Thanks man, your swap is one of my favorites on this site. I didn't realize that setup didn't work with the verts, that sucks man. This setup is really nice, I have gotten ZERO wheel hop and it just makes the car feel really solid. The crossmember works really nice as far as the exhaust goes, I'm sure you'll figure something out on how to mount your torque arm.

 

howd it go??

 

We had a blast man! The best run I had was a 9.0 but i've never raced before. It was really fun and it was a learning experience for me. I ran it about 6 times and couldn't get traction about 3 of those times!(operator error) overall, I got to drive the car there, race it, and drive it home which was exactly what I wanted to accomplish. I knew it wouldn't be a fast car but it did pretty good imo, now time to save for some go fast parts!

 

Our local track is closing down after this season, and the only run I ever got in with the swap was the one I broke the rear end on...at least you have a track close to you. I'll probably have to drive to the other side of Missouri to get in a race now.

 

glad you had fun dude! if i could go back and do it over again on mods id do a eps pat g. camshaft, 2.5 5.3 heads, and a ported fast 90. through a stick should make over 400 at the tires on a little 5.3 but ida came out but some other stuff came up. hoping to get mine completely done and run some low 7's on motor and 6's on spray.

well that blows! lol the track he went to is about 45 minutes from me. and about 15-20 minutes from him.

 

That'd be awesome if you could run low 7's, i'm hoping to aim for that when I do a H/C/I swap. I like those FAST intakes and I really want one, it'll probably be awhile before I can afford one with christmas coming up and all. If all goes as planned i'll be done with school December 17th and I can turn all my stuff in at work to become a permanent employee with a big raise, then I'll be able to buy all kinds of stuff for this car. 400 hp is the goal I have set for this car so we'll see!

Man that does suck, I wonder why they are closing down? I really wish they would put a quarter mile track somewhere around here, the closest one for us is probably Gainsville (4 hour drive). We had fun plus I beat my friend (06 mustang 4.6/auto, corsa exhaust only) by a fender which isn't too bad for both of our cars being stock with only intake and exhaust mods

 

I was reading over on LS1 tech and I found this article:

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...ine/index.html

I've always liked the sound of the comp cams thumper, but I always thought it was an "all bark and no bite" type of cam. Even though these tests were done with a carb, the hp numbers looked pretty good for just a cam. I'm thinking about picking this cam up along will hardened pushrods, ported oil pump, LS2 timing chain, beehive springs, underdrive pulley, heads, and a FAST intake to see if I can at least reach or pass my expectations of 400 rwhp. Then i'll be upgrading to a moser ford 9" with some 3.73 gears.

 

theres a guy up here with a thumpr in his 5.3 truck. sounds sweet! and that 9' is gonna hurt you a bit on driveline % loss. but you should have a hard time breaking it. i love my 8.8 i had built. just as strong and weighs less and less percentage drivetrain loss.

 

I was thinking either a 9" or a 12 bolt, what do you recommend? would a 12 bolt be strong enough? would it be as strong as a 9"? I'll have to look up an 8.8, i'm new to all this rear end stuff lol. Also do you know if that guy with the thumpr in his 5.3 had to get a vacuum reserve canister? i've heard a few stories where the thumpr cam doesn't produce enough vacuum for power brakes being it's on a 109 LSA.

 

i can ask. and i have known 12 bolts to do the samething that 10 bolts are prone to do. (axle tubes flexing) but 12 bolts are strong! id either go 8.8 or 9'. or whatever the bank allows

 

T56=S60

 

I have a Moser 12 bolt, the stock GM 12 bolts can be strong, but nothing like Moser and Strange. The 12 bolt from either will last forever, LMR has gone 7s in the quarter on a 12 bolt, broke a ring and pinion onve from tire shake, but i have seen 9 inch breake axles from tire shake, nothing you can do about that.

I am in the 450 RWHP area i imagine and after launching my 12 bolt at 5100 and beating it to death, a T56 wont hurt one, especially a mild engine, i will be hitting mine with n2o soon as well and i have no doubt that it will not have an issue.

But whatever you want, 12 bolt, 9 inch or Dana 60, but the 9 inch and Dana are over kill for anything on the street i believe.

 

Sweet thanks for the advice guys, This car will be more of a daily driver with an occasional weekend warrior status so I think a 12 bolt will be sufficient enough. I've got a 2008 Chevy Cobalt as my daily driver right now, I bought it brand new with 23 miles on it and 2.5 years later it has 54,000 miles from driving it everyday to work and school so i'm looking to switch it up between the 2 cars from now on.

