I have an all aluminum ls3 engine that is insanely light compared to my old 355 with cast heads. On the ground my front end is fully extended all the way up. Even if I have a buddy sitting on the rad support (he's 210). It still doesn't drop at all.
I wanna bring this car down low all around. Been looking into Air Ride, but that's not in the budget right now. Also looking at Sportlines but I feel there not gonna bring the front end down at all and the cars still gonna be nose high.
Also looked into weight jacks but I'm not sure what spring rate or length to go.
Car is a weekend cruiser, definitely not a daily driver. Don't plan on taking it on any tracks at all. Maybe a 1/4 mile but not this year I know.

So what are my options to bring the front end down probably 4" (1.5-2" lower than stock only) and bring the rear down 1.5" or so.
I am runnimg 18x9.6 C6 Z06 wheels, 4th gen rear, 2" spacers in the front, 245/40/18 tires all around.
I don't want my wheels smashing into my fenders but I want the car to sit low tho.

I am also running Spohn adjustable pan hard bar, rear lower control arms, and lower control arm relocation brackets. So the rear suspension is set up to be lowered. But what do I need to do for the front to be lowered that low?

 

Keep in mind an LS is not 200lbs lighter than an SBC. A few possbilities.

Has this car moved yet? Just rolling the car back into your driveway will get things settled. I fought this same problem after doing a bunch of suspension stuff. Thought I was going crazy. Drove the car into the driveway, and all was well.

Did you tighten the front control arm bolts with the suspension drooped? Perhaps you locked the front suspension up high due to the characteristics of the OEM bushings.

Even so, you need to dial in your ride height. I would recommend a weight jack setup.

Rates will depend how you like the car to ride.

 

I haven't touched the front end yet and am running original springs all around still. It's not gonna settle anymore than it is now.

Full drivetrain is in in the picture. Front belt drive is all that's missing and wiring.

 

I will take that as a no for question 1. What about question 2?

You are not planning to run a hood on this car?

 

I never touched the front lower control arms at all yet either; they are where they were from factory.
How much lighter is an LS3 compared to my old iron SBC with cast vortec heads?
Hood is under the blanket along the wall and is a light fibreglass hood. It's still not gonna bring the car weight down at all either.

Like I said. I had a buddy that's 210 sit on my rad support and my car didn't move at all. And my front accessories, hood, wiring, and coolant isn't gonna make it drop down at all than.

 

I still suggest getting the car driving before you spend more money. It will be hard to tell exactly how long of springs you need for the weight jacks. If you insist, I would suggest trying an 8" front spring with the weight jacks.

The question is why? Doesn't this strike you as strange?

 

What spring rate would be recommended for the weight jacks with 8" springs than?
I'm not driving it until I have all the loose ends fixed up and this is definitely one of them

 

That is my point though. If you are serious about your car's performance, there is no way you are going to go through this swap and not have anything to fix when you are done. Only by sheer impossible luck could you setup a suspension without driving the car.

Like I said, rate is highly dependent on what you like and what you want the car to do. Since it sounds like you do not care about handling, I would choose whatever is most comfortable to you. Do you like the stock suspension? What struts are you using?

 

I want it to be firm, but not a harsh ride tho.
Still haven't chose my strut/shock combo yet.
I want the car to handle as good as possible for a street car.
I do also have a sub/sub box in the hatch low part along with two amps, so probably gonna have to have a little stiffer spring in the rear?

 

Jeezama christmas, did you bother answering the question John asked you?

NOPE.

Roll the car, then we will talk. You roll that car back 10 feet and then forward again and it will drop. You sit a baby elephant on the nose right now and it won't move becuasse of the wheel scrub from being jacked- some people, I swear- You ask for advice but don;t listen to questions.

 

You never answered John's question if you rolled the car back 10 feet then forward again to settle it. Standing an elepahnt on the radiaiator will not do it unless you roll the car after jacking. Learn to listen to answers when you ask questions.

And just an FYI:
You aprox 110 lbs lighter than the stock V8 motor.

The stock 2.8V6 cars are still lighter by about 75 lbs- AND that engine weight of the V6 sits further back in the engine bay. It has a much shirter length block with smaller bore 3 pistons on each side. The LS3 is stlll longer with 4 piston banks so the overall weigh of the engine assembly sits more foreward int he bay and is still quite a bit heavier than the V6 cars.

