well guys its been a painfil year+, but i am now driving a 92 Z28 with a 95 LT1. ive been through alot on this swap. mostly because i am not a mechanic, so the guys i had help me made it all worse.

honestly, if i had to do it over i wouldnt have. if i was a mechanic, maybe. but i had to rely on the help of others, which is no way to go around here. alot of guys that say they can, and maybe so, but have no drive to do the work. i couldnt even pay full shop rate to a couple shops here to do the work. they would get stuck and just let it sit.

this post is to THANK everyone on this web site for your help. this NEVER would have gotten done without all of YOU. you all kind and helpful. you are very good at listening and helping a nivice like me solve problems. again, THANK YOU! i will make sure tha in return i will offer all i can in helping others here. thanks again guys!!!!
:hail: :hail: :hail: :hail: :hail:

 

Its a good feeling isn't it when you finally drive it out of the shop. glad to hear its finished.

 

yes it is, its been a long time commin.

 

I'm getting ready to start my swap. Maybe you can give me pointers?

 

So what was the problem causing the no start?

 

Congrats!!!!

 

the injectors were clogged, suggestions, honestly? unless ur a good mechanic dont do it.

 

What did you have problems with?

 

the wireing, the diagnosing problems when it was put together

 

Did you use the factory harness or did you buy a pre fab 1?

 

i had a guy blend the 92 and 95 harness for me

 

What kind of problems did you you diagnose? I plan on buying a stand alone harness from Howell for the simple fact that I'm a wiring moron.

 

injectors were clogged
opti was bad
speedo doesnt work
didnt know i needed a maf for a long time
ecm had no power

basicly im a bungling idiot! lol

 

HeHe


I have a complete 96 T/A with rear damage that I'm going to be using for the swap. I hope to have it finished by 2005!LOL

 

good luck 2 ya. my motor was outta a wrecking yard, it will probly be easier to have a whole car. i just had a lump of stuff to put together.

 

how did you figure out that your injectors were clogged?

 

trying anything outta desperation, i pulled em out and cleaned em with carb cleaner and put em back in. i got lucky.

 

i no its a good feeling to drive it down the road and tell the guys I DID THIS AND SMILE i hope to do my own swap soon. planing on buying one thats been hit in the rear and just swap the motor tranny harness dash and all not sure how it will go . but i do have one ? what did you do about the fuel reg. since its in the fuel pump on a fourth gen.

 

i just hooked it all up, useing the thirdgen pump. i didnt use a regulator.

 

So how does it run? What are your driving impressions?

 

well, there are still a few bugs due to my own ignorance. one is the speedo, so i dont know how fast i am actually going. it feels literally twice as fast as my old 305TPI. my disapointment lies in cost. i payed for alot to be done, and for what i spent, (over 6k), it was not worth it. i coulda bought a fast car with what i owe on this + what i spent. for a mechanic who does it themselfs, it is worth it. i just dont have the knowledge to do this sort of thing, so i screwed myself.

lesson learned i guess

 

I know exactly how feel. Cars are an expensive hobby to say the least.

 

I may be getting a 93 lt1 car soon for parts. Thought about doing this swap but if I do I may just carb the motor. Won't be as good BUT much much much much much easier. No wiring to worry about.

BTW on a lt1 motor can you run a distributor at all?

 

Not as easy as you might think. You still will have to do some fuel pump rewiring if your car already has fuel injection.

I am pretty sure you can run a dist, however you have to get the intake drilled. Then you will probably have to change the camshaft, timing chain cover and waterpump.

Overall, you are better off going with the LT1 fuel injection. If you can hear the engine run before you buy it you will save yourself some of the frustration sinner went through.

When the engine is out you should take the opportunity to change the opti, waterpump and timing chain since it's all right infront of you. If the engine has not been run clean the injectors as well.

