Well I thought it was time to make my own build thread. I bought my Camaro in May of 1996 and it is my first car. I bought it with 22k on it for $9000. It currently has 66k on it and has never seen winter. I have been on 3 Power Tours with it and Long Hauled it once. My plan is to have the car finished by July as I am getting married and want to use the car in the wedding. Enough of that on to my build.

After about a year and a half of slowly gathering parts I am finally getting ready to start getting my LS1/t56 installed. To start with I had to remove the LT1 and 700-R4 that I had been running since about 2002. I installed the LT1 in my dad’s car and you can see his build thread here: https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/ltx-...ble-355-a.html

Here is what my Camaro looks like.







I began by removing my LT1 and getting it ready to put in my dads car. I went 12.52 at 114 with this motor and a 100 shot of nitrous.

For my LS swap I decided to purchase a wrecked Camaro or Trans Am. Luckily for me I found a 01 Z28 on copart.com that fit my needs. I placed my bid and won the car for $4000. I know this may seem high to some, but I have about broke even with all of the parts I sold. I will also use the perfect ebony leather seats in my car. It came with a factory SS hood and spoiler which I sold for a nice profit. For me this was the best option. Here are some pics of the car before and after I was done with it.









My friend being a real toughguy.


Put it on my trailer and took it to a local yard. Got $150 bucks for the shell.

Here is a pic of my LS1/T56 drop out.

That's not a bad price for a donor car, and may be what i end up doing...they are paying $200 for shells around me which isn't bad. Strip it to the bones, recoup a lot of it back on parts you don't need. Sounds like a good idea.

I really don't think I did bad on parting the car out. Other than the LS brakes, gears, and seats I sold everything else off or scrapped it out. I really am only left with the headliner and the t-tops. In an ideal world I would have liked to pay less for the car, but when I looked for a LS/T56 dropout they were all more than half the price of this car with some being even more than I paid for this one and I would have never got the perfect ebony leather seats included in the deal.

I decided now was a good time to remove the factory fuel lines and K-Member. I am going with a BMR K-member with Spohn Coilovers with QA1 12 way adjustable shocks. I removed the k-member by myself and all I can say is that I never want to remove the springs ever again and I am so glad I went with coliovers. That is one of the most dangerous things I have ever done.







Finally got it out



I had to get a picture of the factory k-member next to the BMR one.



Then I decided that I wanted to paint my engine bay since it looked so dirty and bad to me. I also decided to fill a few holes and relocate the coolant overflow and windshield washer tank.

Before I got the engine bay in primer I decided to drill my firewall for the Tick Master Cylinder I purchased. Here is how I did it. I took the Tick apart and made a cardboard template. I then mounted the pedals and drilled the 2 pilot holes. Next I used the stock U-bolt to hold the cardboard template and traced it out on the firewall. I used a 1.5” holesaw and die grinder to make the oval hole in the firewall.











I also had a friend make me a pin to use with the Tick Master Cylinder. The fourth gen pedals have a smaller skinnier pin and since I am using third gen pedals I had to swap the pin out. I could have used the pin out of the 4th gen set I have, but that would make them useless. My friend is an Engineer at a local machine shop so I had him draw it up and make it. It turned out really good I just need to get it mounted in the clutch pedal and welded up.



Finally after hours of scrubing and sanding and filling the car is finally in primer and ready for paint.

Looks like your well underway! And welcome to the lsx group.
Anything specific that made you want to upgrade from the lt1? L98 is understandable but lt1 is a decent engine to and most would rather upgrade that then go through all the hassle all over again. Just kinda curious.
and are you going to keep this mostly stock? Any upgrades ya got in mind?
Btw I also love the red on your car, not a big fan of it but your car makes if work for sure.

There was nothing really that made me want to get rid of the LT1. I really wanted a 6 speed and did some searching and figured that if I was going to do that swap then I may as well update the engine too. I currently have a ported throttle body, MS4 cam, Stainless Works longtubes 1 3/4", Textralia Clutch, and an underdrive pulley. I bought a 6.0 block to build a 408 but that will have to wait until next year. I have currently only purchased some Compstar rods and a few other misc items for the 408. I am looking for some 243s to use with the MS4 and then have them ported when I go to the 408.

nice build so far....im doing the same and plan on pulling the motor in a week or two....good luck

Finally got some color on the car last night. The flash makes the color look a little more red than it is. I used a rattle can primer and had a friend paint the color. I used a Limco Urethane in my factory paint code. He put down 3 coats of color.





