72 Highlander LWB w/ 5.3 and 6L80e

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For a long time I've been wanting a 71-72 Chevy for a daily driver and to just... well be a truck. So I bought this 1972 Highlander LWB Custom with pretty much all the options from the factory. The truck ran great when I bought it, drove it about 400 miles the first weekend I owned it. Overall, it was in great shape with the expected wear for a 40+ year old truck, some cracks in the seats, rust on the drivers side rocker, rust on passenger fender from a leaky battery, and a crappy repaint from a dumb owner along the line. As it was, the truck was perfect for what I wanted, a solid truck for a LSx swap to be used an abused but still look pretty decent and to just enjoy it.











So I drove the truck for about a total of 700 miles, went through about 3 gallons of oil when the truck finally decided it didn't like driving anymore. Instead of wasting money to figure out what was wrong with the original 350 I just invested in a friend coming to pick it up and start to work on the LSx swap. First an LSx needed to be located and just as I was about to come back to TX after Christmas I noticed a 60k mile 2011 Tahoe 5.3L/6L80e combo with harness for a very nice bargain. Had a friend that is going to do the swap for me stop by and look at it, when I asked about his thoughts he just told me "you bought it". Put down a deposit and picked up this beauty a few days later.

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So truck and motor acquired, now to order everything else. I gotta say thanks to Travis and AZ Pro Performance, he's been great to work with and getting everything all figured out for the truck. A very very long list of parts were ordered includding the following (I'll post pictures as parts show up and progress is made on the truck)

Dirty Dingo motor mounts
Porterbuilt Stage 1 front air ride kit with 1" forward A-arms
Porterbuilt Stage 2 rear deluxe kit
Accuair E-level kit with Pro Performance Pro2 Air Management kit
Willwood 14" 6 piston front and 13" 4 piston rear breaks
Vintage Wheel Works V40 18x8 front and 18x11 rear wheels
Boyd Welding EFI tank
Classic Instruments 67-72 gauge cluster
Ridetech HQ shocks
Doug Thorley 1-5/8" headers
American Autowire chassis rewire kit
Engine harness is being sent to Speartech
Cam and spring kit from Brian Tooley racing
Working on some kind of AC setup to be decided on still

Now for some pictures of the first round of parts to show up






So far I'm really excited about the gauge cluster, I love the stock look.

[aggie91]

I like your start, tuning in for the progress!

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They've been making some great progress the last couple days. They got everything pulled off the frame and set the motor and trans in just to check frame clearance and alignment. Next up is stripping the frame down and preparing it for paint and start working on installing a bigger cam, VVT and AFM delete kits, and CTSV pan setup. Should be getting the Boyd Welding gas tank today and some suspension parts from Porterbuilt showing up tomorrow.

[Houston Ben]

Holy crap you ordered a lot if stuff!! It's All stuff I want to do but is going to take some time. You will love it when it's done, mine is stock but with a good tune it halls ass, I can only imagine what it will run like with a cam! Btw, C&C is 60 miles from where I live....doh!

[mcbassin]

What he said ^^^ holy crap! Lots of goodies.
Love your plans. Gonna be a nice truck! Heck it already was nice.

[fastpace]

Yeah my theory is to just do it right the first time. I've built stuff on my other cars before and almost always wish I would have done something different after it's all done. This time I'm trying to do everything possible not to cut corners and just do it exactly how I want it the first time.

[Hart_Rod]

Nice build.

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I just got the chance to make a trip back up to the shop and check out some of the parts that showed up over the last week and it just so happened that the main parts of the suspension showed up yesterday too.

Doug Thorley Tri-Y swap headers




I wish I would have ordered the gas tank to be powdercoated silver, but by the time I thought about it it was too late. It'll be alright you won't be able to really see it and everything will be black anyways.


Lets just say the UPS guy wasn't too happy about having to make this delivery today. Everything came in about 8 boxes weighing on average like 40 lbs. I must say these parts are extremely nice quality, I almost don't even want to powdercoat them.








