Now I lured you in!

So recently my old tired 350 in my t/a has been showing it's age and I've also sprung an exhaust leak this past week, so I've been thinking of swapping it out sooner then I expected. I got real lucky because my friend has just purchased a 2000 pontiac trans am ws6 and he doesn't want the motor in it as he's got an ls6 laying around. Knowing I've had problems and out of pure generosity, he's willing to give me the entire ls1 setup for free if I go pick it up, hopefully friday. I've heard this swap can be difficult and expensive, but it's worth it. I don't want to get too crazy with performance mods (although it's tempting) and I'd like to keep the costs as low as possible. I am going to rebuild the block with new seals and what not over the winter, and I don't plan on doing the swap until next spring.. unless I hit the lottery

My car is relatively stock besides the 350 in it now. T5 transmission, 3.73 LSD gears. I know I'll have to get a new trans and I'm planning on a T56. This will be my first swap.. I have general experience fixing stuff, but this is a first for me. The previous engine was swapped out in 2005.

My main questions are:
1) do I need to swap out my rear end right away, or can I can some mileage out of it?
2) any "core" requirement recommendations? I know I'll need brackets and they're aftermarket, but what do I need total?
3) how much should I be looking at for exhaust expenses? right now I have a flowmaster, cat deleted

cheap is good.. I wasn't really expecting to do this until next year, so I'm trying to do a cheap cruiser.. well with an ls1

thanks guys =]

 

1) The rear end will be fine as long as you don't do high-RPM clutch dumps with sticky tires.
2) Speaking of sticky, read the LS1 swap sticky in the top section of this forum.
3) Exhaust is one of the big expenses (right up there with the T56 if you want headers). If you use the factory f-body LS1 manifolds, you will have to have a Y-pipe fabricated from the exhaust flanges to your cat back (which will have to be cut about where it straightens out to go back). One of the O2 sensors is in the manifold, and points the wrong direction, and the other is in the 4th gen down pipe (which you can't use), so figure on relocating the O2 sensors to the down pipes of your fabricated Y-pipe. If you go with headers, they will have the O2 sensor built into the collector.

 

Thanks that's exactly what I was looking for... and I did read the sticky but I couldn't find anything about the rear end in particular. I was hoping I could swap that later, and that's mainly what I wanted.

 

Would be a good idea to know what is all coming with the engine. You will most likely need all the front drive accessories, wiring harness,clamshell mounts and corresponding nuts/bolts, as he will probably use all of those for his ls6.

 

Everything but the wiring harness is what I was told but I'll double check

 

If it doesn't have the harness, that probably means it doesn't have the PCM, either.

That's one of the issues with starting this swap with just an engine - you get nickle-&-dime'd to death on everything else. Drop-outs with engine, accessories, harness, PCM, and transmission are typically the better deal. Sometime even when you get a "free" engine.

And, it could be argued, that a complete donor car is a better deal than a drop-out.

 

i have a 88 gta with a stock ls1 and it is a very fun car. the swap is worth every penny