This guy I use is CHEAP. $75 to do an LS1/6 intake.

I always thought that you couldn't powdercoat anything that wasn't metal...??

Something about the compound in these intakes allow the powder to stick. I don't know much about it, but I do know that an LS intake can withstand around 500* in the baking process where powder coating is usually baked at 375-400*.

Very cool! (And just what I DIDN'T need - something else to spend money on!!!)

As long as it can withstand the baking temperature, anything that can hold a static charge can be powdercoated.

I am loving this thread.

Hey guys, I found a great place to get an ECM for your LSX swap. I bought one on ebay from ebay seller "SpareECM". I did a quick search of them on LS1tech and so far nobody has had anything negative to say about them. Total cost with shipping was $101.xx and they can program it to any VIN you want. So I hopped on ebay and found an '02 SS 6spd car and got the VIN and sent it with my order. I should have it in a few days.

Actually u can code or orginal vin from your 91 to the PCM. It doesnt do anything special except I have heard that newer emmisions testing equipment can record your vin on your report.

Subscribing to watch the progress. I'm thinking about a 3rd gen/LSX build for my next project so I want to watch this unfold.

Melvin, I won't have any sort of emissions test for the car, just a safety inspection. If the car is '95 and older then there is no emissions test in MO.

The powdercoated intake/valve covers would look really trick with some custom fuel rail covers as well...

You sold the 90 g92 years ago right? do you know who has it now? for sale?

Ya I guess its been about 2 or 3 yrs now. It is down in the Houston area. 3.1eyecandy know the owners, or is it eyecandy3.1... Sorry Jon, doing this on my phone makes it so hard to pull up searches haha!

no you can't. HP tuners won't let you because you could lock/unlock your PCM for a specific year without paying.
You can edit the VIN partially.
If somehow you did edit it to a true 91 VIN you'd be screwed because HPTuners would never connect to it.

So just don't use HP Tuners? How about Nelson Performance? They do code the computer for your VIN when they do your computer for swapping LQ4s into previously-V6 vehicles, and if you do a cam as part of your swap, they tune for that too. So if they can do it, surely others can. From this, I doubt Nelson uses HP Tuners. Can you guys clarify this?

For swap cars you pick a VIN that originally had that engine type. Check out the 0411 TPI swap as they found out the hard way that they would have several unrelated problems due to not having an express van VIN in the PCM.

Small progress today, as well as a small hold-up. I forgot that I had the truck coils and that I would run into problems mounting them with Fbody fuel rails, so I'm going to have to figure something out. I'm going to make a separate post about this because I have some specific questions relating the issue. I did get one of the pressure fittings that I ordered that was on back order, and installed it. The fuel filter is ready to go, as are the fuel rails. Now I'm just waiting for one last fitting and then I can start making the lines.


One question I have regards anyone using a truck throttle body. Isn't this outlet on the TB supposed to be for the PCV system or something like that? If so, there's no way I can get the rubber hose on the nipple because the front bolt for the throttle cable bracket is in the way. Did anyone else experience this issue? What did you do about it?







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Here's the fuel filter and the rail:









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And the truck coil/fuel rail issue. You can see the bolt holes are a little more than 1" off from where they should be to mount the coil bracket. I'm guessing I'm going to HAVE to get car coils?

That is the PCV port. Maybe cut some length off and slip the hose over it a bit further up to clear the throttle cable? Last ditch would be to pull the port out, drill/tap it and install a 90* nipple

Car coils have interference with the HVAC box. Some guys run a single truck coil for #8 or move the car coil higher with new mounting holes. Full truck coil sets require a slight bend of the fuel rail to clear the connector

So you wouldn't be afraid of putting a kink in the end of the rail? I also thought about maybe swapping that one coil where the fuel line goes onto the rail with a car coil. Would it fit onto the truck bracket correctly?

i just bent mine out of the way, took loose one of the coil mounting bolts so it that single coil could pivot, and that's all it took.

