Quote: Originally Posted by IROCThe5.7L Great progress! Looks great! Thanks I realized that the cross member is upside down I'm pretty sure but it still appears I'll need to take off some of it to clear the sfc.

Nick, saw your post on LS1tech. Im gonna do a little paint drawing for you.

Unfortunately, teh finish on the crossmember is going to get damaged either way.

Im thinking its in your best interested to cut out the offending peice of the crossmember, and shift it downward till it clears,and box it back in so to speak. Hopefully my drawing will make sense

Ya that's fine, I can just get it powder coated in the spring when I have the LS6 intake powder coated. I just need it to fit right haha

I have the same setup, only my SFC's arent on yet. Now i know I'm going to have a problem.... That's what I need is more problems... I have a set of UMI perimeter and a set of the alston sfc's to go in the car. I'll do a mock up tomorrow and see if mine does the same thing...

Cool, let me know. The Alstons should only go on one way, they're made to fit the curve of the frame rail perfectly, so they shouldn't be able to move forward or back during mock-up.

nick how did the headders fit ?? pictures of clearences would be cool!!

I haven't had a chance to get back to the garage since Saturday. I'm hoping to be able to put the headers on tomorrow after work though, and I will be sure to take pictures when I get them on. I've just got a few small things to purchase before I can start her up. I also have to get a few things figured out with the wiring too, which I've been talking to Pocket about that so I should have it buttoned up real soon.

well i only got a couple pictures of the one side it was disappointing enough

Bummer... Hack saw it is...

im not sure if i'm going to cut mine yet. i think i'll be getting a crossmember mounted torque arm so im not ready to cut mine yet. anyone need a t-56 crossmember? it hasnt even had a tranny mount yet! lol (blocks of wood)

Oh yours doesn't have the bushing for mounting the torque arm? I was thinking all of the Spohn ones were like mine

As for the starter question that you PM'd me about, I'm not sure if there is a difference between a truck starter and an fbody starter. It may be something that another member here could answer for you. I was under the impression that either one would work?

I got some pictures for you, Melvin. I only got the driver side done today because I'm still working on the wiring, and haven't wired up the starter yet, and having the header there would make it really difficult to work in that area.

From my initial impression, it looks like the only things that are close to the header that could potentially be a problem are the brake lines. They get within an inch or so of the primaries. Other than that, the master cyl. line that goes to the transmission is somewhat close to it, but I think I can zip-tie it to the driver side o2 sensor to keep it farther away. Regarding this master cyl. line, does anyone know if it is just supposed to snap into place on the trans? I was going to put it in there tonight and it seemed to just snap into place, almost like it was magnetic? I couldn't pull it back out, so I think it's on there good, but at the same time, visually it looks like there hardly any of the line that went into the hole on the trans.



Pay no attention to all the random wires all over the place. They each have a home, I'm working on finding those right now haha





I also got the radiator put back in tonight, and then I went to try and put the LS1 dual fans in and noticed that it's a really bad fit. What does everyone to to make these fans fit nicely behind the radiator? I'm thinking that the little "cup" on the driver side of the radiator shroud, where it holds the stock coolant hose, can be cut off to make a little more room, is that correct? You don't run any coolant lines over to that side of the block anyways, if I remember correctly, because all the outlets on the water pump are on the passenger side?






And I think I'm going to make another thread just for this topic, the Spohn cross member. It doesn't seem to fit AT ALL! I had it on upside down previously, so tonight I got under the car to flip it around, and it doesn't want to sit flush with the frame rails at all. In fact, I had to remove the poly transmission mount just to get it even a little close, and it's still nowhere near where it needs to be. Any suggestions?



This shows how bad it is:

the pivot for the torque arm goes in the tunnel it's upside down in those pictures. only reason i know is we did the torque arm mount because my buddy put a 350 turbo behind his LS1 in my old 87 Iroc. so flip it over and spin it around. mine doesnt sit perfectly flush at the back but i'll be changing that soon hopefully. look at my picture how its bolted in. only difference is that mine doesnt have the torque arm mount

You're kidding right? I had it on right the first time? Well that does make trimming it a bit easier, but even still, why would they design it that way? The "fins" coming off the mounting tabs shoot straight downwards to the ground and make ground clearance an issue. Here is a picture I took from how it was originally mounted on the car:

yes sir that's it. i wasnt happy about how far down it hangs, but i dont know that it could be any better short of the skulte crossmember

Ok so hopefully the cross member will still have enough integrity that it won't break. I trimmed off a good portion of the mounting tab. You can see I had to make one side of it shorter than the other due to the way the Alstons mount on the frame. Input?

my subframe connectors should be welded in tomorrow so i'll be doing the same thing as you for my spohn kmember.

