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5.7L Power upgrades

4K views 33 replies 11 participants last post by  Klumpper 
#1 ·
First off, i've seached google and fullsizechevy.com and didn't really find what I was looking for.

What I have is a '96 Chevy 1500, small lift. Stock engine and transmission. I run 285's in the winter and 315's in the summer. I wanted to know what you good somewhat simple power/mpg upgrades would be.

It has an aftermarket exhaust, and half-ass air intake (new dry-flow AEM filter). I plan on getting another turner for it, I liked the superchips one I had before I got rid of it. So aside from those things; what would be a couple bolt-on upgrades? Headers, intake, or cam?

I'm not looking to make it a race truck, or a dune-crusher. It's pretty much a mall queen; but I want it to really nice mall queen :woot:
 
#3 ·
3.73; I do have plans to swap out the 10 bolt for a 14 bolt SF. I'd like to keep the 3.73s for mileage purposes .

Also, im not looking to spend a craps ton of money, but prolly up to 500
 
#4 ·
If it was me I would put in 4:10's if your looking for more power with larger tires that is, I know my Silverado with 3:73's felt alot slower when I installed my 285's. But then you would be over budget since you have to regear 2 axles, but im sure your tranny will thank you with the 315's. Headers are nice but IMO dont help gas mileage eather but there are alot of options for that truck. With a Cam your MPG's will drop not improve eather and you cant go too serious with the computer anyways. IMO you cant have better MPG and more horsepower, because when you have more horsepower you generally dont keep your foot out of it and usally only end up with 1-2 mpg diffrence anyways, 350's arnt known for their MPG's. To get more power and better MPG's is why exactly I put a 5.3 in my 92' c1500 instead of a 350.
 
#8 ·
You think 4.10s would help that much? I wouldn't think it'd make much of a difference. The 285s don't bother it at all, at least to me anyway. It came stock with 265s.

Never heard of the marine intake for it??? Though a nice 5.3L swap has crossed my mind. I'm sure there is tons of info on it around the interwebz. What would be needed, basically anyway? can I use the 4L60E that's in it now?
 
#13 ·
the 5.7L 350 is supposed to be one of the easiest engines to build up, pretty much always been that way; that being said, I don't have enough extra money to sneak away without notice by the ball-and-chain to do a proper rebuild/upgrade to solve all my wants so I was looking for some somewhat easy to do mods like a pcm tune/gears etc.
 
#16 ·
16 highway on a good day. 17 in the summer if i say at 60. 8/9/10 city, but my city driving i drive maybe 1-2 miles, it barley gets warm

3.73s with 285s, and 315s in the summer. Mostly i'm trying to decide what I wanna do for an upgrade. I'd love to do a motor swap but i'd have to keep my truck 3 hours up north and find something else to drive in the mean time. I think for the time being i'll get a real cold air intake, find another tuner; and upgrade the ignition.

What exactally do you have for spark and where did you get it?
 
#17 · (Edited)
i have a stock distributor but i have a msd rotor cap wires and e3 plugs and msd ignition
got most of it at autozone the rest on summit
i also have 3inch exhaust and a flowmaster series 10 the widdle guy
i feel like i lost some power when i put this on but i have a little exhaust leak i need to fix tho


im trying to do the same thing u are get better mpgs and some horse power while im at it
but mines tbi not vortek
 
#19 ·
I have a flowmaster 50 series dual in/out 2.5", love the sound but I didn't really notice much of an improvement, it just seemed to breath a little better. I have e3 plugs as well, with 8.5mm wires, stock rotor/dist and ignition.

My old TBI was pretty easy to squeaze some extra power and mpg out of. The easiest thing to do is pick up a set of vortec heads and swap them out for your stock ones; they're complete bolt on and will give you about 15 more hp, and maybe 1-2 mpg depedning on how you drive. The other thing I did was put an aftermarket throttle body on, that with your exhaust, maybe throw a set of headers on and you'll at least make as much power as a vortec setup. I was making about 240-250 when all was said and done. stock a TBI will make about 210-220. You can't chip the 'ol TBI cause it's not OBDII, but you can look into getting a new pcm with a tune already installed


....yea, i learned alot about a TBI lol but I don't know much about easy to do upgrades to a vortec aside from the already mentioned tuner and real air intake, possibly headers
 
#20 · (Edited)
humm maybe i will find a set of vortec heads and just port and polish them and throw them on.
iv been wanting to do headers but i dont wanna break any bolts off in my head but new heads no worries.
i didnt think a throttle body spacer really did any thing lol what thick ness should i get?

looks like i have more crap to do to it now:naughty:

the main thing i wanna do right now is i need the rear end rebuilt at least it seams like i should.
i think it would be good to go to 3.73 gears seams like it dosent like to tow very well and kinda makes me mad
 
#21 ·
Headers, yes, definitly on a TBI; the only real way to know if the bolts will come out easily is to just go ahead and do it lol. And you should be able to find a set of vortec heads for a couple hundered bucks or less. I would not do a throttle body spacer, I don't see how it would help. More time for the fuel and air to seperate which equals less power; but to each his own. If you do, then the standard i think is 1".