I received all the air management stuff today, no pics yet, bu it's a full Accuair E-Level setup. Also have the BTR stage 1 cam, DOD delete kit, and AFM delete kit sitting in a box waiting to be installed as well. The only parts we're still missing are the wheels, vintage air, and a couple odds and ends type pieces.

[mcbassin]

Wow! Love your budget!!!

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A couple small update pictures. We were really hoping to have the frame painted by now but the weather hasn't helped. They got 1 coat on the frame but it still needs at least 1 more coat on it. The suspension powdercoating is done but I don't have any pictures of it yet.

The wheels, I really hope that the rears fit. After looking at some pictures I kind of wish I got 19 or 20s for the truck, but we'll see how the 18s look once it done and go from there. Besides for the size I love the style of these, they just don't make them bigger than an 18".


Got the motor painted, we'll start out with the truck intake to get it going and let my bank account recover a little bit. After everything is smoothed out hopefully this summer we'll go to a single plane (probably Victor Jr), throttle body adapter, and an old school round air filter.


Low hump cut out to make some room for the high hump giving us more clearance.


Finally, I decided to go ahead and upgrade to Vintage Air while we're at it. I plan to daily drive it and it gets 110+ down here regularly so a good AC is important. Good thing I did cause come to find out the mice had moved in at some point.

[fastpace]

Originally Posted by mcbassin

Wow! Love your budget!!!

Trust me, my bank account doesn't. It's a good thing my girlfriend doesn't have access to my bank account to see what I've spent on cars in the last year.

As far as I see it though, if you do it right the first time it comes out cheaper/easier in the long run. It's just a matter of having the funds to do it right the first time.

[boynton]

Do you have any good pictures of the motor mounts? I am going with an ly6 and a 6l90 also how much did you move the trans cross member? You mentioned you cut the low hump for clearance is the bc the 6l80 is too big or just because you slid the motor further back? What did spear tech charge for the harness rework? Sorry for all the questions.

[fastpace]

Originally Posted by boynton

Do you have any good pictures of the motor mounts? I am going with an ly6 and a 6l90 also how much did you move the trans cross member? You mentioned you cut the low hump for clearance is the bc the 6l80 is too big or just because you slid the motor further back? What did spear tech charge for the harness rework? Sorry for all the questions.

As of right now the motor hasn't been placed with the cab on the truck so I really don't have any answer for any of your questions. I went with a high hump because honestly almost everyone else with the 6L80 has and I'd rather have the extra room. The motor mounts are just stock mounts with Dirty Dingo slider plates http://dirtydingo.com/store/index.ph...=1_206_305_322 Right now the trans crossmember isn't bolted in, we drilled out the rivets and moved it and then we'll put new holes and some bolts where ever we need it and then we plan spacing the mount off the crossmember as needed. For the harness, Speartech still has the harness but I'm having them convert to a C6 pedal and adding a tip up/down switch to it. I'm not sure on the other changes, I just heard a lot of good things about them and never really saw anything bad plus they seem to be the leader in the 6 speed auto tuning and electronic conversion parts.

[fastpace]

They got the frame painted a couple days ago with John Deere blitz black (and some kind of heavy duty rust prevention primer but I forget the name). I can say so far from what we've done to the frame putting frame braces in that the paint has held up pretty good. All the suspension parts were powdercoated matte black. Hopefully tomorrow we'll have the rest of the suspension on and maybe some brakes mounted up. We were ready to put the trailing arm crossmember in but we weren't sure on which position it goes in and it's a tight fit so we'd like to just install it once. Hopefully Pro Performance or Porterbuilt can help us out and we'll figure it out tomorrow.

Sorry for the crappy pics, tomorrow I'll get the real camera out and clean up the metal shavings.

[mcbassin]

Very nice progress!

