Was it a really big job?? I do have another car in the mean time, my winter car, so it doenst matter about downtime, if i get a shop to do this i will be murdered by labour wont i, cause the donor i might get has a T-56 also, whihc i hear is time consuming to put in, also i'm going from a 2.8 auto to the LT1 6speed. any insight would be greatly appreciated, thanks guys...

 

Find some other engine. I just saw this done a WESTSIDE PREFORMANCE (speed shop) and let me tell you, it's not worth the hassel. It took them a very long time, and alot of money.
It will bolt right in but the wiring is the most time consuming. plus some lights always stay on eg. check engine, choke, airbag, just to name a few.
But when its done it looks good, but is very cluttered with wires. In my opinion I would try smothing else. Just to give you a rounded price, for the Lt1 and 4L60E trans and to have it all put in was well over 6 grand (cdn funds)

 

your right bluedude22, it is your opinion, but a completely useless one due to your never doing this swap or actually seeing a good one in person, not on some TV show.

the swap is NOT all that expensive or time consuming. I got a '95 LT1 with all accessories and 30K miles for $1500. add in about $1000 in stuff and that was close to the total cost on the swap. the only reason it took us so long is because of the VATS system, it took us about 2 weeks to figure that out, but once we did we had the car running in a day. total time for us was 4 weeks of weekends and nights, taking our sweet *** time to make sure everything was right.

the choke (?) and air bag lights do NOT come on. we didnt connect my SES either so neither does it, thats what the scan tool is for. if we did connect it it would work correctly.

now, part of what blue said is correct, if you are paying someone to do it, find a different engine. the cost will not be worth the gains. for a whole lot less money, you could swap in a stock L98 and have only 30 less horsepower. if instead you decide money isnt a problem and you want a cool engine, get an LS1 instead, lot more power stock, and a lot more potential.

*also, if you take your time and dont get in an exited rush to get the car running as fast as possible, you can really clean up the engine bay. in about a day we hid nearly the entire wiring harness except for the part going to the sensors/injectors. it doesnt have to be a "very cluttered mess" unless you rush through the swap.

 

I'll have all the time in the world to get it done as long as the VW keeps on tickin'. i'm only gonna do it if i can get the donor car for cheap, and i wont get a shop to do, probably a friend of mine or dads... and is putting in the 6speed a real big hassle?

 

Just to let you know, it ended up costing me a total of 7500 Canadian. That is including buying my 1985 Z28, long tube hedders, A/C delete pulley, a few new gaskets, Lt4 knock module, PCMforlessprogramming, new rad, new starter, new exhaust system, speedometer, tach and fixing various small problems with the car.

It would have been 8000 total but I made 500 for selling off my donor car's body (a 95 Caprice). Could have gotten more for it, but I didn't want to wait forever to sell it.

The process did take me a fair bit of time though. I started in January and finally finished at the end of July. You could do it a lot faster but that included me removing all the parts from my donor car and I also finished up my degree from january to may.

 

I love mine. I just pulled 330 whp on the dyno. It really needs a dyno tune. I hope to have 350 when I'm done with this round of mods. It took me about a year to finish mine. I ported the heads and installed a hot cam and headers ect. I went from stock 350 tpi to modded lt1.
kory

 

Kory, I think engine wise our cars are almost exactly the same. Only difference is I have LT4 heads and intake now, and pcmforless programming. I hope to pull about 375 rwhp, probably an optimistic number though. but I had home-ported heads and intake on it before, so who knows, maybe that is a realistic number.

 

Texas
What made you descide to get rid of your home ported heads?
How do you like the lt14s? I have ed wright tuning presently. My cars a/f was pig rich on the dyno. I plan on making some changes and having it dyno tuned in the spring. I'm hoping for 350-375whp.
you might get the number you are looking for with a full on dyno tune. mauals tend to use up less power in the driveline.
What did you pay for those lt4s? Do you know if they are available bare. I have manley raceflow valves in my heads presently. I'm not sure what I want to do for heads this winter. Maybe more porting or maybe new castings. I'm trying to plan things in advance so I don't have to buy anymore things twice. My 5 year plan includes a blown stroker
Kory

 

well, lets just say it turned out to be an expensive mistake. we thought there was a problem with my heads, and it turned out there was nothing wrong with them. I had ordered a set of AFR heads from Excessive Motorsports. After 4 weeks, they still couldnt tell me where the heads were, so we cancelled the order and got a set straight from GM in about 3 days. the heads were just over $1200 complete and the intake was like $170. I think if you look in Scoggin-Dickey they might have bare LT4 castings.

I have a feeling my a/f is pretty damn rich too, around town mileage is about 15-18, maybe. highway seems to be about 20-25, never have it on the highway enough to find out. hopefully this winter I can take mine in to Houston and get it dyno tuned and get it running perfectly. I'm also planning on larger cam, throttle body, and injectors hopefully next summer.

yeah I forgot about the difference in loss between manuals and autos, so hopefully I am at or above my mark already. that'd be sweet.

I think we have pretty much the same plan too. I want to be able to put on the side of my SS hood in script letters "Stroked and Blown" Not sure right now how I will accomplish that. I would love to do a custom turbo setup with a tubular crossmember, but that is years down the road.