So last weekend a great offer popped up on a local facebook page for a complete LQ4 engine.  Not the precise one I was looking for but since it uses the same block as the LQ9, it really didn’t matter that much except the LQ9 comes with better heads.  After some back and forth haggling we came to a price and on tuesday evening he swung by and dropped it off.  Here is the new base for the future powerplant upgrade for the bird.  A 6.0L LQ4 from a wrecked 05 Silverado 2500.  When the seller said it was a complete engine I expected a longblock with intake or something of the sort.  Instead he gave me something that looks like the hulk just ripped it straight from the truck.

So after work today I did a few things in the yard then decided that I wanted to get a little work done on the tear down so that I can start parting out all the pieces to make back some of the base cost.  After a little sync work between the stand and hoist I got it successfully transferred over.

I then spent the next several hours tearing into it and getting everything off.  This motor was a mess.  It had gunk and dirt eeeeverywhere and build up so thick I had to dig around with a screwdriver just to find some of the head bolts.  It also had some pretty significant internal oil leaks with a few of the center bolts on each head coming out completely coated.  Although I don’t know if that was a prior issue or a cause of the impact loosening some gaskets and letting oil by.  Although I am leaning toward pre-existing condition due to the large amount of oil that was in the intake along with the massive carbon buildup in the head runners, chambers and all over the pistons.  There was so much build up that when I pulled the old head gasket the carbon stuck out over the cylinder like a shelf.  Everything looked good after pulling the heads except for 2 cylinders which had some rust and what felt like scoring on the cylinder walls.  I am hoping that they won’t be an issue when having it machined.  The only real things left in there is the rotating assembly, camshaft and some sensors.

I will probably have the block bored out to 4.030 and put in a 4″ stroke crank to make it a 408.  If that won’t be enough power for a daily driven toy then there really is no hope for me.