Blown head gasket and cracked head in my '00 5.3 Tahoe

[SScatman02]

Just want to get a take from you guys here on this. Heres the quick rundown as I am about to go to the dealership right now. Dropped the tahoe w/ 159,000 K miles on it off at the dealership, complaining of antifreeze "leaking" somewhere, couldnt find the leak, even under pressurizing the reservoir... (also had an SES light come on I wanted them to check out, I knew it was the catalytic failure, P0420, but wanted there take on it after screwing with the o2 sensors myself...turns out this was the least of my problems)
Anyway, just got a call from the dealership, and they say the cooolant was going in my oil, ive got a blown head gasket/ cracked head. This is what I was afraid of.
So the tech mentioned something about getting a remanufactured engine w/ a 100,000 mile 3 year warranty as the engine already had ~160,000, this reman engine may be the way to go.
I do not know what the damage $$ will be but I want to get some advice, I always thought one day down the road I would put some ls1 or ls2 in it. Depending on what it may cost, I just might have to do this. Would this be the way to go or should I just get a remanufactured engine with the 3 yr. 100k warranty.

Help please, ill read this tonight and decide what Ill do tomorrow possibly.

Any help appreciated

[blue02Z]

well i heard on here if you go buy a short block for the '04 cts-v (ls6) its is like 3 grand. yeah its pricy but you could build it up and stick it in there. just make sure its for the cts-v and not the zo6, same engine but they price it differently according to the application

[01blackbird]

Let me give you some insight. Majority of the time it's actually the intake gaskets leaking! Very notorius with this problem, that includes coolant getting into the oil. The LT1 type engines especiallly in truck based vehicles were also famous for this and usually at lower mileage. With the LS1 type engines it usually occurs with mileage like what you have. Good luck either way you choose to go.

[z28punk]

Majority of the time it's actually the intake gaskets leaking!
theres no coolant or oil that runs through the gen 3's intake. u would be right tho if we were talking about 3.1's, 3.4's, 3.8's, 4.3's ect. its pretty much all the engine's that use RTV to seal the intakes.
the coolant was probably leaking internally into the oil. they probably saw the milky oil on the dipstick and figured it out that way.
an LS1 in a tahoe would be cool, but idk. its a tahoe and you could just build that up since its a similar engine to the LS1. there are a lot of mods for the 5.3

[Bigjohn366]

ya i dont recon they would be plastic if they need water to run thru them ,

so its diffently a head gasket , if you change the oil fast enough you can save the motor