I'm pretty sure that if I hooked up the 12v wire to the alternator, and installed the pushrods and rocker arms (and other misc things like radiator hoses, PCV system, etc) I could fire this baby up! I'm working on figuring out what a few wires go to in the swap harness right now, there's about 3 or 4 of them that I haven't finished up yet. It's getting very close, and with Vet's Day on Wednesday, and my work being closed (bank), I think I'm going to get very close to test-start this week. Cross your fingers for me.


Here's a tease at what I got done tonight. I mounted a power distribution block by the battery so I can run the positive battery cable to it, and then feed all the wires in the harness that need 12v from there. I will be putting loom on all the wires that go to this, so it will clean up nicely. I am running all the wires under a fender brace on the passenger side and then behind the block.





Here you can see that I ran the battery terminal cable behind the battery and the length fits perfectly where I have the power dist. block mounted. It wraps behind the battery by the headlights and comes back by the filler neck for the coolant overflow tank. This terminal went to the alternator on the stock setup, but since it would be hard to get it to stretch to the LS1 alternator, I'm going to run a wire from the back of the alternator, behind the block around the passenger fender like the rest of those wires and to the dist. block. I think it will look nice when done.

looks great nick! might want to think of some kind of plastic cover that can go over the distribution block so you don't accidently short one of those terminals out with a screwdriver or wrench if you were ever working on that side of the car...a cover would look very clean and professional in my opinion.

man i gotta get mine cleaned up again...pulling spare 5.3 BACK out of the car probably next week...and i'm going to redo all my wiring in the engine bay

Got a lot done tonight. The passenger side header is on, I put my Stage 8 locking bolts on with the locker plates on both sides, re-installed the fans after I did some more trimming on the shroud and zip-tied the fans to the radiator. I also wired up the fans and put loom up the wiring all the way to the relays, so that looks nice now. Also, ran all the 12v wires over to the power distribution block and got some loom on them, still have more cleaning up to do on that area. I'm going to order some parts for a CAI this week, and install the pushrods and rockers, and finish the fuel line and then it should be ready to fire up.


Just some pictures of the passenger side collector clearance with the transmission and the o2 sensor, and some other various shots of my progress tonight.

Ok, now the only things left to do are install the torque arm, re-do the wiring that went to the auto shifter for the p/n switch, starter switch, and reverse lights, disable VATS, and install radiator/heater hoses, a CAI, and the PCV system and it is ready to rock.


I got the Scorpion 1.7 rockers installed last night with the help of a friend, and my dad and I finished up the fuel line. I did it a little differently than most of you, I am going to change out the fitting on the fuel rail to a 90* angle and run it straight back to the firewall and down the trans tunnel away from the header. It comes out right by the cross member and I ran it down the frame rail like stock with the brake line, using the factory mounting tabs.

I should have undercoated the driveshaft before I put it on....oh well. I think I can manage doing it by spinning it.











Crappy pictures sorry. I'm going to get the car on a lift at my friend's work after it's running and take lots of pictures with my GOOD camera.


Also got the trans fluid changed and the Hurst re-installed, although I found that one of the bolt holes is stripped out. I'm getting a hold of a thread chaser to fix this problem.

And have no fear, I'm not done undercoating the car yet. I just wanted to cover enough that wouldn't be in the way after the fuel line was ran lol











Let's see, another thing I got done was installing the LS1 ebrake conversion cables from Ed Miller. Man they are so awesome.








And last but not least, another question for those who have already done the swap. What do you do with these hoses that went to the heater core? I don't think they'll work because they are not angled to go to the water pump on an LS1. What hoses do you guys use for this, and which hose goes to the small nipple on the radiator?

nick, it's really lookin' good man. are those scorpion rockers non-adjustable like the factory ones? wonder what kind of gains you'll see with those over a stock set....how much were they? wonder if it'd be worth it to grab something like that instead of doing the trunion upgrade.

