This swap is on my dad's 92 Z28. The car was originally a 305TPI/T5 but had a 355TPI when he bought it about 3 years ago. The 355TPI had some good parts in it but also some issues when he bought it. It had bad injectors, bad fuel pump, various wiring problems but somehow made the trip home from Chicago to Indy after purchase. We replaced all the bad components, cleaned up the engine bay/underside and got it running well, and had a custom chip burned. It ran pretty well for what it was but TPI is pretty limited.

After seeing my LS1 swap he decided he wanted to do a similar swap. Here are a few pics of the car to start. The last picture is shorty after we got the car, still had the black wheels on it.

 

This is the Donor car. 99 Z28 LS1/T56 with 81K miles. Got lucky and picked it up for $3200. It ran well except for a huge vacuum leak in the PCV hose. Took it home and drove it enough to make sure everything functioned well. No issues so we pulled the engine/trans out and sold the roller for $1000.

Plans for the build:
99 LS1/T56
LS6 intake
243 heads
ported throttle body
224/230 .581/.591 112lsa cam
Kooks 1 7/8 mid length headers
mufflex 3.5in cat back system(already had it with the 355/TPI)
BMR torque arm and trans crossmember
MGW shifter
Tick Clutch Master Cylinder
Monster Stage 2 clutch
10 bolt already has 3.73 gears

 

Old engine out and the new one all cleaned up and ready to go in. Engine bay was painted with VHT satin black. We had the K-member notched by a local fabricator then painted it with POR 15 paint. The motor mounts were made by a local thirdgen guy who owns a thirdgen parts business...these were the 2nd proto-types. He gave them to us to try. One side didn't fit right and we had to have it re-made. He wants to start selling them once he gets them exactly right.

 

We put the engine/trans on my trusty craftsman creeper and slid it under the car. Then we used the engine hoist to pull it up enough to bolt the K-member on. Then pulled it the rest of the way up and bolted it in place.

 

For those of you looking for an alternative to the Hawks headers the Kooks mid length headers fit very well. The driver side O2 sensor bung did need to be moved to clear the bell housing. We put a plug in the original hole and had a new bung welded in a better location. Other than that they fit very well and slide in from the top.

 

What is the P/N for these headers?

 

Great looking z28 jbenge; Looks like it's going to be a nice swap.

 

part# 22311400
http://www.kooksheaders.com/exhaust-header-882.html

 

Those headers look very good, I picked up a set of Racing Innovations 1 3/4" stainless LT headers because of the price, don't know if it will be a big deal but the big difference in the RI headers is the material appears to be a bit thinner gage material. I guess you get what you pay for. I do like the Kooks headers though.

 

Nice install you got going there again! Very clean as we have come to expect! So you and dad gonna be each others motivation for improvements... each season one is faster than the other, til the next season? lol

 

hmm maybe so, his should be faster than mine...can't let that happen. ha ha

 

Fuel system is done. We did it pretty much exactly like I did mine. Thats the clutch bleed line looped over the fuel line temporarily in the past pic.

 

Wiring harness was made by Pocket. It fits pretty well. Only issue was that the connector for the AC pressure switch was different. Not sure yet on the fix for that, haven't heard back from Pocket yet.

 

WOW.. Im jealous... Very nice work! Cant wait till im out of school and raking in the dough(hopefully) to do a LS swap. Looks like it was meant to go in a 3rd gen. Those 243 heads, what are they off of? a newer ls engine? Sorry, I dont know nothing about these engines. Im still wondering around in dp carb world... Again, sweet build and very nice attention to detail.. Keep em coming.

 

Got the heater hoses and a few other miscellaneous things hooked up. Radiator hoses are 4thgen LS1 hoses. It's interesting the lower radiator hoses on his car clear the idle arm mounting bolts much better than mine. My hoses were Dayco brand and his are Gates. There must be a slight difference between manufactures. Heater valve is a AC Delco part# is 15-5533. Heater hoses are part#'s 80405CS, and 80416CS

The thirdgen alternator wire was too short to reach the LS1 alternator. I made a new 4 gauge cable, probalby overkill but it won't have any charging issues.

 

Thanks for the comments. 243 heads came on some Corvettes, GTOs, and 5.3L trucks. 799 is another casting number that came on the trucks that is the same as the 243 casting.

 

First start up and test drive was successful. Had to tighten a couple of fuel fittings, they were leaking a little. No leaks other than that. Adjusted the clutch petal travel for proper engagement. Had some trouble bleeding the clutch but eventually got the air out.

 

I've attached pictures of the thirdgen pressure switch and the connector on the harness. Anyone know what the fix is for this? I'm guessing we may have to find a 4thgen line and cut/weld the fitting for the 4thgen switch into the thirdgen line. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Nice build, are you going to dyno tune it? What are your expectations?