 

daily driver. 2001 ZQ8 s-10 4.3 with a bald rear(right) tire. but yeah i believe the 12 bolt will work great! my friend has one in his procharged trans am. only thing he told me tonight was they were bad about leaking from the center chunk?? his doesnt leak but thats just what i was told by him..

 

Well, mine is used and i have a cover gasket leak, i think anyway, might be from the trans leaking before i fixed it. Pinion is fine.

 

Ok, took my car to outback steakhouse in Destin Friday night to eat with the family, I was on my way home and my car all of a sudden lost fuel pressure, and of all places it happens on the mid-bay bridge. Talk about being scared shitless when all the cars are passing by about 6 inches from my car , so my dad had to tow me home with his truck. Got looking at it last night and this morning, relay is good and i've got power going through, fuse is good, and I can hear the fuel pump run but no fuel pressure showing on my fuel pressure regulator , and I also made sure there is gas in the tank. So now I've gotta take the tank down and see what's going on, I have a feeling that either the strainer fell off or my pump took a dump for some reason, Jegs says I have 3 years to return the pump if it is defective.

 

It is also possible that the rubber hose that connects the pump to the fuel line fell off.

 

That very well could be, either way my tank has to come out which I hate doing lol. While I'm under there i'll check all my lines for any restrictions

 

Hey Dan is there a difference between vette and f-body water pumps? i looked up one for each on autozones website as a reference and they come up with the same part #?? just wanted to confirm. thanks man

 

I'm pretty sure the water pump is the same for both accessory drives, and the brackets are the only real difference. IIRC, the vette accessories sit further back than the camaro accessories but you can still use the same water pump for both.

 

Pulled the tank down today and found out that the fuel pump is good, the 2" piece of rubber hose that connects between the fuel pump and the hard line pick-up tube had turned to jello and came off the pump. Don't know what caused that piece of hose to go bad but popped a new one in and it runs great now. Amazing how a 2" piece of rubber hose can leave you stranded.

 

Sounds like submersible hose wasnt used, just plain EFI hose

Gasoline eats rubber like no other, just turns to goo. Standard EFI hose is rated for the pressure and has a coating on the inside of the line to protect it from the chems in the fuel. When you have an intank pump, the hose gets submerged so fuel gets on the outside where there is no teflon coating. Submersible is rated for the EFI pressure and coated inside and out with teflon to prevent breakdown. Be careful when using braided SS hose too like An6. It is simply sleeved in the steel on the outside then standard EFI hose on the inside. It will do the same if submerged

On the outside of the hose look for SAE rating 30R10. That means double coating and rated for EFI pressure. You should be able to get it at any parts store
http://www.gates.com/brochure.cfm?br...ocation_id=541

 

Wow, thanks man that is some good info, I never knew there was a difference. It's kinda weird because I used the small piece of hose that came in the kit with the new pump I guess it wasn't rated to be submerged in fuel. I'll stop by Autozone and see if they have that fuel hose there and drop the tank again and replace it with that. I wonder if the ethanol in the fuel nowadays is another reason why it got ate up so bad?

 

Alcohol does not play well with others

Generally the short length of line that comes with a pump kit will be the right stuff or the seller would constantly get an earful of how often their pumps die

 

I agree but for some reason they must've shoved a piece of regular efi hose in, but i'm going to order a piece of that hose this weekend and throw it in

 

subscribed

 

Dan if you had to do this again, the swap, same parts/car etc, how long would it take you if you had all the parts ready to go, (*from engine/tran out to new engine/trans in and driving)?

 

Working on it straight for 2 weeks would prop. Do it. Thats giving alot of smoke breaks for those who smoke.

 

+1 on smoking

<-- heavy smoker, esp when getting greasy.

 

Agreed, It takes alot of work to do this swap. I'm hoping after the first of the year i'll be able to buy a cam and some other things to throw on the car, right now is just a bad time to be spending money on my car with Christmas coming lol.

 

Update! I finally took my car to Adam's Automotive to get some dyno runs in before I do my cam swap. I finally got my promotion at work so I have a little more money to throw around now, though I am still saving money for my wedding in October. I've already bought my valve springs, I still need to buy a timing chain set, oil pump, cam, and pushrods, hopefully i'll be buying all of these soon. Has anyone had any experience with the LS2 timing chain? Supposedly it's a pretty heavy duty chain but I've heard about some slack in the chain, seems that most people are buying a damper and drilling/tapping the block for the damper if it didn't already come drilled/tapped. Do you guys think the slack in the chain will be ok? or not? If not, what's a good single roller chain to use?

Anyways, here are some pictures of the car on the dynojet machine, my best run was the 3rd and final run, I made 270hp and 311 ft. lbs of torque. It's about 10 hp less than what I was expecting, I wasn't expecting big numbers but i'm still pretty happy with the car.