They are non-adjustable like stock. And they have a lifetime warranty. I think they run somewhere around $400 for a set.

hmmm...the trunion upgrade is only 140ish...

I wanted something brand new with better needle bearings and all that good stuff. They say that the only difference between these and Yella Terra's rockers are that these come with a lifetime warranty, and the Yella Terra's do not.

so good condition stockers with a comp cams trunion upgrade has poor needle bearings? i don't have quite the budget i'd like to have....

lifetime warranty? i wonder how they justify that on a high performance parts? how can they regulate that? so if a motor has an oiling problem, and then drops a driveshaft on a hard launch, goes to the limiter, and all the bearings come out of the rockers, they'll replace them for free? eh...i'd like to see that in writing.

The guy I get all my parts from said if a rocker arm goes bad you can ship it to them and they'll send you a brand new one, no questions asked.
I don't know everything about rocker arms, so I couldn't tell you how good (or bad) stock ones are. I just know that the shop urged me to upgrade with the cam that I chose (MS4).

Oh, I almost forgot to mention. I called my tuner today and he is coming over on Saturday to do a baseline tune (which means the first start-up is on Saturday)

can't wait to see the video

first off let me say that u have a beautiful camaro!!! i have a 91 vert also.. and i recently found a 5.3L ls motor out of a 2000 silverado with harness and ecm that i want to swap in, i would rather have a 5.7 or 6.0 but for 1100$ i cant really beat it.. i had a question for u. my car is currently a automatic. how hard was it to switch it to a maunel trans. im looking to get a t56. and have never done a swap b4..

Agreed Can't wait to hear that MS4.

It really wasn't hard at all. The only difficult part I thought was cutting the hole in the firewall for the master cylinder, but if you hang the pedals before you do it, you can kind of see where the hole needs to be and then just cut it. Cutting the hole for the shifter was easy, as well as removing the shift linkage and all the stuff that went with the automatic.
Agreed +2! I have caught myself numerous times watching YouTube videos of MS4 equipped cars.

Ok well I'm finding out more hurdles that are slowing me down. The plan was to have a first start-up tonight, but that didn't happen. On the positive side, I did get the throttle cable installed and secured nicely, and I have pictures to show how I did it that I think will help some other people out quite a bit. I also got the transmission wiring done, at least temporarily, until I find the other end to the sensor for the clutch pedal. I also got the clutch bled last night and the brakes, as well as got the torque arm installed. Oh and I also got the heater core lines installed; I just went with two lines with 90* elbows on them, but I think I ran them a different route than most people. I put the 90* elbow down by the water pump, and ran the hoses up the front of the block and then back across the top of the cylinder head into the heater core. Most pictures I have seen were ran down closer to the stock position on the frame.

But on the down side, I ran into three issues tonight that kept me from starting the car.

1) The hose that I bought for the vacuum between the intake manifold and the brake booster only fits nicely on the intake, it's too big for the nipple on the booster. I was thinking that both nipples would be the same size, but of course it couldn't be THAT simple could it? So I am either going to try and use hose clamps to tighten the hose down enough to see if it doesn't leak, or use some brass barb fittings to reduce the hose to a smaller size.

2) I am using a Z06 5-wire MAF sensor, which incorporates the idle air temp sensor. I bought a conversion mini-harness for this from Casper Electronics, which has a 5 wire connector on one end, and splits to a 3 wire and a 2 wire connector for the LS1 harness. Sounds easy right? Yea it is, until I found out that the 5 wire connector was the wrong shape and wouldn't fit on the Z06 MAF. I had to go to two auto parts stores to finally find one that would work (found one at Napa), and I had to cut the wires off the Casper piece and solder them to this connector. It will work now, but I wasn't expecting this delay at all.

3) The upper radiator hose seems to be in the way of progress with making my CAI. I bought some 4" rubber elbows and a 4" diameter piece of intake tubing and was going to try and make that tonight but I think it's going to take me a bit longer to do than I thought. There's not a whole lot of room to run a 4" tube down by the fans and the side of the radiator.