 

I disagree. I think that this swap isn't exactly the most difficult you can do. In fact...I thought it went pretty smoothly. I did as wm_sorg suggested and changed quite a few things before it ever went in. I believe that preparation is the key and although it's not possible to prepare for everything, with the info here and the famed 'search' button, just about everything is very well covered. If not....ask! A GM is a GM and being that these engines were installed in F bodies makes things a whole lot easier. I read a lot here several times over before I began and am very pleased with the results I got. My car is reliable, great on gas and very fast now. I didn't do this because it was the cheapest way to get reliable power...I did it because I owned a 4th gen Lt1 and wanted the same thing out of my 3rd gen. It was pricey and I can't even bring myself to start adding up all the reciepts. I don't have a garage full of tools or a lift. What I didn't have I either bought or mostly borrowed. Patience and trial & error are what is needed for this.

 

well, i dont disagree with you. had i been more mechanicly knowledgeable, it may have been better. i tried to rely on "friends", and that didnt work out either. this web board is the ONLY reason it even got done. i literally had no one who knew what they were doing or gave a crap enough to help me. i am good at changing oil and plugs, but im no mechanic. that was another thing i overlooked. i had a few people in my life lead me to beleive i could, just cause i was able to tune up thier p.o.s, the car is really fast, and i like it alot. the problem is all the crap i went through to get it done wore me out. its still not totally right. another misteak is that it is my daily driver. all this down time has mad it tough on me. i didnt think about how long it would be down.
i sure did learn ALOT though. now i just have to remember all of it next time. lol!!!

 

I have already wired my fuel pump...car is carbed now. I wouldn't have to drill the intake because they sell a lt1 intake for this swap I was thinking about doing. I wouldnt have to switch cams but I probably would anyways.

I would almost do the lt1 swap for the gas milage. It does pretty bad now. I like the simplicity of carbed cars BUT I hate the gas milage it sucks. If I get the car I will go from there. I may just buy the prefab harness if I was gonna do the swap. Would be much easier.

 

I'll have to agree w/ #5
My reasons are this: You got a bad motor! A working motor would have made all the difference in the world. If you had a working motor you would have known the problem was in your work, but having a bad motor means anything could have been wrong, like clogged fuel injectors

Rely on others? Of course, there is no GM procedure on putting a second gen small block into a 82-92 F-Body. The closest thing you could get is a service manual for both cars and mix and match. (which is what people here have already done)

My swap: It was hard, I chose to use a stock 4th gen harness. To my surprise it was a 96 harness, and I still believe a 95 motor...this complicated things just a little bit since the 95 motor is the more popular motor to swap in, so information was harder to come by. Still without the help from people here, and some of my own legwork, my motor would have never fired up. (I also have to give a thanks to camaroz28.com because they deserve it too!) If I had matched parts, and a painless wiring harness, I think I could have done the swap in 2 weeks. The other pain I had was I fabricated my own power steering lines....which leaked endlessly, Its finially all worked out though Its so nice to have power steering lol.

The Lt1.....man, what can I say....I haven't floored the thing once yet, or had it above 3000RPM, 1/2 pedal travel is already making more power than the 305 ever hoped to make! And after throwing the driveshaft the first time the car rolled off, I an kinda letting things break in before I get on it hard.

Things still yet to be done:
Exhaust is still leaking....ordering the gaskets for the header collectors tomorrow, already got the new 3" clamp to go into the cat which was also leaking, and re-welded Pass side O2 Bung. What a project the exhaust has been!
Speedo: I am still hoping to find the Dakota Dig box I bought so I can fix my speedo! Otherwise I'll have to spend the money to get a new one....I know the PCM is recieving signals from the VSS though by the idle....even when I am creeping the idle stays up a little, come to a complete stop, and the idle drops.
Dash Guages: My senders are ruined....I need new ones, but need $$$$ to get them Wiring is all in place though
Air conditioning! I'll get it working eventually, but I haven't had A/C for the last 5 years in this thing, I can go a little longer (to make htings worse, I FINIALLY found our long lost stash of R12 my dad bought before the ban for $5/can lol I think I have about 6 lbs in cans....already used the 20+ can to re-charge one old system, and pay for the fix of the system....we probably got the short end of the stick on that one...

All in all though, it wasn't too bad, the absolute worst part of the job was the hot Texas sun!