Finally some color







Here is a picture of my homemade paint booth in my garage since there was no front suspension in the car I couldn’t move it to a real paint booth.

Looks great so far Ricky! Keep up the good work. I am in the process of doing the same exact thing to my car. I'm currently working on priming my engine bay. I noticed you didn't remove the A/C harness. I haven't been able to figure out how to remove mine. Did you have the same problem? How did you remove your hood latch cable? I'm stumped on that one too.

It looks really great so far. I buy cars of copart all of the time. Same way i did my swap. It makes much more sense to buy a donor car because it wont nickle

and dime you to death. plus like you said you can part the rest of what you don't need out. In my case i paid 1500 for a wrecked 96 trans am and made money on my swap.

Its the way to go.

Btw that k member is way lighter looking. Do they make a k member for the stock modified mcpherson or do you have to go coilovers?

Thanks I should have a coupe of updates this weekend. I did not even try to remove the AC wiring as I figured it was more trouble than it was worth. I just used some aluminum foil and masking tape and it came out perfect. For the hood latch I think it snaped into the firewall and was pretty easy to remove. Look at it from inside the car if I remember to remove. I fed it through the hole and a friend pulled so as to not tear it up.

I thought I got a pretty good deal considering running swaps from 98-99 which are less desirable were going for 6-7k in my area. Prices have come down some, but not much. As for my K-member I bought the A-Arms for use without coil springs, but I could easily go back to a stock setup with a simple A-arm change and spring isolator purchase from BMR.

subscribing

sure would like to get one of those pins made up

I will talk to my buddy and see what we can do. The shop where he works is really busy, but I will check and see.

I also got my pin welded up in my thirdgen clutch pedal and finally got the pedals and master cylinder all mounted up. That took about 4 hours and was a horrible job to do. I actually had to bolt up the pedal mounting bracket and then bolt up the master cylinder. Finally I had to put the pedals in and tighten it up. It really sucked…

Here are a bunch of updates for you, finally

I went with QA1 coil overs with 300# springs. The kit was a Spohn kit and while I like the final fit of the kit I did have to grind a few parts to get them to fit. I knew I had to grind the spindles, but I had to grind a few of the plates that go on the bottom of the strut mount, but overall I am happy with the kit.

Well I got the BMR k-member I bought all mounted up with new hardware. I am going to take the K-member back out once the motor and wiring harness is all finished up and put the motor back in from the bottom. I really only mounted it up to get the a-arms on and make sure everything fit, luckily for me it all fit perfectly.

Finally started to tear the motor down to get ready to put the Z06 243s, MS4 cam, Katech Rod Bolts, Texas Speed Oil Pump, Underdrive pulley, and Ported and Polished Throttle Body. I also bought ARP head bolts, LS7 lifters, Lunati .660 springs, Comp Cams Trunion Upgrade, and a few other misc ARP bolt kits for the motor.
First step though is teardown:






Got the Katech Bolts installed. Was an easy job with the engine on the stand.
A few of them installed:




All finished:

ZO6 243 Heads with lightweight valves:








Head gaskets on and LS7 lifters and LS2 lifter trays installed


All bolted down with ARP Bolts


Finally looking like a motor again


Textralia Clutch kit

Well I finally got the motor in, but not without some clearance issues. I welded V-bands onto the headers to make it easier to bolt up the y-pipe and the drivers side fits fine, but the passenger side hits and has to be cut off.













Got the hole cut in the floor too for the shifter.

I also had to make a crossmember out of the 2 that I bought. I bought a Spohn Torque Arm with a relocation bracket, but it leaves no room for the exhaust to run so I bought a Hawks LS1 6 Speed Crossmember and welded the 2 together to make 1 of my own. I think it came out pretty good.







You can see in this pic the Hawks Crossmember with the gussets and piece of the Spohn piece. If I would have know the Spohn piece would not have fit when I bought it I would of stuck with a stock style torque arm.



