Talk about disappointment.... Suburban content inside....

I took this "stretch" (FYI- I work a group of days then have a few off in between AKA "a stretch") off and decided to work on the parts pile that I have gathered for the past 6 plus months to fix the well own DoD lifter problems and I also decided to delete VVT as well.

I started Friday after getting up from a long stressful and underappreciated 12hr night shift in the ED.

First up, just open the dang hood and gaze at the mess I have gotten myself into...

Well, may as well just start taking it apart...

When I had to stop at darkness this was the result...

So the next day continued on with more of the same...

Then an "oops" happened for the good, for once. Yes, the porcelain cracked and broke off and tumbled around in the cylinder for awhile...

Now, we're getting serious..

New camshaft, timing tensioner, valley plate, and timing gear are in... (fishing line to avoid having to fish out the oil pump pickup tube bolt that will fall into the oil pan. GM, you bastards. )

LS7 lifters, LS2 lifter retainers, new timing cover in place.

Ut oh... E36 M3 is getting serious now.

Oops, got ahead of myself and the back 6 studs have to be installed AFTER the head is on the block. Thanks GM for the 1/2" firewall protrusion for that. Only took 4 tries to figure that one out...

Closer.... Even after straining a muscle or three trying to torque the ARP harmonic balancer bolt down to 235 ft/lbs.....

Not many parts left in the pile to put back on now...

Like I said fast work after the valve covers go on and exhaust manifolds are bolted on...

Finished!!!

Filled it up with coolant, no leaks, went for a test drive... The TrickFlow cam I chose was kind of mild anyways, but damn, it's like stock. Oh well, if the turbo kit I want ever gets procured, it will be 730RWHP of awesomeness!

TL:DR- I took SWMBO's DD Suburban apart, put it back together with decent parts, even some performance parts, and ended up disappointed with the results.

Great work. Unfortunately this process in in my future for my DD Silverado.

Did you reuse the stock heads and just swap out the cam and lifters?

What was your total work time?

Any pieces left of the porcelain? What years are affected by the DoD?

In reply to NordicSaab:

Yes, reused the stock heads and swapped the cam, lifters, and upgraded the springs too.

I figure in the past 4 days, I have 18-20hrs total in it, labor wise. I probably would have been sooner if I didn't have 15 parts store runs for BS, breaks to cool off from the muggy summer heat here in BFE, and generally having to deal with crap I shouldn't have had to do in the first place like drop out the front diff to drop the oil pan down far enough to get access to the oil pickup tube bolt and exhaust sheningans.

In reply to Stampie:

I never found them.

DoD affects 05/06(?) to current. My Sub is a '12 model.

FWIW I have used stock head gaskets and head bolts at that power level with no problem. So you have inserted sufficient overkill.

In reply to Knurled:

I used the GMPP ones which are the same ones that were on it initially....

Head studs were a spur of the moment purchase from Jeg's for $100.

this is how i foxed my 08 suburban with the DoD issues:

F-- that GM piece of $*T! i will NEVER purchase another GM product again. does it make you even moderately angry that you had to essentially rebuild the top end of a 4 year old vehicle? 'cause it sure pissed me right off...(mine was an 08).

by the way, i hope you dont have the air-assist suspension. the shocks and struts will set you back about a grand in parts alone, WHEN they decide to fail.

-J0N

The electronic shocks are freaking expensive too, even without air assist. Da Boss's 'burban has that stuff. He tried to go with non OE shocks because our cost on them was something so crazy that I forgot the number, and the next day we put the old shocks back on, it was that bad.

The front ones are interesting in that, when they say "do not use air tools" they MEAN it. It's a two piece strut shaft, air tools will separate the two pieces, leaving you with a nitrogen charged bomb.

What is DoD? Should I worry about it on my 04 suburban?

What are the specs on the cam? I used a 210/218 .551 on my 6.0. I also milled the stock heads .020" and installed long tube headers and a tune. I was VERY happy with the results. No loss of torque below 2500 and a strong surge from 4000-6000. It was a very fun truck. Not as fun as my current Duramax, but it sounded better!

Mazdax605 wrote: What is DoD? Should I worry about it on my 04 suburban?

Displacement on Demand. Lost motion devices in half the lifters so the engine can run in 4 cylinder mode under light load.

IIRC only the 5.3s have it. What happens in practice is the driver learns to drive in such a way that it stays in V8 mode. We've seen fuel economy benefits from disabling it in software.

In hardware, the lifters can fail, so going to a non-DoD setup is a reliability mod.

My suburban doesn't have that option as far as I know. It is a 5.3 though. Thanks for the description.

In reply to doc_speeder:

285/292 adv duration. 216/220 @ .050
.560" lift. 114 lobe separation

I know I'm probably corked by the factory exhaust still but it's like a stock cam still. I have met had a chance to mess with the maps yet with HPTuners.

You're probably corked by the tune. Did you need to swap pushrods with that cam?

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine:

No to pushrods. Straight summit replacements in 7.400".

In reply to Ranger50:

Looks like that's the right length. Most interwebs people use those or the 7.5'a if you're extra sporty.

I think a tune will really wake up the truck.

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine:

You only have to adjust pushrod length if you swap rockers.

Tune- I did a few street pulls and when I could I noticed timing is soft when you pull up the map to really look at it. I still have to look at the logs to verify. I will have to put in an aggressive E85 tune.

I'm hoping a tune and aftermarket exhaust will give you the gains you were hoping for!

In reply to dj06482:

I was thinking more of a T76.....

I'm sure a more experienced wrench than I would see this as perfectly reasonable but to my sadly untrained eye it appears that step 1 should have been "Pull the motor". Everything after that (seems like) would be 100% easier.

KyAllroad wrote: I'm sure a more experienced wrench than I would see this as perfectly reasonable but to my sadly untrained eye it appears that step 1 should have been "Pull the motor". Everything after that (seems like) would be 100% easier.

Having played this game with the Jeep, if you don't need to touch anything below the block deck other than the cam and can reach well enough, it's often a crap-shoot for time. So if you don't have an engine lift or a good indoor space to work, it's easier to just leave the motor in and not remove / disconnect the extra stuff needed to pull it.

In reply to KyAllroad:

If I had a lift, I probably would have, but it seems to me it's a 9hr job, book rate, to R&R the engine....

I probably would have been done quicker too if I didn't have to stop every few minutes to wipe the sweat away.

I missed some of this:

What made you tear the engine apart? What symptoms does the DoD failure give? That sounds ridiculous for something that new. Was this your own vehicle? This is not under warranty or TSB for a four year old truck?

Agreed, ridiculous. Nice job, GM. You took one of the most reliable engines on the planet and borked it up

The wife's box-body 'Burban has a TBI 350 that struggles to make 190HP, but it still gets mid-upper teens for fuel economy and will hopefully do so for many more miles.