2017 Chevy Silverado Engine Swap Help

I appreciate your time and your knowledge base. I am a rather entry level do it yourself mechanic. I would also like to thank the HP tuners for this forum and the products that they offer to allow us to program.

I have recently purchased a 2017 chevy silveado 5.3L chevy engine, 8l80 trans, and transfer case complete assembly to be swapped into a jeep wrangler. I performed one of these swaps before about 7 years ago with a 99 chevy 4.3l that worked flawlessly after vats removal. Anyway, the motor came intact with everything with the exception of the ECU which came up missing. The seller has since sent me a new ecu but has not been programmed with the factory settings. I have sent him the ecu back so that he can program it / have it programmed with the factory settings for this vehicle. Unfortunately the lost stock ecu is causing me many concerns. Upon my making my purchase, I was under the impression that I would have to remove vats only and all would function as intended similar to my past experience.

1. Will the new programmed ecu communicate with the original tcm without error or will I now run into many new / compatibility issues. This is my biggest fear.

2.) I thought I would be able to find a company that will remove the vats. I have come to find out that all of the companies provide vats removal for 2006 and earlier. I appreciate HP tuners for allowing me to remove the vats and I will purchase the credits and tuner within the next week. I am assuming it will be as easy as the youtube videos make it look. If I am missing anything please let me know.

I know this is really simple for most of the people in this forum as I have read many of your threads / posts. You guys are awesome. The benefit of purchasing the tuner is that I might be able to do some programming in the near future. I would like to disable some of the features not needed in an engine swap to make the engine run smoother / better, rear o2s / emissions. I know I would like to set the temperature for the fans to operate at a lower temp and I don't know how that would affect fuel.

Anyway, 1 step at a time. I thank you again for your wisdom.

James S.

I don't think you will have an issue with the ecu communicating with the TCM. It is common to have to replace an ECU if you brick one or it goes bad. Vats removal is super easy. Changing fan settings is also easy on most ecus I have seen and I can't imagine that would impact fueling but I could be missing something. Hp tuners will allow you to do everything you listed and there is tons of info on these forums to help you get there