Once the 5.3 was in a safe space away from the evils of the world, it was time for the pearl to get a hair cut. The kind of haircut that involves a reciprocating saw and loss of some major components.  We started with the hood, then moved to the front bumper, fenders, grille, and radiator support.  After all that unnecessary garbage was out of the way, it was time to call the boys one last time to say “we’ll see ya” to the old ragged out 350 and its retarded transmission friend.  As Gotye and company rewrote the song to “some engine that I used to know”, it was nightmare wiring time with help from the land of ultimate truth… the internet.

The old small block was such a simple device as far as wiring was concerned. Sure, it still managed to kill batteries due to its shotty – somewhat – maybe at one time was insulated wiring harness, but It really only had 2 wires to the starter, 1 to the alternator, 1 to the distributor and a ground.  In fact, I’m pretty sure it was wired by that cave man on the Geico commercial from like 10 years ago. The only thing left to do after that was remove a few more bolts and pour a murderous amount of red fluid out of the tail of the transmission while yanking up on it with the engine crane.  The number of delinquent parts were piling up on my garage floor as I sat it down in the last speck of visible floor, next to its replacement.

Starting its new life as a vagrant on my garage floor, the old engine waited for 40 days and 40 nights until a new savior arrived from the internet.  At 2:23 on the perfect Saturday afternoon, 2 men arrived in one of the Gray Pearl’s illegitimate nephews, The Green Pearl, with tales of a new land near the coast and a new hope for fading icon of V8 engines. The old engine unfriend the Gray Pearl on Facebook in disgust after seeing multiple photos of it together with its new 15 year old mate. Lavishly decorated with sensors and wires, the 5.3 LS cuddled up against the firewall as it gave its final pretentious wave goodbye to the old 350 and sealed the deal by changing its status with the Gray Pearl to “In a Relationship”.