was an ls engine ever available in this generation?

j91z28d1 said:

ahh you're right, I was confused about the tranny. some of the new trucks in the fleet he says have the Allison tranny. the 2019 was the 6 speed.


thanks for the info. I can atleast tell him what to search for even it's it's a needle in a haystack. he's adhd as hell and. might walk into a dealer and walk out with God knows what haha. but at least I have it stright.


on a swap note it seems if you're going to pull the direct injection engine out, a cam swap and some upgraded push rods should fix most of the issues? new oil pump while there. put 2 catch cans on it and hope it helps with the intake choke?

ugh haha.

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Yep.

On the swap note, I was saying to swap the DI intake to a port injection ON THE 6.6 L8T...I was "thinking" that would be swapped into a vehicle that originally had port injection, but that may not be actually true?

But if you swap an L96, keep everything stock since that's still a port injection Gen IV engine ("LS" basically). The only trick would be the wiring and ECU because 2Kxx Tahoes were DI...but you could probably just do what GM did on tbe 3500HD suburban ECU/wiring, etc. You would simply be replicating the 3500HD Suburban engine into a Tahoe, which I don't think anyone had asked the question until this thread? It had never crossed my mind TBH. Edit: for that matter, ANY Gen IV engine would work here.

Either way, the transmission would probably be wise to keep or use the 6 speed, probably the heavier duty version.

strutaeng said:

Yep.

On the swap note, I was saying to swap the DI intake to a port injection ON THE 6.6 L8T...I was "thinking" that would be swapped into a vehicle that originally had port injection, but that may not be actually true?

But if you swap an L96, keep everything stock since that's still a port injection Gen IV engine ("LS" basically). The only trick would be the wiring and ECU because 2Kxx Tahoes were DI...but you could probably just do what GM did on tbe 3500HD suburban ECU/wiring, etc. You would simply be replicating the 3500HD Suburban engine into a Tahoe, which I don't think anyone had asked the question until this thread? It had never crossed my mind TBH. Edit: for that matter, ANY Gen IV engine would work here.

Either way, the transmission would probably be wise to keep or use the 6 speed, probably the heavier duty version.

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yeah, this was more just a longevity thing. no particular preference for a 6.0 ls over any of the direct injection engines except lack of dealing with di, afm and stuff. a full engine/tranny swap and get all the wiring to play nice wouldn't be worth the hassle in this case. thou a cool build

he does have hp tuners for other cars, so using it to disable afm would be simple enough. I thought there was more to making them reliable than that. like bending push rods and oil pumps failing? I haven't kept up to much with it thou since I have a older body style to try and keep running haha.

j91z28d1 said:

yeah, this was more just a longevity thing. no particular preference for a 6.0 ls over any of the direct injection engines except lack of dealing with di, afm and stuff. a full engine/tranny swap and get all the wiring to play nice wouldn't be worth the hassle in this case. thou a cool build

he does have hp tuners for other cars, so using it to disable afm would be simple enough. I thought there was more to making them reliable than that. like bending push rods and oil pumps failing? I haven't kept up to much with it thou since I have a older body style to try and keep running haha.

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Others can chime in but the lifter issue is caused by the AFM so by disabling it, it reduces/eliminates most issues.

Bigburb3500 said:

Others can chime in but the lifter issue is caused by the AFM so by disabling it, it reduces/eliminates most issues.

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yeah, in the older Gen turning off afm helped. but seems like long term they still fail and eat cams up. mine is disabled but haven't had to do a full delete yet. but only has 160k on mine. so it's probably coming

j91z28d1 said:

yeah, in the older Gen turning off afm helped. but seems like long term they still fail and eat cams up. mine is disabled but haven't had to do a full delete yet. but only has 160k on mine. so it's probably coming

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I mean… 160k isn’t a lot lol. My 01 had 297k on it and lived a HARD life before it had catastrophic issues.

I think with AFM disabled the general consensus is the 5.3 and 6.2 are pretty reliable. General issues might still arise from use but nothing from a design stand point. Hope some others will chime in for you as I’m not a 5.3 or 6.2 expert by any means.

From what I've gathered, the issues with AFM are directly related to maintenance.

The maintenance schedule per manufacturer are 7,500 miles between oil changes.
Also being a GDI engine, it produces a lot more carbon buildup on the valves.
I've read many experiences that owners who keep oil change intervals at 5,000 or less miles, aren't have the issues that others are.
The big problem is that people are buying used vehicles and there's really no way to guarantee that proper maintenance was done throughout its use.
I'd even go as far to recommend having the intake valve ports walnut blasted every 50,000 miles as part of the maintenance schedule. It's ridiculous the amount of carbon buildup GDI engines produce. I get that it produces power more efficiently and uses less fuel to do so, but at what cost to the consumer ?

I bought my 2016 XL Denali used with 75,000 miles. Lifters failed at 77,800. Warranty covered the top end rebuild. They also replaced all 16 lifters and the cam. I immediately added an oil separator after I picked up the truck, as well as an AFM disabling device. Eventually I plan to do a full mechanical delete and have the heads blasted and gone through. So far so good, for now. (KNOCKS ON EVERY PIECE OF WOOD IN SIGHT)