Cool, I'll give that a try. Thanks Matt.

More progress.


First off, I have somewhat of a unique item to share with those of you who are using the 4th gen coolant reservoir on a 3rd gen Fbody. When you cut the hole in the battery tray to make room for the bottom end of the 4th gen bottle, you will notice that there is a brace for the passenger side fender that is in the way, and it will not let the coolant bottle rest correctly against the battery tray. Removing the brace will allow the fender to flab in the wind when you're going down the highway. So, it is important that you somehow utilize this brace, and my dad and I came up with an easy solution to do just that. There is a small hole in the passenger frame rail, just a little ways backwards from where this brace would normally mount. I decided to use that hole to mount the brace because it allowed just enough room for the coolant bottle to sit properly. To do this, I took a sharpie and marked how short I needed to make the brace, then put it in a vice and bent it at a 90* angle, drilled another hole in it and got a bolt and locking nut to fasten it in place in the new hole. You can see from these pictures exactly where I decided to mount it, and I took a picture from below the fender to show how much clearance it gave me with the coolant bottle. In the 3rd picture, my index finger points to where the brace mounted from the factory, so you can see how it poses a problem when using this coolant bottle.









The other big part of my progress from today was cutting the hole for the manual shifter. I took Aaron's advice and cut it just within the stock holes for mounting the auto shifter (there are four holes). The carpet on the driver side hangs over a little bit so you can't see all four edges of the hole, but you get the idea.



Then here is something I was really excited to get out of the way. I went ahead and undercoated just the transmission tunnel, all the way back to about 6" behind where the shifter will be. I also undercoated up into the engine bay just a little bit. I wanted to get the tunnel done so I can get the motor and trans in next weekend. I'll undercoat the rest of the car once it is running and I can take it up to my friend's work and use their lift, because doing it all on your back with the car 2' off the ground kind of sucks.

More of the undercoating. I made a fine line between blue and black on the trans tunnel, I think I like it this way with it coming into the frame rail in the engine bay. What do you guys think?

Looking good Nick, that's a really nice job with the undercoating. I kind of wish that mine would've photographed better, but c'est la vie... Nice progress too!

Looks awesome nick!

Thanks guys. I got a call from one of my friends just a few minutes ago and he said I can come pick up his cherry picker and trans dolly this week sometime. So next weekend I will have the drivetrain in the car.

My biggest concern as of right now is getting the 4th gen ebrake cables to work. I have a 4th gen rear end, and really don't want to have to go out and buy a 4th gen ebrake handle assembly if I don't have to, because I don't want to have to spend more money. I heard the cables are too short or something, and would love for someone to tell me an easy and inexpensive way to solve the problem.

OK - if you always park up against something, you won't need an e-brake!





(Sorry man, but you left that WIDE open...)

Yea I should just carry a brick with me everywhere I go

Hey nick,

Bad news, short of having conversion cables made up (3rd gen on the end that connects to your stock e-brake and then 4th gen length, and end that connects to brake), there isnt really any other options.

For my 4th gen e-brake on my car, i drilled the spot welds on a e-brake trans tunnel plate from a '00 bird, and then drilled out all the welds of the stock plate in my camaro, and welded the 4th gen one into place. Im going to ask my dad to take a few pictures for you to show you what i did.

Theres a big home base looking peice of metal in the tunnel, thats the one i drilled the welds of and dropped out. Then replaced it with a 4th gen part & e-brake handle.

Not sure if this makes any sense

On the brake board , ebmiller has a conversion kit that allows you to use ur stock 3rd gen ebrake setup with 4th gen rears.

I was going to do what Sheldon suggested until I found what ed miller had .

check him out

Ya Justin showed me the Ed Miller conversion cables last night after I posted this. I'm going to go that route since its only $100.xx. Thanks

looking real good Nick

I've got some good new for ya, Nick Unless there's any difference between the earlier 4th gen and later (LS1...) then you should be just fine - I'm running it. You will have to run it a bit wider, and yes, they are shorter. AND the end setup is different - 3rd gen has a long exposed cable, and 4th is a short exposed cable... mostly in the sheath.

