tbi and fuel injection. That is when I figured out what my problem was with the truck over all those years!!! The little hose between the pump and sending unit had deteriorated really badly. So I fixed all that, but ended up having to carb the built engine we had.

Drove it around everynow and then, it would get that truck rolling!! The motor was great!! I was getting like 6-8 mpg though with a 750 holley on it.I got about 3k miles on the engine then one day after a storm I went around a curb and a tree had fallen in the road and I wrecked the truck. So we towed it to a friends and it sat there for a few years, the ubolts broke on the front p.s. side and sent front drive shaft through the transfer case.

A couple years later I finally had enough money to fix the truck, so I fixed it, got it back together, no alignment was done, put some octane booster and fired the truck up and drove it to my house. I putted it around but was always so busy with work and school it barely got driven. I eventually put a 600 edelbrock on the 350 and it was even better!! 750 was drowning it in fuel.

Fast forward a few years and I decided to take it all back to stock. I wanted the 350 tbi back so I could have the low end torque instead of all the top end HP.

Brought my original engine to the house and disassembled and cleaned it. Went off for the weekend and came back and my dad junked my entire engine for scrap!!

So I had to find a new engine, I found a 92 350tbi complete. I rebuilt it, .030 over w/ flat tops, vortec roller cam setup, stock 193 swirl port heads, longtube headers. We installed engine, drove it 5 miles down the road and front seal on trans blew. Limped it to my buddies house for the trans to be rebuilt. 6 months later, trans was rebuilt w/ oem rebuild kit, new tcc switch and torque converter.

Tried to drive the truck, had lower power issues. Didn't feel strong or have the low end grunt it used to have.

Installed a shift kit in trans, didn't really help, added corvette servos, didn't fix the issue. I even swapped in 3.42 front and rear gears. Helped some but not enough.

In the last couple months I put in a heated o2 sensor, electric fans, tbi injector pod spacer, ultimate tbi mod and pretty much anything else I could think of. Still doesn't have the low end torque she used to have. I tried datalogging to hopefully get a tune to fix the issue.

Over the last few years I have been researching and reading everyones threads on the LS swap. Well after talking with a friend, he just told me to do it. So I found me a 2001 silverado 4x4 Z71, 4.8 w/4l60e, 3.73 posi, extended cab short bed truck. It was missing font fenders, hood, doors, and bed but I put a seat in it, some gas and a battery and crunk it up and drove it around! I ended up buying it for $900.

So my plan is to take as much from the 2001 I can. I plan to swap over the entire wiring harness, using the wiring harness and fuse panel to run my headlights, door locks, power windows, brake lights, the works. I even plan to swap in the 2001 cluster into the 1987 as well. I am also planning on swapping the rearend, and swapping my d.s. gas tank w/ the 26 gal from the 2001 and getting rid of my p.s. tank and the selector valve. Also I am hoping to be able to integrate the steering column/wheel from the 2001 as well.

Any advice or insight? Has anyone seen some of this done?

Which motor mounts should I buy? Anyone have drawings so I can make my own?

I plan to get the auxiliary battery mount from somewhere to move battery to d.s.

Anyways, here is my truck!















Here is the donor: 2001 4.8 4l60e 4x4 ext cab short bed

Best BDAY present ever!!