starting a new thread for my engine swap so i don't **** off anyone in the brakes forum. mostly just pictures nothing to technical as the car had already been ls swapped with a 5.3/4l60e out of a 2000 silverado. some new parts, a lot of new paint.....off we go

 

the before pics of engine and engine bay just after starting disassembly

 

here is an old pic of the complete engine bay (before i had the car painted) and then the painter trying to mask off the engine the best they could....not perfect but cheaper than pulling the engine to paint the engine bay

 

damn i did have a pic before i started tearing into old girl

 

engine stripped down and ready to pull, could not get the drivers side exhaust manifold out to save my life

 

and she's out, now for the not so fun part....lots of cleaning and rattle can refurbishing

 

got all the cleaning done now to paint parts, going with a similar color scheme as the outside of the car

 

done with parts and engine painting

 

on my high mount a/c bracket, the tensioner pulley has always had the belt riding with 1/16 of the belt hanging off the back of the pulley, adding to the squeakiness and premature failure of 2 tensioner pulley's (i suspect)....so i took some measurements and found a machine shop that could help me fix this ongoing issue by cutting the thickness in half where the tentioner mounts to the bracket. so now the belt should ride in the middle of the pulley.

 

back when the engine bay was painted the engine was still in.....so it wasn't complete coverage, so while the engines out i did some rust repair, cradle priming, and touch up painting to make it look a little better

 

engine and all this stuff is ready to go back in, got new cradle mounts for car side, and dirty dingo ez ls slider swap mounts (DD-3550C) for the block side....should make it a lot easier to mount than the old clam shell block mounts that totally hid the hardware from easy access.
now you are caught up to where i'm at with this.
today i need to power bleed the front brake lines (because of new cradle crossover line installed for passenger side), then clean my power bleeder very well so i can use it too prime the engine with oil once i get the m16 x 1.5 threaded male to 3/8 barb fitting i ordered off ebay....that should be here today i hope, need to pull the old torque converter and change the input shaft seal on the transmission. (waiting for the output shaft seal to come in the mail along with front seal retainer clip) i think that's all i can do today other than minor touch up painting to the front of the block (where i had too much masked off after installing timing cover)





.

 

on a side note....i would love to have long tube headers but my exhaust is already built under the car and i have no desire to run all new exhaust, or too lose any ground clearance.....with that said my short tube headers had 3 goofy provision spots for temp sensors or maybe o2 sensors, either way i was not using them and they were ugly as hell so i cut them off and plug welded the holes.....as seen in the following picss

if anyone else has welded headers in the past.....for maybe this exact same reason.....i'm curious how it went for you, more specifically how the welds held up? or do they burn through if too close to the heads?

 

Looking awesome sir! Color coordinating the engine, I love it! Great job with the rattle cans.

 

thanks, have you ever welded on headers or heard of someone that has.... and if so how did it go for you or them.....i'm worried about them burning through later being so close to the flanges?

 

I have not. I would think you will be ok as it looks like the old bungs were welded in.

 

after two attempts i finally got the pump seal replaced.....totally mangled the first seal, it is so much easier to put one of those damn things on while the pump is still off the transmission, also got the front brakes bled again after replacing pass, side hard line (had too re-flare the line twice on that too, first one didn't seal), and got the engine primed. as soon as my new torque converter shows up i'm ready to put this thing back together finally

 

still no torque converter, got the tailshaft seal today for trans, got that installed....and pieced together a new cold air intake setup on evil bay....finally gonna get that thing aimed at the secondary battery location and try to fashion some kind of cold air box there

also in case you didn't know you can send the brain box of the vhx dakota digital gauges cluster back in to dakota digital and for $20 plus shipping have them reset your odometer back to 0 if you want your odometer to track the mileage of a new longblock or engine swap. so i sent mine off last Thursday. they will download all my settings, clear the odometer then flash all my settings back into it and send it back. make sure you call them first and get a rma number from them that will come with the address to ship your part too.

