im looking into getting an ls1 for my iroc but i have a few questions i cant seem to find the answers to. i have a richmond 5 speed tranny with the t-5 style lakewood bellhousing. im not willing to part with my trans bc the trans/bellhousing/ clutch i have well over $3000 in, and its alot stronger that a t56. all the swaps ive seen were w/ t56 trannys. how would the ls1 bolt up to my t-5 set up? the ls1 has an 11" clutch where as mine is 10.4 so how would i be able to bolt my clutch to the flywheel, i suppose i could have the 10.4 bolt holes drilled in at a machine shop to the ls1 flywheel but i dont know that the distances would be the same from the trans to the flywheel on the ls1 as it is on a gen1 motor. any help?

You won't be able to. There are adapter plates to bolt up a Turbo 350 to an LS based motor, but the bolt patterns on the T56 bellhousing are totally different than the ones for the 5-speeds and the clutch would not sit properly on the flywheel.

arent the bolt holes one the engine for the bellhousing the same as a gen 1? dont ppl swap t56's on their gen1's? shouldnt u then be able to swap genIII's onto a gen1 tranny set up. this is a lakewood bellhousing it has alot more holes then a regular t-5 bellhousing.

Well I'm not sure how much of a help this will be, but the bolt holes are for the most part very similar. The ls1 has like 1 or 2 moved. I'm using the lakewood bellhousing scatter shield for an ls1 which is made to adapt an ls1 to older transmissions like the tko I am using. A problem with all of this will come down to your flywheel and clutch I beleive. I think you need it to be 11" for the starter. And I'm not sure if your housing has the same bolts, but you never know. Got a link or picture? Have you tried to match it to the back of an ls1 pic?

Somebody can feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I know, the LSx engines do have a different bellhousing setup than a Gen 1 or Gen 2.

People who swap T-56 transmissions to their Gen 1 cars use the transmissions from LT1 cars (93-97).

The LS1 transmissions are different than the LT1 tranny's, mainly the input shafts and clutch setups. The TKO transmissions are totally different than the standard T5's (found this out with research in swapping my Mustang to one) and the bellhousings are different, can't speak for the input shaft lengths between the T5 and T56 trannys.

if you dont know what the hell you're talking about, why are you trying to give this man advice???


the LS1s bell housing bolt pattern is identical to the SBCs, except the upper passenger side bolt is missing.. the one closest to the #8 cyl. (if it was there, it would go into the cyl...)


your lakewood bellhousing will bolt up.
the pilot bearing size is the same as all other SBCs, so use whatever you use now.

for the clutch,there are two options i see:
you will need a LS1 pressure plate to match the flywheel, and a custom disc that matches the transmissions input shaft and the LS1 clutch size. there are suggestions for companys on LS1tech.com in the conversions and hybrids section.

i dont know if the length of your input shaft will work. you may end up swapping out input shafts in your transmission for one that will.

you need a hyd throwout bearing for the LS1 clutch. i dont have experiance with any of the aftermarket ones, but the stock LS1 one could be made to work, if done carefully.


or.

you can have a custom flywheel made to match the LS1, and hold your current style clutch... then you only have to worry about input shaft length..

in the end, it will end up being ALOT of work, and you will have custom parts one way or another. with the costs of good clutches and custom parts, it may be cheaper to sell your car and do it a known workable way... but its close enough to try either way.

the tko is basically the same as the t10 I believe. Just like Klortho said the LSX do have a slightly different belllhousing, but that is not why they are different. They have a different clutch mechanism, along with different input shafts. I could be wrong, so I would advise a search, but I'm pretty sure of this information as I wanted to use a t56 from a 93-97 as I found one pretty cheap, but there seemed to be too much work involved in it.

Before I had my Ls1 in hand, I wanted to use a different bellhousing but couldnt becuase it wasnt made for 11" and would not clear the starter. I was going to just use a normal bellhousing for 11" clutch, and lose a couple of the holes for mounting, until I saw the lakewood on ebay. Is this the bellhousing you are talking about?

Lakewood

If not could you give a link?

This is the bellhousing you would proabably need, mine came with an adapter to move to pilot bearing back, due to the shorter crankshaft on the ls1.

Lakewood

the splines on the inputshaft/clutch are diffrent.. along with the throwout method.


there is a GM part for this... i dont have the number, but ive seen it before.

Yes, there is an adapter to move not the pilot bearing, but the entire flywheel assembly. A buddy of mine had to buy one to put a Turbo 350 behind a 5.3 liter. The part was like $70 but he ended up not using it for other reasons.

I had no idea, there was a gm part for this. Going to have to look for it for future reference or use.

Never worked with t5's only t10's and such. Would be cool to see a t5 ls1 though.

yeah that does sound like alot of custom work. i think i will just sell my clutch and bellhousing on ebay take a little loss and then buy the lakewood ls1 bellhousing for my trans and get an ls clutch set up. then i should only loose maybe like $200 itd prolly be cheaper and easier. thanks for the help though

Figures I'd find a thread that was related to a thread I just started.

I'll ask the same question in here. What if you wanted to swap an LS1 T-56 onto a gen 1 SB? It sounds like the LS trans is going to have the input shaft too far forward into the crank. Does this sound right? My question is whether a simple bellhousing spacer might move the trans back far enough to use a conventional Gen 1 flywheel/pressure plate with a LS or hybrid clutch disk? Or is it even necessary to space out the trans? Can any one point me towards some dimensions? Would anyone be willing to get me some dimension off their T-56? I think all I would need is the distance from the bellhousing mounting flange to the tip of the input shaft, and then the length of the pilot stub and splined sections. You could just put a strait edge across the bell housing and measure to the tip of the input shaft, tolerances within a 1/16th of an inch (tape measure and level) would be good enough for now.

The reason I want to do this is that the LS1 t-56's are about 500-700 cheaper than the LT1 version. Plus I will eventually be going to an LS1, but I would like to do it in steps, it's a bit easier on the wallet that way.

Information I got from a buddy of mine who rebuilds T56's, you have to change the input shaft for an LS1 transmission to work on an iron block motor.

I'd like to know exactly why it won't work, it's looking like the input shaft is too long. Maybe I can make some kind of funky deep pilot bushing to make it work, or maybe a LT1 input shaft swap is the quickest way. I can't imagine it would cost any more than the lakewood bellhousing and custom clutch.

The input shaft is longer due to the flywheel being thinner than the one on a Gen 1 or LTx based engine and it uses a internal style of slave cylinder setup instead of the common shift fork/external slave cylinder. Cheapest thing to do is save up until you are ready to get the LS1 and put both in at the same time. Otherwise you will end up going with an LTx based transmission.

I can't imagine the flywheel being so thin that the input shaft would be WAY too long. I bet there isn't any currently available pilot bearings that would work, which isn't a problem for me. The slave cylinder doesn't matter to me one bit, I much rather deal with a hydraulic slave. I don't why people mess with mechanical linkages and external slave cylinders. Much easier to just run a line from the clutch master cylinder to the slave cylinder.

I just need to get some measurements and see for my self why it won't work. Maybe the input shaft sticks into the crank by a good 1" or more. Or it could be that you only need to use a custom pilot bushing.

LS1 uses same pilot bearing as all other GM V8s.

That's good to know, I bet the only problem is that input shaft either sticks out too far or not far enough. I just need some measurements to come up with an intelligent solution.