I wish I'd taken some pics when I did mine, but I didn't. If I remember right, I had to redirect how they ran from the axle itself and then you can't use the same end setup that the 3rd gen uses. I remember there being like a wing tab that typically guided each side of the 3rd gen cable (just the cable itself)... and you pry those out some so that the whole 4th gen cable housing can fit in there... and then I drilled into them to secure the housing to them with a hose clamp on each side. Looks clean (like that matter a lot there...) and has worked perfectly for months.

If you wanted to take a picture of that area, I could try to point at different stuff if this doesn't make sense. It should be easy enough though to figure out when you look at it and keep that in mind.

looks really good. i've been watching this since the beginning. about 4 days ago i finally sat my LQ9 down in between the fenders of my 88. you can see that i also have the tick remote bleeder




first time in 4 years the car has had something in it. I got the t-56, lq9, aluminum driveshaft and an ls1 rear in the car all in 2 days. i still have all the wiring to do and have run in to complications. i'm using a truck alternator since they are rated at 140 amp i believe. plus i didnt have to buy one since it came with my lq9 problem is it is clocked differently and the stud for the cable that goes to the starter is hitting the kmember brace mount so i either have to cut off the kmember bracket or get an fbody alternator.

on another note how did you mark where you were going to drill for your fbody alternator mount? i still have yet to do that but i wanted it to be where it needs to be.

none of the accessories are on because i'm waiting on head studs to get here. i pulled off the truck manifolds and one of the bolts was broke off. and upon looking at it the head was cracked down the entire length of it. so i just got another set of 317 heads and now i'm waiting on studs and manifold bolts. i also have to track down a set of 01-02 manifolds since i cant afford longtubes.

Great work so far. I'm looking forward to seeing this thing complete!! You have put a lot of work in and it shows.

Only the trucks with efans 05'+ came with the 145 Alt and the rest came with 105Alt

For drilling the hole for the fbody alternator, there is already a boss in the block where it needs to go. Just take the fbody alt. bracket and put it up to the block where it needs to go and you'll see where to drill the hole. I can't remember if I mentioned what size drill and tap to use ( I think I mentioned on a previous page of the thread), but in case I didn't, if you do a search for "tap" in the LSX section its like the first or second thread that pops up in the search that shows what tap to use.

-Nick

you mentioned you used i believe a 21/64 or something like that drill bit i know the tap is m10x1.5

the alternator... i thought the 2500HD's all got 145 amp alternators?

Ok so I got a CRAP ton of stuff done tonight thanks to my bad case of senior-itis ( skipped my last class tonight haha ).


I got to work on the fuel lines tonight since my last fitting came in from Summit the other day. This is the saginaw fitting that goes on the hard feed line coming from the stock sending unit.



I had to use some imagination to get the fuel filter mounted. With the extra fittings coming off both ends, it made the unit way too long to mount in the stock position (which you can see where the stock one mounted in this picture, in the bottom right corner of the photo). I drilled a hole and put a self-tapping screw in to hold the filter here. I had to mount it vertically instead of horizontally like the stock one. This allowed me to also use the stock rubber line that is used for the return that would have gone into a hard return line. Instead, the rubber line goes into a Russel fitting then straight to the Corvette filter. I'll have more pictures of the fuel lines once I get the motor and transmission in the car this weekend. I didn't want to mess with the feed line coming from the filter because I don't know exactly how long it will be just yet.






This next piece also took some creativity. As you know from some previous posts, I am using 4th gen coolant and washer tanks, which the washer tank mounts in the front bumper. Well on a 3rd gen there is a black brace that mounts from the front bumper to the brace for the hood latch. I didn't want to toss the piece away because I want to try and use every piece from the stock front end as possible to make it as sturdy as possible. But in order to use this brace it needed to be trimmed down some to clear the top of the washer tank. Here you can see where I made the cut.

