chevykicksbut

hello all, i am thinking about putting in a 383 stroker in my k1500 1997 silverado. is this engine going to be to much for the existing transmission and rear end. also, i ripped out the old exuast system and plan on putting a new one it, now if i dont put in catalitic converters back in, will this mess with the check engine light? and if it does, can i just clear the code?

silverado13

ok well it all depends on how much power the 383 is going to be putting out and more importantly how much you are going to stick your foot in it, i have a 4L60 rebuilders guide and it lists that a 4L60 is capable of holding up to 350 horse power and id imagine that is conservatively, any rebuilt and upgraded 4L60 that ive seen is supposed to be able to handle up to 500 HP or if it is more upgraded then ive seen up to 700 HP, but you could have a 1000 HP engine powering a stock transmission if you take it easy on it, so my point is, it depends on your foot, if you know you want to be able to play with it and feel the power, then if you have the funds, i would suggest getting a upgraded transmission, ive seen the 500 HP capable transmissions advertised on ebay for around $700, but its up to you
As far as your question about the cats, without cats you will have an engine light come on and you can not clear it without it just coming back on immediately, now i was looking into a similar situation and looking for solutions for that, i was amazed what i found, you can actually buy these small plugs that plug into the female end of your O2 sensor wire, so instead of your computer reading the O2 sensor, it is reading the plug, now the cool thing about these plugs is they provide a signal for the computer and tell it that its running properly, thus you would not get a engine light, i cant remember right off my head what they are called but if you reseach them a little you will find them, they are designed for off road and track use, you will not have an engine light but because you have no cats, when you go to get your truck inspected and the inspector plugs your truck to their sniffer, you will not pass. so what id do if i were you, is keep the old pipes and once a year when you need to get inspected, just switch out the pipes and reset the codes, this will allow you to pass inspection and stay....well as far as everyone know....legal, then you can just switch back out the pipes and resume back to catless piping, that seems like a lot of work BUT is very worth it if you want to run no cats, the

silverado13

plugs run right at $45 and youll only need to get 2, just for where the back two O2 sensors are supposed to be, id just keep the front O2 sensors plugged in like normal