I found a motor but need harness and ecm...

[tex_waco_usmc]

I found a low mileage 5.3. It doesn't come with trans, harness or ECM. What are my options? Should I steer clear?

[tex_waco_usmc]

Oh, it came out of an 02 model pickup... Only 87K miles

[lynnfield]

What year 5.3? I was at pick N pull earlier last week and they had a couple 2000/ 2001 trucks that had the ECM still there. Or you could contact Bill at BP automotive (270)805-1777, he can build you a harness and get you a computer set up ready to go. He did my stuff if you want to stop by sometime and take a look. Greg

[lynnfield]

I believe those would still work. There was a truck and a tahoe, both 5.3's

[Chrysis]

I bought my 5.3 It didn't have the accessories, ECM, harness, nor transmission. If you like to do a lot of reading, don't mind asking questions, you can piece everything together.

If you are not in a huge rush, you can find some really good prices. I have been gathering parts for a few months. So far I have about $600 into my 5.3 and I'm getting close to dropping her in.

[BR3W CITY]

I pieced mine together, its not that bad now that most of us have ironed out the DBW compatability issues.

Ideally, you need to look for a sourced ecm from a truck as similar as you can. This means finding one with a v8 and an auto trans as a starting point is your best bet. Make sure it falls into the correct year range as what you have. The basic rule of thumb is that a v8 auto swap with dbw, starts best with an ecm from a v8/auto with dbw.
Your tuner will program your VIN into the computer, and set things like trans type, wheel size, a/c functions, certain dbw settings etc...but its always easier to start with a known working pcm on that setup. Some "good" tuners still screw up segment swaps and other things.

Are you planning on running dbw? If not, then the above will get you most of what you need. You can buy the trans seperate, and many of us will recommend having a new harness made anyway. Once you decide on a trans, and other things like any changes to injectors, A/c or not, etc...then you have the harness tailored to that.
If you ARE running DBW, its more stringent. The above all still applies...but you need to then make sure that the Ecm, TB, and tac module will all come from the same year/vehicles. I can't remember when it started 02 or 03.

[ls1nova71]

Trucks went DBW across the board in 2003. Some SUVs had it as early as 2000 or 2001. I have only seen 1 pre 2003 truck that was DBW and it was built in Canada, not sure if that's why though.