And you can see how well it clears the washer tank now.






And for mounting the washer tank, yet again, I used my imagination. If you mount it flush against the frame, it hits the hood latch support brace. Ideally, you want to mount an inch or so off the frame so that it's not in a bind, or hitting the brace support. Some people have used a longer bolt and a piece of fuel line as a spacer to keep the tank off the frame a little bit. I took the black plastic trapezoid shaped piece that was used with the stock battery tray to mount the battery in place, and cut it in half, and ground it down smooth into two oval shaped piece. It was just thick enough to meet my satisfaction, so I drilled holes in the two pieces and mounted it just the way it is.















And lastly, I'll end this post with a question. I found these two connectors on the headlight/washer side of the bulk connector, yet I don't remember where they go to. If anyone can refresh my memory that would be awesome. I know they're not the cruise control, I just yanked all those wires and connectors out tonight as well to clean up the bay a little.

Looking good

Connectors both go to the wiper motor. Be sure you pull the wiper motor when the engine goes in as its easy to break

Ahh yes! Thanks Jon, I forgot about the wiper motor. I was looking around the engine bay looking for something with a connector like those and didn't see it (because I already had the wiper motor removed )


You da man.

Lookin good Nick! I'm fixing the headlight on mine this weekend and hopefully getting her inspected I'm just glad I finished before you... Now I'll have to come visit like told you I would when we picked up the 90 g92. Scott still has it and it's got a rebuilt 305 and mint repainted body.

Awesome you totally should come visit, maybe give me a hand with the rest of the wiring and stuff


That's cool he got it repainted and a rebuild. I miss the heck out of that car. You need to tell Scott he needs to post up pictures on TGO for me to see. The whole reason I did the T56 with this swap instead of an auto is because of that IROC.

Lookin good

Any decision about which direction you're going with that axle??

12 bolt or 9" eventually

Haha.... I meant short-term with that ten bolt. Did ya get a chance to look at it with what I'd mentioned in mind?? Those conversion cables may make it go right up like the 3rd gen rear did... but like I said... mine works 100%.

Yea I was looking at it last night, and decided that I'm glad I bought the conversion cables. I'm all about making things simple, even if I have to pay a few more dollars for it.

Tonight I made "a little" progress with the help of my good friend Mike. (There is a bit of sarcasm in the term "a little")


This is love at first site, if I have never seen it before:








Ok, I think some of you guys are going to be really jealous with this next part. The reason I say that, is because not only did I not have to loosen the motor mount pedestals, or the motor mounts themselves, I also didn't even have to jack the car up off the ground, well partially anyways. All I did was jack the rear axle up off the ground about 8", left the front tires on the ground, and did a lot of lowering and then man-handling the motor and transmission on the hoist and lowered them down together from the top. Both bolts for the motor mounts went in without much problem. In fact, the driver side one went in right away, and I just had to have my friend push down on the block a little while I knocked the passenger side bolt in with a rubber hammer. Easy as pie.


Sorry for the crappy BlackBerry pictures, I am definitely going to clean her up this week and take some really good ones with my Canon DSLR. I've been using my phone to take pictures of most of the progress because it's so handy to use instead of swinging around an actual camera.

Ok, and one more positive note before I begin with the negative that I found tonight.



The hole I cut for the shifter seems to be just right. I cut it in the correct spot, it could be a little smaller but I think the lower shift boot will cover most of it.






Ok here's the negative. Am I the first person to try using the Alston Racing sfc's and the Spohn T56 crossmember? The reason I ask, is because I haven't come across anyone else with this problem before. I'm thinking I will need to notch out a chunk of the mounting face of the cross member to clear the front of the sfc. You can see how bad it really is, there is like a 1/2" gap between the frame rail and the cross member, creating horrible ground clearance, as well as me not being able to bolt down the cross member all the way without breaking it. I'll wait to get some input from you guys before I start hacking away on it.


This should be sitting flush with the frame rail:

Great progress! Looks great!