My truck seems to tow great for it only being a 1/2 ton. I've towed 9,000 lbs at 55 just fine. My guess would be that it's your transmission more than the axle. Though I've always been aiming to swap out the 10 bolt for a 14 bolt sf, same gear ratio though. just a stronger axle in general.
 
#24 ·
If you want to try a tb spacer I have one for a Vortec. Just cover shipping, should be $6 if it fits in the small Priority Mail box.

The biggest improvement I saw with my LS Swapped 94 Z71 was smaller tires. I have 285/70-17 BFG 10 plys and they killed mileage a solid 2 mpg. I swapped them onto my 08 Crew Cab for a few months and it did 2 mpg as well.

Winter mileage takes a big hit due to winter blend fuel (yes fuel compositions change by the season) and cold starting. My dd commute is 18 miles and the difference in mileage summer-winter is about 1.5-2.. yeah I measure it every tank.

If you do highway a lot, a tonneau cover helps too.

Big tires look good but kill mileage.

All said and done, going back to stock tires, summer fuel and tonneau took my 08 Sierra Denali from 13.5 mpg- 17 solid. Yeah the big 6.2L... highway with the tonneau made a huge difference.


An LS swap would be cool, I did it twice, but it does not improve mpg much.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2
 
#25 ·
Heck i'll take the spacer for a vortec just to have it :thumb: do you do paypal?

I did decide that i'm going to get a pcm tune, and re-gear the axles/upgrade to a 14 sf later on. I think the biggest help will be a pcm tune, maybe not exactally for mpg but for power and turning 285s/315s
 
#27 ·
gettin a custom tune is the easiest way to get more hp out of a vortec. my truck gets 17 to 18 mpg hwy and 13ish back roads. specs are 97 k 1500 1 ton sas 4.56 gears 315-70-17 mt. vortec 305, headers, 3" single exhaust, no cat. built 4l60e with towing converter. like 1300 stall. i believe that helps mpg alot. 4.56 gears are nice on the road but too slow in low range I top out at like 35-40 mph. not very fun for racing at the dunes. just my .02
 
#28 ·
Yep that's about what I decided; i'm either going to be a tune with pcmforless or black bear, probably BB. Unless you know of a good one to go through.
 
#30 ·
A bit of an update. The truck got a new power plant, and before that went on I put on new headers, and ignition. I still have the stock air intake with an aftermarket filter. It's getting new high-flow cats, and the PCM is from BlackBear customs. I'm pretty happy with how it runs and drives. It's got a lot more get-up than before, especially with the PCM.

I'm still running a 10 bolt with 3.73s. I picked up a 14 bolt SF with 4.10s but i'm debating on if I want to go through the trouble of changing gears; I don't really tow anymore and it seems to run fine with the 315s.

How much good would it do to swap out the clutch fan for a dual electric setup? I found a deal on a set of fans from an 05 chevy truck, but is it actually worth it to swap the fan setup?
 
#31 ·
1/2 mpg highway at least. The clutch fans usually don't fail open (slipping) they fail stuck, so you're likely dragging the fan more than you need to. If you are dragging the fan, the FE improvement will be more. That said, you are killing FE with the taller wider tires, so I guess I depends on how much you value FE. The devil will benin the details, if you cal the fans to come on aggressively, the mechanical loss for the clutch fan will be replaced by electrical load on the generator (how hard you're working the generator affects FE too). How do you plan to control the fans? The police package Tahoes had PCM controlled Aux fans, not sure the software in the PCM existed in 96.

I'd take that 14 bolt off your hands though...

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
 
#33 ·
Has anyone ever done this? Multi-port FI over Central-sequential FI Seems like a positive way to upgrade the fuel delivery system. I've read that it doesn't do much for driveabilitly or MPG/HP; but I don't understand how it wouldn't be. A mechanical spring vs electrical injector seems like a no brainier to me.

I don't, I think anyway, have a problem with the fuel system right now as is though. I probably would have done the upgrade when I replaced the motor had I read about it sooner.

Any opinions on if it's worth the cost for long term reasons; since i'm in the process of doing other things to increase the reliability/driveabilitly right now as is....or something to just wait and fix when something is actually broken?

http://www.fuelinjector.citymaker.com/Vortec_spider_fuel_injection_conversion.html
 
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