Thats pretty much where I am as of today. Still hoping to finish by my wedding date on July 7th. Got about 15 things on my checklist left to do, but good for me I am a teacher so summer break just started.

+2 - uhhh... I need one too...

this build looks great so far... much cleaner (and faster) than my own. I will be following this one

How did you know where to drill the pilot holes?

the only thing i found bad about this thread is i wasn't done reading yet lol car looks great would love to do to mine

Man. Looks good.

What can did you go with? Awesome looking car and swap!

Ugh. So sexy.

The names of your clutch Just sounds like it will hold up for awhile lol

looks freakin nice, hhhhhhmmmmmmm hope my swap goes as smooth as this one appears, keep up the good work and good luck with the ride.

Hey...I've seen that crossnember fab done before!! Of course, I copied someone else idea too. I'm interested to see how you end up routing the exhaust with the driveshaft loop, I needed the gap to run my driver side pipe to the y-pipe. As you know, ground clearance is at a premium on these cars.

Thanks for all the compliments it has definately been a good swap. I will have to update with pictures and a running video here soon. Also I did make the wedding and it ran great, even has AC which made the wife very happy since it was 110 that day.

Well my good friend who made this for me got laid off from the job he was at and is now working at a different shop that does not have a lathe or I would make and sell them. Sorry guys, I may be able to get the CAD or SolidWorks file if you want it.

I mounted my 5 speed pedals and actually drilled the holes from inside the car. I just lined up the 2 arms on my stock pedals, then marked and center punched the holes and drilled them out.

Thank you very much. I went with a Texas Speed MS4 cam, it was a great choice. I spin it to 6800 all the time on the stock bottom end. So far so good, The rod bolts were a good idea.

LOL, I hope it holds up well it is really grabby.

I ended up having to cut off the driveshaft loop and will have to redo that at some point. My y-pipe is made out of 3 inch stainless and there was just not room to fit it in there. Also thanks I did steal the idea from you

Here is my first startup video of the car. Not the best video ever but it works Also don't mind the coil bracket on the passenger side I switched to a set of 585 truck ones to get them to fit better.

The car looks real nice Ricky. It sounds good too. What overflow tank is that?

Thank you. The overflow is a Canton Racing overflow can. I mounted it where it is now because this winter I will be installing a catch can setup and it bolts to the head, which is where I wanted to put the can originally. I also bought it from someone on camaroz28.com that never used it so it was half the price it is on Cantons site.

Here are just a few updated pictures of the car. I still need to put my Oil Catch Can on and a few other small things, but the car is mostly done for the time being. Don't mind the dust I took these the other day right after I got it out for the year.







And lastly some high res pictures from my wedding day last July.

Wow! Super clean and straight Car!! Am jealous!!

Nice car man, sweet swap!

Awesome clean car, very well done swap! Those rims look perfect too for your car, I really like em.

Finally a little update. I took the car to a dyno day today and here are the results: 426 rwhp and 398 rwtq. Dyno operator told me there is afair bit more in the car if he could do a dyno tune on it. Those numbers are with a mail order tune from pcmforless with a few minor tweeks. Hope to do a full dynotune later this summer. Here is a short video, please excuse how dirty the car was. It rained for the entire 2.5 hour trip to get there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dir1...ature=youtu.be

Ricky, I'm working on my 92 right now and was interested in your front coil overs. Any trouble with tire clearance? What size tires are you running? I am looking at running 275/40-ZR17s on mine all the way around. Very good craftsmanship by the way.

Nice car

Thanks! I am running 245/45R17s on the front right now and I have no issues rubbing on the spring or anywhere else. I would love to go 275 but my Snypers are only 8 inches wide. I think that a 275 should clear but not by much.

Thank you!

My plan is for 275s on a 17X9.5" wheel. Any pics?

I forgot to update this with my dyno video. Car made 426 whp and 398 wtq. Still needs some tuning done but I am really happy with it.


Also made the front page on ls1tech.

http://ls1tech.com/articles/dyno-bla...camaro-action/

Cool I hope mine runs that good when I complete it. The plan is an LQ9 with L92 heads TSP cam kit with 1 3/4 LT headers.