Ill give you some advice that someone else here already did- ROLL YOUR CAR

 

I guess I shoulda mentioned it earlier when asked. Yes, I have pushed the car up and down my driveway (60ft) a few times, and no, it never moved at all in the front end.

 

Then something is wrong. You don't put in an LSx and it just naturally sits up that high. Put any damn spring in there you want and the only reason it MIGHT fix the problem is because in the process of removing the old one you might ungum up whatever is wrong under there.

 

It had a nice stance to it last year with the old iron SBC I know. I haven't touched a thing in the front end yet as I wanted some guidance as to what I could do to bring it down first.
Front fender sat about 1.5" above the tire last summer. Now as you can see in the picture it is much higher than that now.

 

The LS is not the root cause of its height I promise you.

 

No? Cuz here is how it sat before I pulled the old SBC.

Nothing in the front end has changed at all. Just complete drivetrain so far.
And the good doesn't weigh enough to bring the front end down either.
I can tell you now, not a single bolt or nut has been touched in the front suspension doing this swap so far.

 

Mine looked like that after my 5.3 swap

Alot of it is that it needs to settle back down, but the engine is quite a bit lighter. I ended up cutting 1/3" of a coil off my front springs and it dropped it about where your SBC height was

 

Nothing has changed? You mean besides the fact that the suspension had a tremendous reduction in supported weight after you pulled your engine? LS ENGINES ARE NOT THAT MUCH LIGHTER. Please don't take this as antagonistic, I think you might be looking into the wrong solution. If you have the money to swap the springs, hell might as well go for it.

 

It doesn't look much different that the other picture with the LS1, no hood, and no belt sytem. Maybe a 1" higher in front at the very most. This pic shows the front camber is more positive than the rear (should be a bit opposite- but a mute point, I just bringing this to your attention for direct reference between the two pics. The car was higher in the front in the before picture. You have problems somewhere if the suspension is not compressing- if the car has been sitting maybe you have a strut that internally wnet bad and has jammed the strut height from compressing. I have seen shocks do this when the internal valving breaks.

I do not understand the entire situation you have because youa re vague in your response as to what is happening and what it was doing prior in comparison. When you buddy sat on the radiator support before you di d this did it compress? You'll probably tell me he never sat on it before, however, you probably had the probelm prior to the swap. You pulled the motor, the shock unloaded a littl more and sat that way frozen, then you put the new motor in and the strut assembly is stuck at that height. I mean seriously, if a 210 lb person bounces on the radiator support the car will move up and down, that is equivilant to adiing about an 800;b engine rather than a 400 lb engine when you take into account for leverage of the 210lb perswons weight being over the front of the front wheels- the engine is on top and behind the front wheels so a little of the rear springs takes part of that weight. The person sittingon the nose of the car is solely weighting the front springs only.

You definately have issues somewhere in your front suspension binding from the details you have given us.

it's not all going to get better sitting there looking at it- so I would suggest you pull down the entire front suspension (remove struts, springs) and check out the function of each part to make sure they are moving through the articulation stoke (copress you struts and make sure the shaft is moving completely inside them and then bacvk out without bind. youc an do this by turning it upside down and kindof pushing and sitting it one at a time. (kindof sit on your hand on top of the upside down shock to get it to compress) Next witht he springs out and the swaybar detached, you want to articulate your A-arms and make sure the bushings are allowing for somewhat freedom of pivot. It will have resistance- they always do, but you should be able to force the arm fully pvioted up top hit the chassis ears, and then all the way down to hit the floor with a decent but not too much force- at most probably about 25lbs of force. If you ahve to stand on them to move them then you have problems with the bushings area of the arms.

Lastly, it its not amy of the above- everything is working freely- then take a good picture of your coil so I can see it (measure the free height of it sitting on the ground going upward in coil winds- with the picture I will be able to see the winds of the spring if you take a correct picture that is infull veiw but close up- I can tell you how much to try and cut off to get your height better.