 

still waiting on torque converter, so i took the time to start a mod i've been wanting to do since i rode in my son's 2014 2le camaro.
this probably won't go over well with the die hard keep it original fans, but my car is far from original.....
introducing the 2le/ or tron interior lighting mod

driver side

passenger side

center console, can't show it lit up yet because it is already tapped into trans gear selector light bulb

 

Those were EGR fittings you cut off on the headers.

 

good to know thanks...hopefully they flow better now

 

torque converter finally came in this morning


, got it and the engine installed...the dirty dingo engine side slider mounts made it so much easier to access bolt heads and nuts, but i did run the bolts through the bottom with a flexible magnet tool instead of from the top....saves alot of time and having to drop lower control arms!!!

 

she's coming along slowly, had too extend the oil pressure harness. re-hooking up the exhaust was a pain in the butt....had to drag the engine hoist back out to rock the motor over to get driver side header back in place. And just when i thought i was in the home stretch ....i discoved im short 1 threaded hole for the alternator bracket to attach to the block😪
off to home depot in the morning to figure out what size and thread this bolt is, and too hopefully find a single tap in the size i need/with coresponding drill bit. It's always something

 

currently

all wire in front just hanging until i know their exact needed location

just when i thought i was putting the front back on, my luck strikes again....

damn missing threaded hole.....if it weren't for **** luck I'd have none at all!!!

 

 

had to create a drill jig so my tap runs straight and true (only get one shot at this). the tubing i found at home depot was almost the perfect size, just had to put a couple turns of electrical tape on drill bit to perfectly center it. mission accomplished....should have everything reassembled in a couple hours today barring any other unforeseen complications. then on to ecu tuning for the bigger injectors and the larger cam.

 

well it's reassembled, didn't get to the tuning or even first start yet....i screwed up a couple times with harness routing and had to undo a few things. fabing up the new intake took some time as well, then there was a lot of wire protection measures taken with heat shielding and zip tying too keep the harnesses from touching the block. tomorrow i need to fab up a bracket to support the intake tubing to the engine, and i have to extend the maf sensor harness....then just fill fluids, program ecu, and hopefully test drive

 

update
after i serviced the trans filter, and i reattached the pan.....i had 1 bolt hole with previously stripped threads, i tried to just use Teflon tape to help snug the bolt...well after putting fluid back in the trans and before any startup i already had a leak at that exact location. so i hit autozone for a thread repair kit (first time using one of these). bolt is tighter but not perfect (mostly due to operator error), i will probably have to drop the pan again later and replace this pain in the butt dry rubber gasket for an old style paper gasket and some black gasket maker.....but for now it has slowed the leak to almost non-existent. got the maf and tps sensor harnesses extended, and filled and burped the cooling system the best i could without the engine running (will burp again while running). tested for oil pressure while cranking with the fuel pump unplugged (took longer than i expected considering i had primed the engine already 4 or 5 days ago), then primed the fuel system checking for leaks at the injectors. rewatched all my saved hp tuners video's this morning, it is finally time to drag the laptop down to the garage and attempt to update the injector information (with what little info from the manufacturer i have to go on) then hopefully a first start up. but this all depends on what i find on the ground under the car when i get down there....if i have bad leaks (again) obviously this day with go drastically different.....fingers crossed

 

this trans pan is kicking my ****, have to drain the trans again and replace that damn gasket.....tuning isn't going any better she is pig rich at idle and i cant seem to lean it out with the sorry a$$ data excel provides with their damn injectors (regretting that buying decision now!!!) one problem at a time i guess

 

i couldn't find anyone with a cork gasket in stock for the trans pan, so i just cleaned up the rubber gasket (it was new anyway) and all mating surfaces then lathered it up with ultra black sealant on both side and stuck it back in.....gonna let it sit overnight to setup before putting fluid back in...so no more tuning today. during this swap i had to replace the washer fluid cap because apparently the under hood temperatures got hot enough to distort the old one....so i decided while the hood is off it's time for another mod.....vented hood louvers, got them ordered and should have them Saturday (below is sales photo of these trak spec louvers) should help bleed off some of the heat.

 

traning fluid no longer leaking, hood vented and back on, still fighting with the tuning