LS1 Swap

[Strobes]

Awesome thread! Any more updates? I'm doin the same swap myself and just wanted to know how the progress is goin

[Emulsifide]

Thanks for the comments. No updates as of yet. I'm in the middle of final exams for my half semester classes at the moment (working on an MBA). I've got welding gas all set to go. I just gotta get out there after my finals and start welding. I'm hoping to do that starting Thursday. I'll post progress once I get to that point.

[doubleaction]

this is an awesome project! any updates?

[Emulsifide]

Back from the dead!!!!

Sorry for being away so long everybody. I have great news though. I will be starting back up on my project by the end of the week! For the past couple of months, I've been remodeling my bathroom, which should be complete within the next couple of days. The garage is a massive pit at the moment, so I'm going to take all of this upcoming weekend to clean and organize it. Once that's done, I'm hoping to crank this out pretty quickly considering my only hangup at the moment is getting the exhaust work done.

The turning point was actually this weekend. I've got a friend from my old J-BOM car club that just bought a teal 2000 M6 firebird with 48,000 miles on it last summer. We spent the entire weekend installing the following on his car:

LS6 intake
Magnaflow dual exhaust
TSP 1 7/8" headers
TSP ORY
LS6 valve springs
Mild grind cam
Comp Cams trunion kit
TSP 7.400 pushrods
Powerbond harmonic balancer
!AIR and !EGR

With the help of another individual, we got the car done in about two days time. I'd show you the startup video, but it's privately hosted from Facebook. It sounds pretty mean! He took a baseline dyno on Friday morning (which I will let him share if he ever decides to hop on mifbody). In a couple weeks, he's going to head back for some tuning to see what he can pull out of the new setup.

Regardless, it was a hell of a good time this weekend and I'm definitely looking forward to finishing off my car. Stay tuned!

[Darren]

good to hear that your going to get back to work on this thing!

[ktl711]

Welcome back! Looking forward to the new updates!

[Gottork]

nice, glad your back

[sman]

I hope thats a REALLY mild grind cam....those ls6 springs seriously shouldnt be used for much more than the ls6 cam.

[Emulsifide]

I hope thats a REALLY mild grind cam....those ls6 springs seriously shouldnt be used for much more than the ls6 cam.

Yep. It's actually a little less than an 02+ LS6 cam.

[whahappen]

Back from the dead!!!!

Sorry for being away so long everybody. I have great news though. I will be starting back up on my project by the end of the week! For the past couple of months, I've been remodeling my bathroom, which should be complete within the next couple of days. The garage is a massive pit at the moment, so I'm going to take all of this upcoming weekend to clean and organize it. Once that's done, I'm hoping to crank this out pretty quickly considering my only hangup at the moment is getting the exhaust work done.

The turning point was actually this weekend. I've got a friend from my old J-BOM car club that just bought a teal 2000 M6 firebird with 48,000 miles on it last summer. We spent the entire weekend installing the following on his car:

LS6 intake
Magnaflow dual exhaust
TSP 1 7/8" headers
TSP ORY
LS6 valve springs
Mild grind cam
Comp Cams trunion kit
TSP 7.400 pushrods
Powerbond harmonic balancer
!AIR and !EGR

With the help of another individual, we got the car done in about two days time. I'd show you the startup video, but it's privately hosted from Facebook. It sounds pretty mean! He took a baseline dyno on Friday morning (which I will let him share if he ever decides to hop on mifbody). In a couple weeks, he's going to head back for some tuning to see what he can pull out of the new setup.

Regardless, it was a hell of a good time this weekend and I'm definitely looking forward to finishing off my car. Stay tuned!

Hi Andy! Thanks for all your help again, it was awsome having someone around that had done most everything before. Lemme know whenever you need help coming up and I'll buzz over and wrench.

I hope thats a REALLY mild grind cam....those ls6 springs seriously shouldnt be used for much more than the ls6 cam.

Its a Comp 218/224 114 low lift grind, .534 max IIRC, picked it up for a song. LS6s are OK for now, I figure if I ever do a bigger cam, it will get heads at the same time, and they will come with proper springs.

[Emulsifide]

Hi Andy! Thanks for all your help again, it was awsome having someone around that had done most everything before. Lemme know whenever you need help coming up and I'll buzz over and wrench.

Woot!!!! Welcome to MIFbody!!! Again man, I was just happy to get out of the house and work on a car. It's been WAAAAYYY too long. I'm still on track to finish the bathroom this week so I will be under the car at the end of this weekend! You'll be the first one I call if I need help.