 

Comparing NOTHING else, an LS3 compared to a SBC is 100 lbs less. I can pick up a bare LS1 block and move it around the garage, get it in the engine bay of my 91 GTA, throw it etc. I cant do more than drag a SBC around in the garage. Not to mention the guy said his old engine had cast iron heads. 1 iron head weighs about 60 lbs if I remember correctly. An LS1 head weighs about 15, There is another 90lbs. I would not say 200 lbs is "not that much lighter".

Also when I do my LS swap I am going to weigh my car before and after with the V6 in it, because Dean loves to say how much lighter the V6 is, but I seriously doubt it is much lighter than an LS swap, unless his car has aluminum heads on his V6, mine have iron heads and I seriously think the weight is going to be close, like less than 50 lbs difference **edit** just did a quick search and it says the weight of the block for the 60 degree V6 is 106 LBS, thats about what the aluminum LS blocks weigh

 

...and all the intenrals are smaller, headers are lighter

...and there are 6 sets of internals, not 8

...and the centerline of the turnkey V6 sits about 6" back of that of the turnkey V8

75 lbs total mass less- but also the V6 is better bias which is more important.

The LS3 is still heavier and more forward in centerline than the stock V6.

...and to those that say yeah, but nothing compares to the power the LS3 has over the V6- then explain to me why I wasted countless V8 cars with some over 400hp with my little 135 rwhp car on autox tracks. Just keep bragging about the 400 hp you have while it sits in the garage and you sit on the sofa.


Yeah Dean says alot you might not like- but Dean states facts.

The total LS3 package complette with pulleys etc is about 110lbs lighter than te V8 counterpart when you exclude A/C on both- people forget about the A/C part that's weighted witht he stock iron head and block V8, the LS3 is 410lbs without A/C, and the tpi is 560 with A/C. You take off all that heavy *** compressor weight, plumbing, and don;t forget about the condenser up in front of the radiator and thats alot of nose weight you need to compare apples to apples with(there's about 40 lbs)

So what is it you were saying I always say? am I wrong?

I didn;t just shoot my mouth off, my car put it's money where it's mouth was. Even the LS cars couldn't touch it on an autox track street tire to street tire. It was agile like a jet fighter and I proved that- there were plenty of different V8 cars that have run against it and never had a chance.

 

Here's a very interesting documented data sheet from a test HotRod magazine did with a 71 Chevelle racecar with 5 different motors in it. They documented the race weight of the car with each engine in it.

Low and behold- your mysterious LS3 engine came in at 3334 lbs where the same car with just an iron SBC V8 ZZ4 with aluminum heads in that SAME CAR weighed only 26 lbs heavier at 3360lbs

yep- 26 LBS

Now how much are those heads you THINK are so much heavier than the LS aluminum heads- better get your facts straight. This is DOCUMENTED from Hotrod magazine. The LS motors are NOT that much lighter when complete and compared apples to apples- its been rumored marketing hype

http://www.nastyz28.com/forum/showthread.php?t=187184



http://www.chevroletperformance.com/...917_eprint.pdf

 

I just love when someone calls me out

 

What is/was the weight of your V6 car? Was it iron headed? I dont know the V6 cars that well to know if they had an aluminum head ever, but I know how much more an iron head for an SBC is compared to the dressed LS1 head I have in the garage right now. LS series also have composite intakes that are a lot less in weight than ANY aluminum intake which also puts the weight up higher than with an SBC or the V6

NOT ONE of those parts changes for each engine change was documented, you can throw ALL of those weight numbers out the window, because you can NOT compare any of those engine swaps and say the engine alone is the ONLY weight change. They ran the LS7 with the dry sump, which can be removed and run wet sump. The dry sump also holds more oil than a standard oil pan, thats not engine weight. That right there is undocumented, you cant honestly think that is an accurate representation of the weight of an engine,

I am only calling you out on one thing, just the engine weight. I like how you didn't answer the ONE question I had. Now I am beginning to understand why you have had so many usernames here. I am not calling you a liar, I just think you're wrong. You haven't actually proven anything about the V6 car weights.

