I've started my f-body ls1 switcheroo. I'm pulling the ls1 out of my 82 and using it in this car. I was going to sell my 82 afterward, but apparently i've become too attached to it =D. I'll be putting a 5.3 or another cheap ls1 in when i've had a chance to fix this car up.

anyways this car is a 87 Formula, arctic white with silver flake... shaved door handles and antenna. Guy before me added a trans am wing and tail lights.

car will have a 98 ls1 with a gt2-3 cam and a locally built 4l60e (still havnt found a stall for it yet)

so far i've painted the wing flat black to match the bumpers, notched the kmember, and installed a 4th gen 3.23 posi rear.

here's some pics:














I have a couple questions if anybody wants to chime in:

1) if you were going to paint the engine bay, would it be black or white?

2) what is the type of fuel fitting on the stock lines that has the o-ring on it? does anybody know the fitting adapter to a -6an line?

 

Engine bay in white > black.

 

Looks good, I am at like the exact same stage as you, just got my harness out and k-member notched. I would go black. Leaves you the option of changing the car color down the road.

 

parts have started arriving =D

I'm thinkin next week is when i pull the camaro motor and start swappin

 

Are those custom swap headers or stock 4th gen headers?

 

no they're customs that were put together by someone else

 

I just painted my Camaro engine bay white. I have some pics to give you a better idea.

 

Lot done this weekend. Got my motor back from the mechanic, who fit my new ls6 oil pump and slp underdrive pulley on for me, redid the rear seal and the oil pan gasket, and then i went to work!









since those photos, I've hooked up the body wiring, finished my ls1 fuse box / wiring harness, put the intake on and reconnected the cooling system.

I'm hoping by this weekend all of the fuel stuff will show up and I can have the car driving to the mechanic for an exhaust system by monday morning

Also a funny side note. when all battery power is disconnected from the vehicle that has no doors handles and electric door openers.. make sure you keep the doors open so you dont have to crawl through your own trunk

 

motor fired today. need to do some suspension stuff, exhaust and hook up the shifter cable and I'm driving in style

Pics of the headers installed





engine bay

 

just drove the bird home from the mechanic today who fixed up my exhaust and transmission leaks. post pics tomorrow

 

Dang you work FAST!!! Looks good too!

 

Great looking setup you have there. Just motivated me.

 

looking good, which wires did you end up having to hook up to get the motor running?

 

question is a little open ended. do you mean what wires from the car I had to hook up to the engine harness? or what wires from the harness are still on the motor? or all of the above =D

 

i guess both, really just wondering which wires from the body harness had to be connected to the engine harness

 

the only ones that HAVE to be connected are the battery wires, ignition wire and starter wire coming from the driver side bulkhead. battery and starter wire go down to starter, ignition wire ties into my fuse box to give it the ignition relay signal. NOTHING REQUIRED from the old computer setup. Only thing I kept was the fuel pump request wire so I didnt have to run another back to the tank. On the driver side bulkhead, everything there is either guage cluster or body harness.

motor wise depends on your harness. I use fbody cause it's the easiest fitment wise and I know it pretty well after the first one. hook up the ignition power wire to the ecm wire, to the oxygen sensor pink wire, to the tranmission pink wire, to the 2 pink wires for the ignition banks. hook up battery to the ecm battery wire and the grounds and everything should be powered.

as far as sensors kept, anything emissions wise i got rid of, oil level sensor, gas tank (except fuel pump signal), traction control, all goes on mine. Just get a pinout of the wiring harness and spend a couple hours carefully going through each wire and deciding which is important and which isnt. Lots of resources for this on ls1tech in the conversions and hybrids section.

 

thanks for info, i have been going trough my harness today and wasn't sure about some wires on some of the connectors. Wondering if you had to go trough these. it's stock 98 harness in 89 trans am, i've been looking trough my manual and most of the wires below am not sure about.
C100
A. PINK Fuse #9 Bank 1 Injectors and Ignition
D. GREY Reference voltage feed -5 volt reference
E. DK BLU Throttle Position sensor
K. BLACK Sensor return (TPS)

C101
B. PINK Ignition fuse 1 Bank 2 Injectors and Ignition
D. GRN/WHT Fuel pump relay control
E. PINK Ignition fuse 1 PCM Power 15 amp (Key On)
G. ORANGE Battery fuse 1 PCM Power 10 amp (Batt Pwr)
K. GRY/BLK Ignition retard signal

C230
A. GREY Clutch anticipate signal
B. BRN/WHT SES Indicator feed
G. PINK Power feed from engine sensor fuse #10
K. PURPLE Output field service enable


C220
A. RED Generator feed to instrument cluster (Alternator)
G. GRN/WHT Vehicle speed signal
K. DK GRN Coolant temperature feed to Instrument cluster


C105
A. PPL/WHT TC indicator failure
B. PINK Ignition fuse #1 Sensor Power 20 amp
C. BRN/WHT TCS switch signal
G. WHITE Tach signal to Brake Control Module

C210
A. GREY Reference voltage feed -5 volt reference
C. GREY Sensor return

 

hook those pink wires up to fuses and to hot on ignition power, fuse the orange ones to battery power, and hook up the fuel pump wire to a relay. theres some more detailed explanations of the other wires on ls1tech in the conversion and hybrid section. More than you ever wanted to know about those harnesses =D

 

thanks been searching for a while and finally found a circuit diagram. The only confusion i have left is the plugs that plugged in to the stock computer from the body harness

 

took some pics today of the car as it sits. enjoy!

