Stop planning and get the parts ordered. You are living on borrowed time.
Watch some videos o. YouTube about “Sea Foam” for the engine (I think the name is), hey take vehicles with severe ticking, and loss of power, and run that stuff through, and the difference is amazing. Might be worth trying first. Not sure if there are any downsides to usin it though- I dont think so, but no sure.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=agAWXnT4-EQ&t=348s
Another on how to use it
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mzTdGupoew0&t=112s&pp=2AFwkAIB
Did it last? (Yep)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mzTdGupoew0&t=112s&pp=2AFwkAIB
GM 5.3 Liter Ticking Noise. It’s not what you think it is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbypeije6gQ
Take off the radiator filler cap and put a FORD underneath it.
I’ve been down this road myself with my Chev. The first thing to do is get a Range Technologies device to disable the AFM. Others talk about this being in the hundreds of dollars but I managed to find a used one that works fine for $40.
If you do end up with a stuck lifter, keep one of these links handy... quite interesting as a fellow has a way of getting them ‘unstuck’ without an engine teardown.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDsa-3wvHXw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP7I5tbXsfw
Another link to keep handy....
https://www.lt1swap.com/afm_delete.htm This is the website of a smart dude in Missouri who programs ECMs to disable the AFM and does so quite inexpensively....
Best of luck with this.
Specialty Fasteners at 14856 Central Ave—Chino, Calif 91710
909-393-3999 or 909-393-6999 might be able to help you.
(Google & double check the phone info—DO NOT know why I have 2 different numbers)
They carry high tensile items for racing-—particularly Drag racing.
I bought a used 2011 Silverado that had just had a new engine put in at 100k miles. After finding out about the problems with that active fuel management (is that what the thing is called where it goes from 8 cylinders down to 4 cylinders?) I sent in my computer to some guy that disabled it. Now it runs on 8 all the time.
It wasn’t that much to disable it. Maybe $50 to the guy, and another $50 to FedEx. Probably isn’t worth doing on an old engine. My truck had a new engine with only 8000 miles on it.