I actually read most of your posts, I don't understand a lot of what you say because I cant picture the key points in my head simultaneously when you explain the relationships about various components and how they interact as the car goes through a turn. I actually thought about calling you out and I will back it up as I go. I am in the middle of another swap in my 73 Camaro right now and this 4.8 that I have in the car was really supposed to go in my 92 Firebird as my daily (not ever going to see track time) driver. I only decided to put the 4.8 in the Camaro because the iron headed pig of a BBC was blowing oil out the exhaust, which turned out to only be a poorly mating intake gasket.

 

Here is a quick search showing what someone found on the LS7 weight from an actual shipping container. Minus the container and the clutch/flywheel the ACTUAL weigh was 444 lbs, I highly doubt your V6 with iron head (assuming) weighs in at 396 lbs

http://www.camaros.net/forums/showthread.php?t=198958

Again, you have to compare apples here.

 

Weight for an LS3

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c6-t...ed-engine.html
Granted he has some of the accessories off that the LS7 had on it

 

Read the article, the facts do not lie. When you put iron heads on that ZZ4 it is 58 lbs heavier- total- for the pair, not each. Alum SBC heads are 46 lbs per pair, and Iron are 104lbs.

Add that to the figures Hotrod Magazine documented and the apples for apples swap in engines without accesories is only 84 lbs when you take a full aluminum LS3 vs a full iron SBC .- It is NOT 200 lbs. It is documented 84 lbs...period. I don;t care what you think your opinion is, these are the facts.

As for your answers, most of them show you do not understand vehocle dynamics just as you later admit. You you miss the entire point of this discussion on the weight of the motor swap when pertaining to suspension and handling- the discussion is about "lowering with LS swap".

You can do the same sheading of weight by simply reducing the accessories weight and eliminating that heavy stock accessory bracket and steel pullies etc, and go to aluminum SBC heads and the difference between the stock Iron V8 and the LS would be 26 lbs aprox if you just invested into the ac like aluminum electric WP, Aluminum ASP pullies, Headers ( and to set you straight I was talking V6 headers to V8 headers, not logs to headers- get a clue when you respond- you are also clueless as to what importance weight bias plays, as shown in your response.)

The expensive LS swap for weight shaving is rediculous when you can get the same HP or more for the same dollar value doing the lighter accesories and aluminum heads etc for the same cost.

 

Most of the LS swaps in here are also NOT all aluminum LS3's, they are the 5.3l truck motors which ae iron block LS motors and aluminum heads. Those motors are heavier than a SBC iron motor with aluminum heads.

So much for the weight savings of an LS motr- its not in the motor, its in the accessories.

Also, I gotta respond to you illogical, and dare I say for lack of another term- idiotic response on the LS7 motor running a dry sump in the article- You obviously do not realize hat the LS7 IS a factory dry sump motor or you are just plain ignorant and just live in your own bubble regardless of facts.

Im going to leave this discussion with that. I see you do not care about facts, nor have you bothered to read the article I linked.

 

I like how you're changing your tune now that "most" of the swap here are this or that, when we are clearly talking about the aluminum based engines here. Stop bringing up the irrelevant

Yes, I know an LS7 is a dry sump engine, I'll be buying one this winter, but it can be converted to wet sump, guess you still have stuff to learn.

Again your article proves nothing. Changing gears and the other stuff is all relevant to weight, none of which is documented.

Once I start weighing stuff I will say what is what, whether I am right or wrong.

 

And you still haven't answered the ONE question I had for you

 

get the whole car together and all the fluids topped off before worrying about the ride height.. it might not seem possible given the weights involved, but something magical happens when you get the whole car together and in running condition where it drops things down to where they are supposed to be.. also, get some miles on it- shocks and struts have been known to bind up internally when they sit with the suspension unloaded for a while. rubber bushings can also bind in place, too..
driving it jarrs things loose and settles everything back to where it's supposed to be. you might wind up a bit higher than when you started, and it's not that hard to pull the springs, cut a half a coil out, and put them back in...

regarding the weight of a V6 compared to a V8: my car has the exact same ride height with a vortec headed 305 backed with a 700r4 that it had with the stock 2.8 V6 backed by a 700r4 in it, but the handling is a little less nimble with the V8. i'm hoping that i need to do some spring chopping/swapping when i get the all aluminum 5.3 together and in it..

 

I dislike locking threads, but....

JamesC