I have a 2011 Suburban with the 5.3L Flex Fuel engine. I need to rebuild the engine, I believe the piston rings are finally toast. 183k miles on the engine so I'm sure I'm past due for having a major issue lol.

So, to describe why I need to go through all this... Sometimes, after the truck has been parked for a little bit after a 60+ mile drive, when the engine is started, a large cloud of white smoke comes from the exhaust. It has a funny smell, almost like a plasticy-burnt smell. The engine consumed a significant amount of oil since we bought the vehicle 2 yrs ago, 4+ quarts throughout a 3k mile cycle.

We just drove it approx 1400 miles round trip for vacation. It consumed about 3.5 quarts during the trip. No clouds of smoke from the start of the trip up until this morning. When we started the engine, it put out its largest cloud ever, fired a few times and stalled. Tried to start it again, it ran VERY rough, maybe 250rpm, until the smoke let up, then it idled fine with an engine code of P1400, likely caused by the smoke or the half cup of water with soot that came out when it started the second time. Actual water, not coolant. Cleared the code, drove it for 20 minutes or so, ran fine the whole time. Shudders a little at idle which is sitting a tad below 500 on the tach.

Driveability... acceleration is sluggish until it gets above 1k rpm or so. then the sluggishness goes away. Any incline, even very slight at highway speed I have to kick it out of overdrive, which may just be normal, not sure.

So, I'm here writing all this up because obviously I have oil getting into the combustion chamber, all the symptoms point to piston rings being worn and compression isnt what it should be. Fuel mileage has even decreased since we purchased it so the problem is appearing to get worse, especially with what I described that happened this morning.

I'm looking for a bit of guidance to figure out whether I should spend the extra money to purchase a reman/crate motor or if I will be fine rebuilding my engine myself if I make sure I do everything properly.

If I do it myself, I'd like to know if there are any particular parts or tools you've used that might save time, save surprise issues or make the job go smoother?

Also if there's any good guides that go through a full teardown and rebuild, that would be great as well. I've had poor luck finding info so far.

Thanks in advance!

 

over a year and a half later, the issue hasnt gotten worse strangely..