Here's the links to all 3 dyno runs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpcJy...el_video_title

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRDyd...el_video_title

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5Irh...feature=relmfu

And here's the graph for my best run:

 

Nice run Dan, i know your going for 400hp and a cam swap is gonna give you a nice jump in power. i meant to ask you, i never did, did you use an LM7 or an L33 5.3? I'm starting to wonder if i should just throw a cam and springs in mine Before i put it in the car...

 

Thanks man! I'm using an LM7 5.3, I'm definitely shooting for 400hp but i'll be pretty content with 350hp. I know when I do my cam I should break 300hp for sure, then if I go with a FAST intake, bigger throttle body, bigger injectors, UD pulley, and some bigger heads I should be close to my 400hp goal. Idk what happened with my dyno runs, it's just strange to me that my first run made 250hp and my last run made 270hp, that's 20hp that came out of nowhere!!! we let the car cool down a little between runs and didn't touch a thing!

 

It's pretty typical that your first two runs are considerably lower than the 3rd or 4th run. I don't know why, I'm sure someone here can explain it.

My first run was 18rwhp less than my 3rd run, and the torque was 22 less on the first run than the 3rd run. (the runs are not in order on the dyno sheet, the way they are on the sheet is 2nd, 4th, 3rd, 1st in that order lol)

 

Very nice Nick! That's good to hear that i'm not the only one, maybe someone has an explanation to this. I'm hoping to get close to 350 hp and if I get frisky and want more power, i'll just see about swapping in a 6.0 for bigger displacement and power. I'll just throw the 5.3 in the Malibu then!

 

Small Update: Just bought a FAST 90 mm intake from a buddy who had it on his LS2 GTO, bought it for $200 with the dbw throttle body. I have no use for the dbw throttle body so I have a few potential buyers on LS1tech right now. Took the shell off and cleaned it up pretty good on the inside, I still want to repaint the shell, someone who had it before shaved the FAST logo off and painted it black, I might paint it black or go with a dark grey metallic like my LS1 intake is painted. I won't be installing it until I get my cam so I can get the computer tuned for the cam and the new intake at the same time. Hopefully I'll be buying my cam, oil pump, timing set, etc. by the middle of May. Here are some pics:

 

$200? WOW what a steal

 

Best deal ever! Wow that's insane! Nice catch!

 

What if you could bore the 5.3 and get better flowing heads? There is nothing like having the smallest motor and blowing someone elses doors off. I do believe though that with the cam and better intake you could def. be looking at numbers probably higher than 300hp.

 

Nice Deal Dan! best deal ive found so far for my swap in comparison to prices is my LS1 F-body oil pan, found one in FL for $25 bucks with the pickup!

 

Yeah $200 was pretty low, it was a friend of mine's intake and he took it off of his GTO and it's been sitting at his parent's house for about a year and he wanted to get rid of it. I told him they usually go for $400-$500 used with no throttle body, so he said "$200 sound good then?" I said ok but you can keep the throttle body and make $100-$150 off of it, well he said screw it and gave me the throttle body with it! This is also an early wedding gift he says! maybe that's why he gave me such a good deal on it!

 

Hmmmmm an iron LS1 isn't too bad of an idea!

 

I know today I must have blown a seal... sadly I am thinking head gasket cus I am burning both oil and coolant in large amounts. I wanna stick with the 305 and bore it, a slightly bigger cam and heads but it is out of my price range. So I might be stuck with the simple rebuild and bigger cam for now. I am hoping to get atleast 200hp at the wheels... I might be pushing it though.

 

Before I put the motor in my car I stuffed an ls2 chain into it with my stock timing gears. There is a little bit of free play in it, but less than my 80k chain. However if I had to do it again I would probably grab a set with gears that was made to fit snugly into an ls1. Hopefully my dyno time will be in the next couple of weeks so I can see if it helps or hurts it.

 

what pn is the pump you bought?

 

It was an Edelbrock pump form Jegs: Part #350-17933

It's basically a Walbro pump in an edelbrock box, it says Walbro in big letters on the side of the pump.

 

Not much to update here, just been doing some small things, finally got my FAST intake sanded smooth and painted, had a guy make me a FAST decal to put back on the intake since the previous owner shaved the emblem off. Still saving money for the wedding in October, can't wait for it to be over then I can go back to buying my goodies! lol

 

looking to do a 5.3 swap into my 1990 camaro rs...

 

nice !@#$'n intake Dan!

 

Thanks buddy, it really turned out nice! Duplicolor has some nice paint products!