So for now, it sits 99% ready to run. As soon as I have time (this week sometime) to finish the coolant lines and the intake, and run the wire for the alternator, I think it will be ready to go. Unfortunatly it wasn't in the cards for tonight but I guess that's the way it goes with a swap like this.

You're lightyears ahead of me. lol. Should've got Jon to make the MAF connector the 5 wire setup. That is what I did.

At the time I didn't have a MAF yet, so I was planning on getting one from an fbody. But my friend gave me his Z0F maf for a couple pennies which saved me some money, and I bought the Casper mini harnesses thinking it would work but it didn't. I got it taken care of though. I soldered all the new wires last night, just need to put electrical tape over the solder and loom it. I'm really close to starting it, I just lost my momentum last night when it got dark out, and the temperature dropped... I have been fighting a nasty cold for a few days now, in fact I woke up today and it was worse.

I'm in the same boat. I find when it gets cold outside, my motivation to work on the car drops to 0 and the motivation to eat and sleep goes to 100. Oh well...good thing we have daily drivers right?

Glad it's not just me - I think that's a BIG part of why my car isn't quite completed yet, even though I started it just over 2 yrs ago now... Just can't seem to get excited about working on the car when I can see my breath in the garage... (Of course, if I would've pushed through it, I probably could've driven it this last summer!)

I hope that you get to feeling better soon Nick.

*cough* Space heater *cough*

While I was living with my parents a couple years ago I had use of one of their 2 car garages. I insulated the entire thing, and put a TON of weatherstripping around the garage door. Oh man did it make it nice to work on in the winter! That with the 20 or so twintube fluorescent lights on the ceiling/walls/garage door it wasn't too bad. But then I turned of age and moved out....

That's another thing with the garage I am using (its my grandma's basement garage), there is a huge lack of lighting. There are two flourecent lights in the whole thing, and then I have to use a small halogen lamp to move where ever I am working on the car.

I am feeling a little better tonight but I'm not quite 100%. And yea, I am glad I have my truck and my wife's Focus. I couldn't do this without other vehicles to use.

Heh - I've already thought of the space heater, but it still doesn't really overcome the cold, especially with the concrete - and it's even a decent-sized propane unit... BUT, I did insulate the garage not too long ago, & I've got a couple of ideas that I didn't have last year for circulating the warm air out of the top of the garage.

Lighting is another area that I've addressed - I added four fluorescents to the two "normal" incandescent lights that it came with, but I've just decided that unless you have enough wattage to require sunscreen, whatever you're working on is always going to be in shadows anyway, so I just keep a couple of trouble lights handy...

Get some of those 500 watt work lights... they put off quite a bit of heat. Just put em in a place where they're not going to blind you.

It doesnt get THAT cold here... a cold night here is 20s-30s. But with the garage door shut and one work light it stays in the 50s-60s in the garage which is cool ,but not unbearable. If you've a few of em you'll be able to feel the heat coming off em pretty well I bet.

Well I am off work AND school tomorrow, so I'm going to try and knock out the last couple details while it's still day light outside so I don't have to worry about it.

wish you luck Nick...I remember those days for trying to get everything done.....

I finished everything up today, and when I went to hook up the battery, the alarm started going off. So I need to have someone locally un-install the alarm because it has a kill switch feature and I likely won't get it to run with the alarm installed.

Also, I lost a label on one of the wires in my swap harness, and it isn't hooked up yet. I'm waiting to hear from Pocket what it might be so I can hook it where it needs to go....and then I need to find where the VATS wires are, because I looked under the kick panel today for them and couldn't figure out which ones they were. After those two or three things are finished I will be able to hear it run. The alarm thing really aggrivates me though

My factory alarm got the tear out a long time ago, but then again it was not functioning anyways.

I had Best Buy install some aftermarket alarm about 6 years ago, never thought it would cause me problems like this though.

you know they do take em out for free

I'm sure they would, if I could get the car up there. But that seems to be the problem in the first place.

I'll be doing the same thing here soon. Mine fit up much closer, but still are not flush. Alstons (great sfc) + Spohn (great crossmembers) = fail. I'll be driving mine in the mean time, as it's nowhere near as bad as yours looks in the pics.