[nlped]

Amazing pieces/parts. It's going to be a very cool ride when finished, that's for sure. I'm watching

[fastpace]

Got the rear suspension mocked up and tires mounted today. For those looking at Wilwood brakes, make sure you chase all your threads with a tap before you bolt anything together. Apparently even with the crazy prices they can't even clean the threads out for you, lesson learned. Seeing the rear wheels on and rear end mocked up today really got me excited about getting this done.

[boynton]

Nice progress! Can you post some pictures as your motor goes back in-specifically the mounts and clearance. I will be starting my swap in tge next two weeks. Bring on the wallet pain!

[chuckmc8]

Wow.....mucho dinero!

[Low Elco]

Must be nice.. I love those wheels. Nice pile o'parts, oughta be a cool truck when finished!

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by fastpace

Finally, I decided to go ahead and upgrade to Vintage Air while we're at it. I plan to daily drive it and it gets 110+ down here regularly so a good AC is important. Good thing I did cause come to find out the mice had moved in at some point.

Nice truck & quality parts selection for sure. What size tires did you choose? The 18's will look fine as long as there's enough height to fill up the wheel well.

Also..... 1 suggestion..... Go ahead & shave/weld up the firewall instead of the bolt-on block off plate while you have it all apart (if @ all possible).

[fastpace]

Originally Posted by SCOTI

Nice truck & quality parts selection for sure. What size tires did you choose? The 18's will look fine as long as there's enough height to fill up the wheel well.

Also..... 1 suggestion..... Go ahead & shave/weld up the firewall instead of the bolt-on block off plate while you have it all apart (if @ all possible).

Its a 245/40/18 front and 285/35/18 rear. I really wanted a larger sidewall but there isn't much out there for an 18x11" wheel until you get the smaller sidewall. Right now the 285 is stretched on the rear to make sure everything is going to fit and clear. If it looks like there's some more room I'll sell sell these and get some 305 or 315s.

Im not planning on shaving the firewall right now because there's no body work planned for the truck, just drivetrain and suspension/chassis. If I ever decide to repaint it I'll definitely be shaving the plates but for now they'll be staying regular old black.

[fastpace]

Originally Posted by boynton

Nice progress! Can you post some pictures as your motor goes back in-specifically the mounts and clearance. I will be starting my swap in tge next two weeks. Bring on the wallet pain!

I'll try to get pictures during the process but since it's a friends shop doing the work I can only take pictures myself on my my days off that I come up to Houston. Hes normally pretty good at taking pictures as he goes and sending them to me though. I'll definitely have a bunch of pictures in a couple weeks when I'm back up here and hopefully we'll have the motor in at that time.

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Must be nice.. I love those wheels. Nice pile o'parts, oughta be a cool truck when finished!

Thanks, I've always loved these wheels but from searching on here I couldn't find anyone that had them. I wish they came in a size bigger bigger than 18 but we'll see how it looks once it's finished. Wheels are an easy thing to change later down down the road, just hurts the pocketbook.

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by fastpace

Its a 245/40/18 front and 285/35/18 rear. I really wanted a larger sidewall but there isn't much out there for an 18x11" wheel until you get the smaller sidewall. Right now the 285 is stretched on the rear to make sure everything is going to fit and clear. If it looks like there's some more room I'll sell sell these and get some 305 or 315s.

Im not planning on shaving the firewall right now because there's no body work planned for the truck, just drivetrain and suspension/chassis. If I ever decide to repaint it I'll definitely be shaving the plates but for now they'll be staying regular old black.

I thought Nitto made a 295-45 series?? That 285/35 is pretty short for a truck wheel opening (<26" tall; these trucks came w/approx 28" tall tires).

I hear you on the paint deal. I didn't know if you were doing just an engine compartment update (fresh motor & clean-up detail) or more. If just the engine compartment, I did the motor, firewall, & inner fenderwells on mine w/o anything to the exterior. But.... Block off plates work too.

Nice project.