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LTX and LSXPutting LT1s, LS1s, and their variants into Third Gens is becoming more popular. This board is for those who are doing and have done the swaps so they can discuss all of their technical aspects including repairs, swap info, and performance upgrades.
well this is kinda goin to be a pic dump of my build. ive had the car since 06/23/2019. it started life as a pretty straight and mostly complete maui blue with gray interior 1990 RS with a auto 3.1l that had 210,xxx miles on it. i bought it for $800 not running. they replaced a bunch of parts but left some gaskets off the intake and had some wiring unplugged. so i got it to run with the v6, drove it for a couple weeks then decided to swap it. one of the previous owners at some point painted it some weird blue (wish it was the original maui color) and had 20s on it, busted steering column with some cheesy ebay steering wheel. luckily pretty much most of the car was there.
heres some info on the build:
Engine:
gen3 5.3l
fully rebuilt and blueprinted by jgm performance
gm performance main cap hardware
arp rod bolts
stock piston and rods
gapped total seal rings
clevite main and cam bearings
SS2 cam
5.3l MLS copper sprayed headgaskets
ls7 lifters
texas speed 7.4 hardened push rods
michigan motorsports trunion rockers
arp head studs
billet oil barbell
ported and shimmed oil pump
double roller timing chain
f-body oil pan setup
pickup tube brace
sheet metal intake
92mm throttle body
fid1000 injectors
aeromotive fuel sending unit
525lph fuel pump
-8an feed
-6an return
pre and post fuel filters
flex fuel sensor
deatchwerks fuel pressure regulator
ngk br7ef plugs
firecore plug wires
rebuilt 862 heads
pac 1218 valve springs
mix of dirty dingo and ict billet accessory brackets
new ac delco alternator
new sanden a/c compressor
champion dual pass radiator
custom radiator shroud
dual flex a lite fans
single spal fan for a/c condensor
Trans:
rebuilt lt1 t56
rockland gear LS conversion
gto bellhousing
gto starter
knock off hawksshifter
03/04 cobra shift ****
monster stage 3
lightened flywheel
tick master
gm slave with speed bleeder
4th gen aluminum driveshaft w/ new u joints
turbo stuff:
custom built turbo kit
ceramic coated headers outside cerakote inside
vs racing 78/75 cast turbo
3" downpipe to 4"magnaflow muffler
exhaust cut out
-4an feed
-10an drain
3 bar map sensor
ebay 31x12x3 intercooler
ebay bov
tial wastegate 11lb spring
turbo guard filter
suspension/ brakes:
pa racing tubular k member
pa racing control arms
tds wonderbar
alston subframe connectors
strut tower bar
koni sport shocks/ struts
suspension techniques lowering springs
speed engineering rear adjustable lower control arms
speed engineering adjustable panhard
speed engineering panhard relocation kit
strange engineering 12 bolt w/ 3:73 gears
new rear pads and rotors
founders adjustable torque arm
new jeep steering shaft
new lee's 670 gear box
tuff stuff p/s pump
p/s cooler
iroc 34mm front sway bar
iroc 23mm rear sway bar
all new front linkage
spohn bumpsteer kit
6th gen front brembos
c7 z51 front rotors
big brake upgrade conversion kit
Interior:
holley 12.3" pro and 3.5" digital dashes
holley terminator x
new dashpad
mpi cleetus steerig wheel
nrg quick release
rebuilt column
vintage air a/c
nexar dash cam
custom double din bezel
double din head unit
custom shift plate with light up pattern
bravetech hatch and window switches
infinity kappa 4x6 dash speakers
alpine 6x9 sail panel speakers
pioneer 4 channel amp
10" jl audio sub
rockford fosgate amp
gta premium door panels
corbeau gts2 gray seats on modified stock rails
fc rx7 rear seat compartments
odyssey battery relocated to passenger rear seat
4th gen pedals
home depot dynomat
new dove gray carpet kit
new black headliner
t-top shades
t-top bag
custom dome lights w/ switch
new weatherstripping
03/04 cobra shift ****
gray leather shift boot
trans am map pocket
complete aftermarket fuse block/ wiring harness
body:
custom RS-Z badges
RS-Z door stickers
cut out front bumper with custom grille
led headlights
yellow led highbeam/ fog lights
clear headlight covers
starbuck innovations turn signals
clear led side turn signals
klearz frosted clear tail light lenses
bravetech rgb led boards
hawks front lip splitter
hawks side splitters
universal diffuser
smoked tail lights
hawks billet hatch hinges
18x9" squared Vors SP1 wheels
275/35/18 Federal rsrr
custom hood
morrow spoiler
may be more stuff im forgetting off the top of my head.
Cars looks good. I like how you have a new set of wheels in every picture! Which vintage air unit did you buy? I have some tips after putting mine in. It's a pain.
thanx. went with the magnum iv. havent got to start on it yet since my car is at the shop waiting to get the turbo kit built.
really that bad? i think i read through your thread quickly but i guess ill have to see once i dig into it.