 

Back from the dead again. blew up the ls1 and the 4l60e (lucky me lol). since nobody seemed too interested in buying it, i had Pro-Torque in Melbourne rebuild the transmission and converter and bought a rebuilt 5.3 that was used in a turbo application. so i'm going to put it back together again lol

 

Hell yea

 

Gorgeous car, makes me and my '89 formy ws6 jealous!

 

Man I'm sorry to hear about the passing... kinda curious tho how did the LS1 blow up?

 

#6 main bearing spun, and the shrapnel scraped everything up pretty good. =(

 

it moves again! yay

pics tomorrow

 

i stand corrected. tranmission acted like it was overheated on the way home from work, turns out the the pump is dead after 31 miles. I think i'm getting scammed by the trans builder i decided on =(

 

You just dont have much luck with that car

Hopefully the builder will stand behind his work

 

i'm almost about to pick up a ford for the reliability, i swear lol

The GTO i buy someday is going to be a stick. this is auto number 5 i've had blow up

 

Sorry to hear about that man, that really sucks.

Maybe the car's mad that you painted the spoiler black...

 

i did it a favor! the wing was teal when i got it!

 

What did you do for a Transmission crossmember and y-pipe?

I am doing a 4L60E swap(currently a TH400) and am torn between ordering a Spohn Swap Crossmember or just having one fabricated to clear the y-pipe. I had to hack up the current SPohn TH400 crossmember to clear a temporary y-pipe...

 

do you ever feel like you talk and talk and nobody is listening? (I posted in your y-pipe thread )

To add to that, i cut out a quarter circle past where it bolts to the frame, and the fabricator that helps me made a y pipe that squeezes up as close as possible to it. When i go to the transmission shop to complain this week i'll take a pic or 2

 

WOW. Blow a 4 month old engine and trans. Also 5 trans in your GTO. That is some serious cash, the trans shops must love you. Think you might be a little hard on your cars.

 

lol this may need some clarification. I bought 4 used tranmissions from 4 different friends who said they were in great conditions. They lied lol. I dont have a GTO, i wish i did. the third gen keeps getting in the way.

and normally when a trans blows up i go buy another used one and sell it off as a core. this is the first rebuilt trans i've ever had lol

and the motor for the firebird came from the camaro i had which came from a 98 T/A my friend had who was a big fan of nitrous. it probably had 120k on it when the bearing spun.

I would say its not because i'm hard on the parts, but because i'm a cheap *******

 

so total how much did you spend on the many tranny's you've gone through and the initial as well as the rebuild of your engine? this same scenario that you've gone through is the force behind my desire behind buying a crate LS3 Erod and a spanking new T56, that's 11K combined, with the hopefully peace of mind that it won't blow for a long time 5 years at least... the other factor is that it will basically be like getting a brand new car without a car payment...

 

$2k original motor (granted I bought it in 2001 when the only thing around was an ls1)
$500 replacement motor (rebuilt LM7)
$300 th-400
$400 th-350
$500 4l60e
$1000 rebuilt 4l60e
4700 total in engine and trans.

without any prices of stuff I got back when I sold cores or parts off motors I bought.

could I have bought a crate and rebuilt trans to begin with? .. yes
could I have done that in college when I built all my cars? ... hell no
do I wish I had 11k to throw at a car in one swipe of a credit card? ...you bet
would I do that to a thirdgen? ... lol no. I'm still kind of sad thinking I threw 5k at it.

and it wont feel like a new car at that point either. It'll feel like a fast 25 year old car that still shakes and rattles and flexes. You'll just know that w/e broke this time wasn't your drivetrain's fault.

 

for starters, I don't have 11K laying around, so I'll leave the financial side at that, ... now in relation to the beefing up the power train, did you as well beef up the unibody? subframe connectors and perhaps a roll bar... I only have the subframe connector in my plans... I am still gathering info on the correct way to do an implant... oh the rear end as well, gonna go with a 4th gen for a 3rd gen Moser... going to do the dash as well...

 

Answers kind of depend on if this is a drag car or a street car.

subframe connectors, steering brace and tubular torque arm that is crossmember mounted. weld the connectors in and I dont think you'll need the roll bar unless you're breaking into the 11s at the track, and then they'll kick you out for not having it.

If you want to do the do the moser, go nuts but I dont think its necessary. 4th gen 10 bolt with a girdle and decent gears can survive as long as you arent launching on drag slicks. M/T DRs and 10 bolt survived on my setup longer than everything else lol. If it's a street car, you wont get that kind of traction regardless.

 

I'll be running semi-slicks, probably the Toyos r888 or the TQ's ... not sure yet, but I do know it will be a Toyo setup... yeah the rear end on my list is the last thing of things to buy.. first will be the engine of course unless I get a good deal on a wrecked 4th gen bird so I can strip it of everything ...