[birdie2000]

Great build! Looks like you've got everything planned out really well and are paying attention to detail. Should be a sick car when it's finished.

Do you have any before/after pics of the seats? I'm really curious how they came out. I've heard good things about the products you used.

[Emulsifide]

Great build! Looks like you've got everything planned out really well and are paying attention to detail. Should be a sick car when it's finished.

Do you have any before/after pics of the seats? I'm really curious how they came out. I've heard good things about the products you used.

Thanks Jim! I'll have to look back and see what I've got regarding photos. I think I have something, but I don't know if it's what you're looking for. I got the seats from some guy near Lansing. The previous own before him painted his center console with some really nasty black paint. The backseat bench was folded down onto the end of the center console and the paint adhered to it. No clue how long that paint was on there, but the Leatherique cleaner worked really fast to lift the paint up and out of the leather. Really, I don't think it's photos you're looking for though. You really gotta feel the seats to feel how well it worked.



Finally, a small update! I've been busting my ass trying to get the garage in workable condition for the past week. After putting up a couple steel racks, the western half of my garage seriously looks like an O'Rilley's!

I did the following last night:

• Replaced the coolant overflow with a brand new one.
• Prepped and painted the nasty blue lid.
• Painted the exhaust shields.
• Installed tranny cooler.
• Installed power steering cooler.
• Bent and installed stainless steel pipe to connect valley cover oil vent to the intake.

Quick pics:




Not bad for a couple hours of work. Much more little crap to do before my first show on the 28th. I'm hoping to have it rolling on the ground by the end of the week so I can have a new windshield put in it.

There should be more tonight, but not sure what yet. My dad stole my welder yesterday, so I can't finish up the exhaust yet. That should take place later in the week.

[Emulsifide]

More done!

• Painted rear caliper brackets red.
• Painted front brake to k-member brackets red.
• Hooked up the battery, yanked the fuel pump fuse, and tested some electrical functions.
• Hooked up HPTuners and pulled the initial tune. Rewrote it back turning off a bunch of DTCs and VATS. Security light is out, but lots of alarms are still going off.
• The entire rear bumper, berger panel, and lights are all back in place.

Pics:




I tried turning over the engine real quick to see if I could get it to spin, but that didn't do anything. I'm wondering if I forgot to hook up the connections to the steering wheel column. I'll have to take a peek under the dash tomorrow. Here's a list of the DTCs I'm currently getting:

[Restraints] B0017 - RF/Passenger Frontal Deployment Loop (Single Stage or Stage1) Open (History) (Current) (Immature)
[Restraints] B0026 - LF/Driver Frontal Deployment Loop (Single Stage or Stage 1)Open (History) (Current) (Immature)
[Restraints] B1000 - ECU Malfunction (History) (Immature)
[Restraints] B1001 - Option Configuration Error (History) (Current) (Immature)
[Restraints] U1040 - Loss of Class 2 Communications with ABS (History) (Current) (Immature)
[Restraints] U1096 - Loss of Communications with IPC (History) (Immature)
[HUD] U1000 - Class 2 Communication Malfunction (History) (Current) (Immature)

All junk codes relative to the air bags being disconnected, a VIN mismatch between the PCM, BCM and airbag controller, and the disconnected ABS. Not bad! Doing a quick scan, the TPS and temp sensor are working fine. I didn't have time to check anything else.

Lastly, the first piece to my latest upgrade arrived:





More tomorrow!

[Emulsifide]

Alright, super minor update but it's significant.

After disconnecting the airbag controller, I'm down to one code:

[HUD] U1000 - Class 2 Communication Malfunction (History) (Current) (Immature)

I've actually seen this before on every car I've tuned with HP Tuners, so I'm not going to worry about it.

I managed to figure out why the starter wasn't turning the engine over. Turns out, the BCM is throwing a fit because my key isn't the proper resistance for it's VATS value (because I got the entire interior wiring harness and BCM from a 01 Firebird Convertible and didn't think to ask the original owner to check the resistance of his key), therefore preventing the starter relay from turning on. I knew this was happening in the ECU, but I didn't know the BCM had it's own separate functionality for it. What I also didn't know is that disabling VATS in HP Tuners only disables it in the PCM (makes sense considering HP Tuners is only concerned with the PCM when programming). The simple fix is to bypass the starter relay (that's controlled by the BCM) by grounding it out, allowing the tumbler to trigger the starter. A single wire between the relay and ground had the starter working normally. Sweet!!!

That's it for tonight (I'm tired and can stand to have a night off). Oh and the brake line and caliper brackets look pretty good after painting them.

More tomorrow!