Hello all. I am hoping some of the awesome members of this forum can help me out. I have fallen victim of the infamous "chirp,squeak,knock" better known as Lifter and Cam lobe damage. I am unfortunately out of the warranty window and have to fit this bill on my own. I think I am wanting to just do a motor swap. I found a decent price on a low mileage 2011 5.3L LC9 motor. According to the listing, it is only compatible with 2010-2012. Does anyone know if it is actually compatible with my 2008? If not, do you know what is different and if it is possible to make it work? I'm fairly mechanically inclined, but any responses please keep as simple as possible. PMs are welcomed also. Thank you too everyone in advance.

I think the 2011 motor has a cam phaser and the 08 motor doesn't. I think the timing cover and cam can be swapped but your cam is junk.

Alot of people are doing a non cyl deactivation mod with early cam iwas reading

What exactly is that? I have not heard of it. Is it somewhere on this forum? Thank you for the information.

This is a 08 motor and all it has is the standard 3 wire cam position sensor.




This is a 2011 motor and it has a actuator on the passenger side of the timing cover and it has a 5 wire connector on the drivers side near the pan lip.

I'm pretty sure the motor will work but your going to need to buy a new cam shaft and use the timing cover off of the 08 engine.

i wouldnt take it to the dealer. you have to have the earlier cam and lifters put in and send the pcm to a custom tuner.
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active fuel management [Archive] - FSC - Chevy Truck Forum
Another 5.3 with AFM bites the dust ~ Chevrolet Active Fuel Management Problems

Thank you everyone for the replies. Does anyone know if this issue is resolved after putting a new cam and lifters in? I have read that they have resigned the lifters, particularly the AFM lifters to correct this issue. If I'm going to have to put a new cam and lifters in anyways, it may just be more cost effective to just do the cam and lifters in my current motor. Any thoughts? Thank you everyone for your input.

well its up to you, you can take the risk that the updates actually work, buy it at dealer price or have someone else or you if you are handy put the non afm cam/lifters in it have it tuned out and not have to worry about it. i haven't heard any complaints about non afm cam and lifter issues. also haven't heard about the new design being good or not. i have heard a ton of complaints that the newer engines dont get any better mileage than the old ones. what ever you do you have to make sure you dont have any metal flakes in your engine oil passages

IDK about the mileage but I do know I have about 15 trucks with the cylinder deactivation engines. One night I was playing with one with the scanner hooked up and the only time I noticed it go into deactivation was when I was rolling down hill and barely on the gas. The way my drivers drive these things I doubt it'* effective at all on the mileage.