Diesel engine swap

[hatzie]

Originally Posted by DieselSJ

LOL I love the comparisons on non-stock LS's performing better than a stock 454. Take the money that you would spend on a LS swap and put a fraction of it into a 454 and it will outperform a built LS all day when towing. And you don't have to run the 454 at 4000rpm to make the power.

How do you get that a LS swap + cam is less money than just sticking a cam and a tune on a 454?

To push the 454 to those numbers takes more than a camshaft and tune.
Pistons, Carburetor, Intake, Headers, Exhaust, Ignition recurve.
Tweaking the EEPROM TBI 454 is more than a little bit involved. I used one of the original Ostrich flash tuners to refine EEPROM programs before burning them to a chip when I was playing with TPI... Not something I'd look forward to repeating now.
A well loved 454 with flash chips in the PCM will cost you a fair chunk of coin around here. It's almost cheaper to buy a Cummins from the salvage carnies.

You can reach those power numbers with an LQ4 using the GM LQ9 camshaft and tweaking the PCM. No exhaust, pistons, ... needed. You'll get more with an exhaust and other mods but a Cam and tune will put you comfortably in the mid 400's

As for the price of entry here in rust country... buy a rusted out donor truck so you don't get raped by the junk carnies.
I paid $350 for a good running 2003 2500HD rust bucket LQ4 4L80E NV263 donor chassis with 163,000 on the clock. The frame, bed, and cab were Swiss cheese. I drove it home from Vermont at a nice slow speed praying the entire trip.
I sold the interior, NV263, front axle, and various other parts for more than I paid for the whole truck. My brother installed the engine and transmission in his 1986 K20 and I cabbaged a few parts for my 2005. My kid brothers' engine donor made me money even tho he paid me nothing for it.
We're eyeballing the 10.5" AAM 14bolt with disc brakes to replace the 9.5" 14bolt in the same truck.