1996 Silverado 5.7 vortec swap to 6.0, 8.1, or vortec 7.4

[AustinL]

I have a 96 ext cab Silverado that I'm currently building, I've put about 8k in it between suspension, body, and interior, and have parts coming every few days along and much more mods to go. I don't wanna be the average joe and leave the stock engine, I wanna go big. I originally wanted to do a 454 swap vs my 350, after fiddling around the thought I'm debating between that and doing a 6.0 or 8.1. The 454 is basic and everyone does it so it's nothing new. I'm wondering what all of need and the struggle it would be to drop and 8.1 or 6.0 in it, I'd like to keep it efi but may do carb if it would be a lot simpler. Any thoughts or pointers? Info much needed and thanks

[hokeplaya05]

do the 6.0 if you plan on doing an upgrading in the future (which I am sure you will), tons more aftermarket support for the 6.0 than the 8.1 which has very little if any. plus the 8.1 gets terrible gas mileage compared to the 6.0. keep the EFI too, it is not that difficult, no need to touch the factory fuel system at all since you have a 96 unless you went big power (turbo/supercharger). you can re-pin your factory vortec harness to run the 411 computer which powers all the 99+ ls trucks/cars and keep the gauge cluster working. then it is just motor mounts, exhaust and figuring out what trans you want to run.

I am swapping a 2001 6.0 into my 96 and am using a 4l80e out of the same year truck and bolting it up to my factory push button TCase. only thing that is holding me up right now is there are no off the shelf longtube headers for the ls swap into the 4x4 trucks so I may have to use factory truck manifolds which kinda sucks. there is a member on here who makes motor mounts and you may be able to reuse the trans/tcase mount too (that's what I am hoping anyways)

[AustinL]

That's what I've been considering, doing the 6.0 swap what all I need? And replacing?

[NITROUS]

I would go with a 6.2 if i were you. I've tried both the 5.7 and the 6.0 and the 6.2 blows them away. I built a 6.2 for my 97 and I'm putting a twin turbo setup on it. Can't wait to get the bitch back on the street but it's fixing to get an upgraded chassis. It's actually a 416