 

Yes planning on a dyno tune. I'm not sure what to expect number wise, maybe around 400HP at the rear wheels. My car made about 340HP/350ft.lbs to the rear wheels with a tune and headers through an auto with a 3200 stall torque converter. The cam, 243 heads, and higher efficiency of a t-56 should put this one some where around 400 I think. Dyno's are all different so the numbers don't mean a whole lot but it makes for some interesting comparisons.

 

Replace the 3rd gen pressure switch with a 4th gen pressure sensor. 93-97 Fbody's have the same threads as 3rd gens so its a direct swap. Looks great!

 

i didn't know kooks were making a mid-tube for our cars. i've been really pleased with my hedman brp coated mid-tubes. i don't think they are killing the hp/tq numbers either. my mild cam 6.0l is putting down 420+rwhp based on my race weight and trap speeds.

 

Once we had the car on the ground and looked at it closer we weren't happy with the BMR Crossmember. It hangs way lower that it needs to for some reason and didn't leave much room for exhaust. A local shop custom made a new crossmember to use with the BMR torque arm. It turned out very well, ground clearance is much better. I think I'm going to do the same thing when I do the torque arm on my car.

The same shop then welded up the exhaust. We also realized with these headers you need to get the Kooks female Torca clamps. Kooks part# 750013, they were about $54 each at Summit. They aren't listed on Summit's website yet, you have to call to order them. They are expensive for what they are but you have to use them or you have to cut the ends off the headers off and weld a different flange on. It was easier to use the Kooks torca clamps so we went that route and they are small so clearance wouldn't be an issue.

 

Not sure what exhaust shop did that but its the best generic shop work Ive ever seen. Looks like a very professional setup

 

Not your average shop for sure, he's one of the best fabricators I've ever seen.

 

Nice 92. I plan to do a swap similar to this during the summer, when my funds are a little higher. The fab work on this car is beautiful. Props to you.

 

that cross member looks really nice. the exhaust looks like it should flow well also. what muffler are you using in the mufflex?

 

Thanks for the comments everyone. Flowmaster for now, might switch it out for a Magnaflow later.

 

Very nice! I have the tick also, didnt really have any issues with bleeding it, but I have had to readjust it a couple times. Is the car lowered? I was just curious if he has had any clearance issues with the kooks. I think im going to end up going with these, but im sitting pretty low as it is so I just want to make sure i dont tear anything off lol. But very nice job.

 

The car is lowered with Eibach Sportlines. Ground clearance is excellent with these headers. The biggest issue with ground clearance was the BMR T56 crossmember, now that we got rid of that its pretty good.

 

Ok cool, i have sportlines also and didnt want to chance having clearance issues with headers. Thanks again.

 

Are the headers gone? I'm in Aledo and just now seeing this!

 

I think you commented on the wrong thread?

But this was a reminder for me to update this thread, it's been a long time. The car was painted after the LS swap. The old paint looked good in pictures but up close it had a lot of flaws and some cracks. The car had blue stripes that were painted on when purchased. We had new strips made by Phoenix that are matte black, not the standard satin. The new paint turned out awesome.

The T-56 Wouldn't always go into 3rd gear at WOT so we had it rebuilt by RPM transmissions. We also changed out the Monster Stage 2 clutch and MGW shifter for a LS7 clutch and Tick shifter. Shifts great now, my Dad really enjoys driving it after the changes. We took the car to LS fest a couple of times.

 

Really sick car! thanks for the update

 

Epic car J! The Z28 hard tops in black are hard to beat looks wise imo. The mate black headlight buckets & hood accents look awesome as well. Its been 7 years since I posted on this thread lol… It genuinely makes me happy to see your car is still going strong after all these years!

-Kyle.

 

Dang that's a nice car!

 

What is the aluminum canister on the motor for?

I am going to be doing an LS3 on my build next year, so getting curious about small details.

 

Catch Can to keep oil mist from the PCV system out of the intake manifold.

 

Dang, that is a nicely done swap! Mine is not nearly as 'polished', but I'd never done anything that big before and I've leared a lot since then. If you said, I missed it. Did you retain the cruise control? I've not been able to get mine to work since the swap and need to dive deeper into it.

You wouldn't be interested in messing around with someone else's swap would you?

 

Thanks for the comments! I didn't retain cruise control but there is some info on this forum about how to do it if you dig deep enough. This car doesn't get driven on the highway very often so I never thought much about putting cruise on it.

I generally don't work on other peoples stuff except for a few close family and friends....I stay pretty busy just doing that. I'm currently working on swapping a hellcat engine into a 70 Cuda (huge project). If you have any questions let me know, I would be happy to give some guidance. I've done 3 thirdgen LS swaps now, they are all a little different...always something new to learn or to do differently.

 

I almost forgot to post my fav thing about this car…. The seats. Black leather seat covers made by Lethal Interiors.

 

Very nice!