Be prepared to test fit a million times. I ended up having to cut into my cowl to make clearance for the hose ends. I am using the Magnum Compact. Also, be prepared to make funky brackets to install it. Lastly, You can adapt the ducts to your own vents with a lot of cutting and sectioning off the OEM plenums. You might want to test fit it under the passenger side of the dash. RestoMod Air makes a kit and they installed it on the passenger side which seemed much easier.
yeah i saw your install. i think the vents come out at a different spot on the magnum iv. well at least looking at your pics and looking at what i have so i dont think ill have to cut into the cowl. plus i might cut out that section to the far right of the cowl where that vent thing is and try to move the whole unit more over that way and less towards the center of the dash
bought a working cargo cover then realized on the way home that im doing a roll bar so it wont work. either way i dyed it and ill probably use it until i get the cage in. won a overhead console that im hoping to do some custom stuff to. adding some LED strips and hoping to mount my holley 3.5" screen up there since i dont really need to see it.got some custom badges in the work. think im digging the black background ones more.
i cleaned it off real well, let it dry over night then did 6 heavy coats of this duplicolor paint. in that pic that was only after 4 coats though so you can see the line. after the 6th coat you cant see it anymore
well took the day off today and went to see my car. well also got invited to a carne asada lunch so i couldnt pass it up. lol. anyways i wasnt planning on working on it while i was there but my buddy told me since its gonna be sitting for a while might as well start on installing the vintage air stuff. so decided to pull the dash apart. need to make a block off plate then figure out how and where to mount this beast. also my buddy sold me one a pair of 18x12 c5 z06 wheels with mickey thompson et street ss tires but now i have to find some 18x 9.5 fronts. also installed that rear cargo cover and realized my plan of moving my holley 3.5" screen to the overhead console isnt going to work. oh well. guess i gotta also clean up some of the wiring some more.
Don't forget to block off the HVAC inlet baffle spot on your dash. Its on the passenger side. It pulls air for the HVAC behind the cowl and front fender. I almost overlooked this and would have had a huge surprise during some rain. Its the big opening on the passenger side right up against the side of the car. 4 #12 screws hold it in. I used the OEM baffle as a template and put a piece of metal over it using an OEM gasket to seal it off.
yup about to cut one up right now. before i saw that hole i was hoping to cut that whole corner out and patching it but thats alot more work than i wanna tackle at the moment. gotta figure out how to connect all the vent tubes and stuff. been thinking of taking a week off of work to mess with this thing but well see. i usually get like a couple hours after work if i head there right away and depending how long my buddies wanna stay.
well i dont have anything running around my dash anymore i decided to cut out whatever brackets or anything that would get in the way. started cutting the factory vents to figure out how to hook the tubes up, have a general idea just gotta wait to see how everything fits in the car before i cut the tubing. i will say its soo nice not having the oem harnesses and fuse block all cluttered up with the dash.
did some plastic welding (for the first time) on some of the stock vent tubes. tomorrow goin to the car to test fit/ mount up the a/c unit. figure out how i wanna do everything. think i got a pretty good idea. picked up my emblems today, think i like the ones on the left. might put the other ones up for sale or hold onto them. gonna test them on the car tomorrow. buddy is pulling those wheels i talked about in previous post and getting them to me. some day ill pay him. called a place that has repo 18x9.5s for $495 shipped for the pair. then theyll have to go get powder coated to match the 18x12's. ugg. soo much dang money. oh and other buddy gave me a copy of how he wired up the vintage air since i pretty much just ordered everything he used.
went to the shop, had a annoying headache so didnt get to do much. mounted the main a/c unit real quick then threw the dash over. plenty of room back there to run hoses or whatever. still need to figure where im going to mount the firewall bulkhead. need to mount the condenser and accumulator then do all the plumbing. although i might wait to do the plumbing until my buddies done building the turbo kit so i dont put anything in his way.
threw on my fancy boi badges and dang i love the way it looks. gotta remove the iroc-z stickers eventually.
so while the dash was out i got to thinking and well i ended ordering the 12.3 holley dash. thing that sux is theyre on backorder til 4/5/21. already sold my 7" dash with the bezel but luckily i kept the template of the cluster in my toolbox so i cut out another one and also cut out the template for the new cluster. yeah its a little bit bigger than my old one. bought a firewall bulkhead for the a/c fittings but im gonna try and hide it. so mounted it to the block off plate. then gonna run the hoses along the top of the fender. ill figure out the rest from there. not really goin to mess with the hoses yet until the turbo kit is built. easier to route small hoses than exhaust pipe. supposedly he should be done with the POS porsche hes been working on than my car is going on the lift. hopefully.
the little guy is my old screen. big guy is the new one thats on back order. man i cant wait.
