welcome to operation drop top swap.

this should be a fast swap. my plans are to remove the ls1 that has been in my 89 GTA for the last 8 years. give it a freshening up and reinstall it in my new 92 convertible. i am also going to swap tranys and rear ends

pic of both cars before the swap


last month i picked up a nice 92 convertible in Miami and drove it back here. the car has 45000 miles and is all original.

so the swap... this out of my 89

back in to the new convertible

 

Oh man, that really makes you realize how much of an abomination it looks under the hood with TBI....

 

yep.

i was going to wait untill the winter to do this swap but the drive back with it was all i could take.

 

pics of the ls1 being dropped out of the car. took me the better part of the day. i also transplanted the suspention and kmember from the GTA

 

What are the plans going to be to freshen up the motor?
Also, just out of curiousity, what are the plans for the 89 your taking the ls1 out of?
Looks like its going to be fun

 

heads, cam, gaskets

selling the GTA off as a roller. his plans are a carbed 383

 

You are opposite from me, I hate verts, but t tops is in between, I would rather have the GTA. Lol

 

i have had them all at one point. 3 t tops, many hard tops, but this is my first vert. thought it was time for somthing different. i only got 1400miles on it before the swap and almost all of them were in 2 days bring it back home lol so i am still undesided about it.

 

pics of the TBI coming out of the vert.

 

THE T TOP IS SO MUCH SEXIER LOL

 

+1

 

Cool swap man!

 

ouch... thinking i should have started this post in the vert section

 

last job to be one once the gta was on the trailer was to pull the K member. i kept this one because it was all sand blasted and painted nice from the first swap


next step. prep the bay for paint

 

What oil pan you use?

 

just the stock one

 

pics of the engine bay after paint

 

while it was at the painters there was some free time to tinker with the engine

added a lunati 232/232 .600 lift cam and a set of 706 heads that were ported and bench flow tested to be equal to AFR number

 

Out with the GTA and in with the vert, ouch. But then I'm partial. Good luck anyway and nice job so far.

 

lol seems to be the trend


forgot to add pics of the old cam and its dammage. i think the springs were weak and the lifter might have been bouncing

 

Dang, that is crazy.

 

Man, that is pretty crazy!

 

i was very suprised to see that damage. Ended up costing me a new set of lifters also.


pics of the rear end swap. i took it from the GTA also for a few reasons. better gears, posi, and disk brakes.

The under side of the car looks very good and clean.

The vert fuel sending unit was not working and i needed my walbro255 pump from the gta so dropped the tank down at the same time.

found out why the car was running so bad and why the sending unit was not working. the tank was full of rust and the fuel had turned to jelly. one of the disadvantages of buy a low mile car.

 

Nice work, its refreshing to see a build thread that actually is going somewhere.

 

thank you.
thats also why i called it quick swap. it really helps when its a stright swap and everything has been already figured out.



the LS1 is now sitting in its new home. all bolted in and waiting for wires

 

Looking good man! Quick or not so many threads started by dreamers that never get started or finished.

 

now that part every one loves... wires

my harness was already modded for the 89 and i wanted to just pull out the hole thing starting from c100 but it turned out that they are not the same pin out. sooo i had to strip out all the old TBI wires and only kept the few that was needed for the ls1. i did manage to catch a small brake in the fact that the 92tbi also uses a signal box for speed like the older GTA and also that C207 were the same for both so it was just a mater of plugging it in.

 

Blah, the worst part of messing with a LS or LT swap....carbed or not, alotta wires have to come out.

 

Are you keeping the 15" firebird sleeper wheels, or using the 16" GTA PW7 wheels? If you are using the GTA axle, you'll want to use the GTA wheels, also because of the special rear disc offset.

This swap must be pie compared to the first one.

 

yes this swap is much easier. almost every thing is already figured out. just moving alot of parts from one car to the other.
but i did still run into some issuse with the new header fitment.

both axls are the same size and both set of rims fit no problem

i plan to use my vette rims shown here

 

head cam and headers were the only changes i made from the last set up. here are the headers

the fitment was not good but they were never intended to still have a 700r4 in there i guess. i had to cut a flange on each side to make room. i also had to relocate the trany mounting braket because it was in line with the collector.

the biggest anoyance was the collector was hitting the outside frame of the car on the passenger side. After talking with Hawks about it they said to strap the header over and when i weld up the Y pipe let it hold the header is place. Or option 2 was to unbolt every thing and see if i can get the engine shifted in the car just a little bit to get it off the frame.

 

Yea, cannot wait to see how the fit with my th400.

 

what size headers and collector did you get? also what does your trany support look like? with the 700r4 cross member there was no way to go past it other then dropping down

 

look like the 1 5/8 and 2.5" collector
?

 

3 in collector

 

some more updates. almost every thing is back in. Last big job was to extend the computer into the stock location. in the old gta it was where the A/C and blower fan was. This time its something i wanted to keep.

 

Very cool swap, while I'm partial to hard top GTAs, if you have been there done that, no reason not to try something new. Definitely, faster the second time around, I know if I ever do another it will be way faster, and done better (I hope, so many things to do differently....). Wish I had a hanger to do it in though....

 

Are those butt connectors that you used to extend the harness? Man, I caught all kinds of crap for using them on mine... and they were only temporary until I got a better soldering gun!

 

they are not exactly butt splices. they are far better then butt or soldering.

its what is used to splice wires in aircraft. they have a crimp part and an jacket that wonce heated seals the splice from weather

 

Ah, cool. Sounds like you should be good to go then. Your swap is coming along nicely.

 

well for the most part is done.

here are few pics of the end results and a short vid with open headers

 

nice swap man, I loove the drop-top!

 

the car has now been to the exhaust shop and is back. all i can say is i am not to happy with the end results. because the 700r4 mount is stright across the exhause had to dip under it. Now its just far to low for me. so i am now looking for a t56 to swap in. in the mean time i will have to put the stock spring back in to help give me more clearance. but intil i get that done i did take a few finished pics.

 

I think either Hawk's or Spohn makes a crossmember with a double hump in it to give room for the exhaust. Maybe look there before swapping transmissions? A custom y-pipe may suit your needs to, like this one that needed a special trick to go with it too.

 

the crossmembers your talking about are only for the 4th gen tranys. i have not seen any for a 700. but thats ok the t56 is was my final goal is anyways. i looked at making my own for the 700 but i felt there would still not be enough room for 3inch pipe

 

gotchya. go for it then!

 

Do a little research on the double hump k-member, I was looking at that wishing I had it (it came out after my swap was done). But it seemed people were having issues with the bolt holes lining up. It may be easier to just fab your our. Though I will always encourage a t56 swap!! My k member it sphon's t56 swap piece, and my y-pipe looks a lot like yours, really kills the ground clearance. The bottom of both sides are now flat due to scraping bottom.

 

great job on the swap, especially in such short of time. As for the exhaust, it could be worse lol Mine is even worse.

 

thanks guys for all your complements


pearl iroc OMG did you have to cut your bump stops to have suspention travel! how much clearance do you have there? even on your oil pan looks low

 

so you used the 700r4 what you need to attach it to the motor and what passing gear cable did you use....