Chevy Suburban Forums

FGS

Member
May 21, 2010
174
United States, Maryland
Hey guys.

Calling all Chevy guys/gals. Do anyone know of any good Chevy forums that's busy and knowledgeable?

I'm researching about a possible engine swap on a Suburban (or Tahoe since they're basically short Suburbans.) I'm trying to see if swapping a Vortec 8100 into a 2007-14 Suburban is remotely possible.

Mostly a curiosity than a necessity/want. I have neither the Suburban nor the engine itself.

Thanks.
 

RyanZ71

Member
Jun 14, 2011
1,001
Denver, Colorado
Many many reasons, but here are the most important ones

1. There is no aftermarket kit out there for the conversion.
2. If you have emissions testing where you live, you will NOT pass emissions putting a 2000-2006 based engine into a 2007-2014 chassis. You have to meet the emissions of the 2007-2014 vehicle. The 5.3L & 6.2L engines in the 2007-2014 Burbs put out significantly less emissions vs the 8.1L from the 2000-2006 burb.
3. There is no plug n Play. You are taking components including transmission, electronics, instrument cluster, A/C/Heat, multiple onboard computers, and trying to adjust them to work with outdated equipment like the 8.1L. (as great of an engine as it is, it was NOT built for the GMT-900 trucks.

The fact of the matter is that modern day vehicles are not designed for and will not play nice with trying to swap engines and drive trains for things it was not designed around in the first place. Back in the day.. say the 80s and some of the 90s, you could swap a 350 with a 454 because there wasn't all the electronic control/computers/transmissions and stuff like that on there.
 

FGS

Member
May 21, 2010
174
United States, Maryland
Hello,

I live in Montgomery County Maryland. They do emissions testing every two years. And all it takes is sticking a device into the Burb's computer's connector and checking if the monitors has run and passed and the check engine light is not on. No tail pipe probing needed.
http://www.mva.maryland.gov/programs/VEIP/veipinfo.htm

And another bonus MD has self serve kiosks that you'd do the testing yourself. So no MD inspector would be cracking open the hood and checking what's ticking under it.
http://www.mva.maryland.gov/programs/VEIP/KioskFlyer2016.pdf

Only thing left to do is the engine swap. Since I like tinkering with vehicles so it'll be a fun challenge to try out.

Thanks.
 

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