I might have an idea to improve your AC controls. Based on your diagram, it seems the Vintage Air ECU grounds the compressor relay field coil. What if instead that wire was run directly into the Terminator X as a custom input, and then use a custom output to directly operate the compressor relay? You could ditch the interrupt relay altogether. And it will let the Terminator ECU know when AC is on/off so that you can apply any special strategies in the software.
Basically the Vintage Air ECU makes a request to the Terminator ECU to turn on the AC compressor relay. You get to decide whether to pass that request on to the relay. And that same custom input from the Vintage Air ECU can also serve for the AC Kick feature. And the Terminator ECU will know when AC is on/off, so that allows you to have special fan strategies, AC Kick, compressor interrupts, whatever you want.
I don't know, it's an idea like the strategy I used with my car, just different wiring adapted to your situation.
ill have to look into that when i get to that part. i didnt draw that up, my buddy did for his system but im pretty much just copying what he did. his seems to be working nicely but i will take your option into consideration. might have to hold up on starting the wiring on it depending on if he starts working on my car soon. hopefully.
Your way can work, but the advantage of my suggestion is the Terminator ECU will know when AC is on/off. That gives you more control of engine functions that you might want to behave different when AC is on versus when it's off. It's the closest you'll ever get to emulating what a modern car can do.
not too much of an update. stopped by the shop for a little and decided to get the a/c lines goin. made the high and low side from the unit to the bulkhead, just need to get them crimped. i think i lost my trinary switch already so gotta order another one. i made a plate to cover the holes in the firewall and not liking it so just gonna order one off ebay. think im gonna mount the drier and move my catch can to that area of the engine bay. need to order some 90 fittings for the heater core lines. then wire everything up hopefully. at the moment im not gonna run defrost vents to side vents on the dash pad.
cut a template of the new 12.3 holley dash that im getting and well yeah its big. gonna have to cut into the dash and probably recess it up a little in there. i think if the dash didnt slope down towards the door then it might work without cutting but oh well. gotta pay to play i guess. oh and mounted up my a/c controls onto the bezel. buddy is almost done with the porsche so my car should be going on the rack soon.
took the day off work and went to mess with the car a little. tried to get all the a/c hoses routed so i can take them to get crimped but think i need to order another fitting. fitting $6 summit shipping $10. ugg. so mounted up the condenser but need to make a bracket for the bottom of it. tried up the wheels and they did not fit. i banged the crap out of the front of the inner fender well where it was hitting and it would still hit. tried a 1" spacer and pushes it out too far. originally thought about doin the Danko fender flares but looking at my car and how im building it i just decided against cutting my 1/4 panels. ill just find a smaller size of c5 z06 wheels or maybe something else i like. good thing i didnt buy the wheels. wish i would have never sold my mesh wheels.
oh also my buddy said that holley shipped my 12.3 dash and should be at his shop by wednesday. gonna be fun trying to fit that thing. i have not seen a 3rd gen camaro with that dash in it yet.
well i got it to fit. goin to have to modify the bezel but thats alright with me. at least ill have a bad *** cluster. lol had to drop the column down about 1/4", cut a hole in the dash for the cluster to tuck up into and grind the top of the column so it didnt contact the glass if someone were to pop the tilt up. i wish i coulda powered it but cant.
Great build! have you started on the turbo kit yet?
thanx and nope its still just collecting dust at my buddies shop. hopefully soon. he needs to finish building this turbo kit for this POS porsche then my car is next.
He's making the headers for that thing out of inconel. So it was kinda a pain finding some of the parts.
busted out the plastic welder again and did some modifying to my gauge bezel so it doesnt block the new screen. coulda spent a little more time on it but did it real quick with some free time at work. painted it with this textured paint we use at work that almost looks like the OEM texture. painted my 3d printed double din bezel the same way.
well yesterday i mounted and powered up the dash with the bezel on. super duper happy and cant wait to drive this damn thing. dash has to come back out again though to finish the a/c stuff. dont mind all the wiring. again im still in the process of alot of stuff at the moment
That would annoy the crap out of me, I mean it annoys me and it's not even my car, lol. I would love to put the bigger one in my Firebird, I got the 6.8" because I didn't think I could get the 12" to fit, but I hadn't considered doing like you are with the cutting of the top of the steering column cover like that. I thought about maybe spacing the column down on the stud mounts under the dash. Maybe I can figure something by doing a combination of both
i did both. cut the top and spaced it down. and yes the angle bugs the crap out of me. luckily its pretty dark up in that area so maybe i wont notice it that much. lol do the firebird slope too? id imagine they would
I haven't looked at the Firebird dash hard enough to know whether there is a slope. I would say that it's flat across, but I will have to re-examine when I go to install the 6.8 screen.
01-22-2021, 10:45 PM
