alright got off work 2am sat morning and finished swaping in my ls1 fuel tank new shocks sportlines and 3.73 rear. sunday i finaly droped in my 5.3 and im using the carshop swap plates and im wondering if i need to get diffrent ones. i do not have the transmission in yet but to me it looks like the motor is too far forward but its been awhile since ive had a motor in a thirdgen with a clean un cluttered engine bay so maybe its me but i figured id get you guys opinions. ok my other question is and again i may answer my own question but will i need to trim my springs up front even if im using an iron lsx motor? i know the trans isnt in yet but i dont see the weight of it bringing the front down enough to make it level or maybe everything needs to settle in still.

It looks about where mine sits.... and I have spohn mounts on the stock k-member

how is your oil pan and exhaust clearance?

To me...it looks like its sitting forward. But you dont have a trans...so its likely tilting forward. If you have copious amounts of room around your oil pan...then thats whats happening. Clearance with Spohn mounts between the k-member and oil pan is tight at best. Even if they adjusted the mounts to give a little more room, it would still be close.

Get a trans on that puppy and see where she sits!!!


J.

oil pan to kmember clerance is tight! i can get a finger between them. i debated on lifting the motor back up and grinding a little on the kmember to be safe. im going to try to get the transmission on today before i head to work so maybe ill be able to post some more pictures before 3.

It looks forward and tilted. No way you should have that much firewall clearance. 1A Dan and I compared installed location with non setback SBC adapter plates vs Spohn pieces and found the 1" setbacks fit best. Spohns are 1" setbacks already

looks like you've got the non-setbacks from that room behind the intake.

while that should *technically* work, I opted to get the 1" setbacks off ebay when I dropped in the 6.0 to get the tailshaft of the trans to be in the same spot as the sbc/700r4 setup (so no custom driveshaft work needed, although you should still be fine). I also had no room between the kmember and the oil pan which was my biggest concern.

yeah ill have to look at my paper work from when i ordered the plates and i thought i ordered the setback ones so either i didnt or they sent me the wrong ones. oh and i got lazy today and layed around and watched cars with my daughter lol.

I used the non-setback plates on the LS1/4L60E. I did notch the K-member. Personally, I like the extra room back there. I have Spohn conversion mounts on the LS1/T56, and it gets tight back there (and I notched that K-member as well).

Oh, I would only put the engine and transmission in together. Hate trying to fish bolts in between the bell housing and firewall. Trying to tighten them is even worse. And having the engine set back makes it even worse...

I do agree with putting both the motor and trans in together but I was doing ithe instal by myself and I was afraid of the oil pan clerance to k member since I did not notch it and didn't wanna risk getting in a bind. I went ahead and ordered new plates that are 1in setback hopefully I can swap them out sometime next week so I can begine to build my y pipe and fire this thing up.

You CAN or CANT get a finger between them? If you can, then your clearance is not tight... If you cant...then you are sitting where I and most everyone else is haha.

Ive never even heard of there being setback mounts... The ones I got put the motor in the same spot as the stock motor. Due to the pan casting, it was tight at the k-member. But everyone else was about the same. I can get my hand behind the heads, but I cant really do much back there.

Warning: Grinding the k-member isnt the best idea. Its not hard to grind through at the corner. I did... If you are going to be tight at the k-member, and you are still in a spot where you can pull the motor...I would seriously consider notching the k-member. Doesnt need much. I took about an inch..maybe less out. If you use a nice piece of steel and do half decent welding, it will be just as strong as before and you'll have WAY more room.

Ide still see where you wind up with a trans on the back and everything at their final level. 1/4 at the tail shaft up or down can make a big difference at the k-member. Just keep an eye on that k-member to pan clearance when you are messing around so you dont put too much weight on it if its touching.

J.

this comes up a lot, so here's a photo comparing the two:



left is non-setback, right is the 1" setback. the one on the right will put you in the stock sbc position in these cars.

Ok I get about a fingers worth of clerance betwen the sump and back of kmember and CAN NOT between the bottom of the pan and k-member and by the picture imine has the standard plates on it now. I am considering going ahead and notching it since I have to lift it agan. What thinckness steel plate do you guys recomend? Also if I do notch it will I be ok to notch the front later down the road for a/c if I run diff mounts? I originaly was not planing on it but when I had pocket do my harness I decided its something I may want later down the road.

I used 1/8" thick steel, which is what the K-member is made out of.

There shouldn't be any reason waiting to notch the front would cause a problem, except it would be more difficult with the engine in there.

Ditto... 1/8" steel will be easy to work with, easy to weld, and is thicker than some parts of the k-member anyway. It'll be plenty good.

And Ive had mine notched for a/c and notched for the oil pan for a while. You wont see any issues.

Before, I couldnt get a piece of cardboard between my oil pan and k-member. Not box type cardboard...the back of a package type cardboard. It wasnt cool. I had 1/4" spacers under my trans mount just to get that much.

Now the spacers are gone, things are level, and i can stick my fingers in all around the oil pan area. I KNOW I was tapping the pan on the k-member under WOT. It was causing false knock even. Even with poly mounts, these beasts will move around.

Good luck!

J.