LS1 Swap

[Gregs_gsxr]

woohoo, congrats on getting it all buttoned up and sounds good too from what you can hear in the video

[Emulsifide]

Thanks guys. I'm VERY happy despite the fact that I know I've got a buttload of tuning ahead of me.

Everyone has had me scared shitless about the oil pump o-ring and making sure it's in correctly. I was dreading the chance of starting up and not having any oil pressure. Thankfully, that didn't happen. 50psi strong at idle which means the LS6 pump is definitely doing its job.

I'm also extremely happy that my hackjob on the engine bay harness was all perfect. I pulled a MASSIVE amount of wire out of it. I'm still amazed at the ease of this swap, considering I pieced together a lot of dissimilar stuff (01 camaro engine harness and pcm, 01 firebird hardtop engine bay harness, and 01 firebird convertible body harness and bcm).

[Gottork]

thats sounds amazing, what kinda exhaust is it? GRATZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Emulsifide]

thats sounds amazing, what kinda exhaust is it? GRATZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks. It the LPP stainless steel true dual exhaust. It fits great after a couple of little tweaks, but as you can see, it's low as hell with Strano springs:



Yeah...that's a 3" exhaust coupler. Yikes.

[Lucky SOB]

I just got my Strano's installed too - it's super low. Thinking about some heater hose on the top and bottom in the rear to lift it up a bit. I think my exhaust has about 3" of clearance also (Borla)

[my95z28]

I just got my Strano's installed too - it's super low. Thinking about some heater hose on the top and bottom in the rear to lift it up a bit. I think my exhaust has about 3" of clearance also (Borla)

Front end too high? This is starting to become a trend with Stranos

[Plantfoam]

I have enjoyed watching this build evolve....It looks like you have a really wide range of skills, and that made it a smoother swap than what most people might experience.

[MunsterZ28]

very nice build thread! much nicer car!!!

[Emulsifide]

Thanks again guys.

Update:

Aside from the gas station, the first real trip for the car was to ktl711's house for a hood:



Kevin, thank you again for your help!

I'm about 50% of the way through installing my Innovate LC-1 wideband o2 sensor. Since I only have HPTuners standard (without the i/o functionality), the trick to getting a wideband into the system is to delete the rear o2 sensors and use one of those as an input. Once physically connected, you create custom PIDs to interface it with the software and away you go. I'm using bank 2 sensor 2 as the input, which is mounted on the tailshaft of the transmission. I cut a hole in my trans tunnel plate I made to cover up the manual shifter hole which is right above the B2S2 o2 sensor connector:



The LC-1 unit is zip tied to the trans cross member (which I will get a picture of tomorrow). The unit now just has to be wired up, calibrated, and then the actual sensor needs to be put into one of the two bungs I have available. Then I can get down and dirty with tuning to finally wake this thing up!!

[Emulsifide]

Update:

Definitely had the first bit of disappointment in a long time. It was bound to happen considering the upswing I've been having with this project. I took off work three hours early today for a scheduled Windshield repair with Henderson Glass on Woodward in Berkley. I get there right on time, pull the car into the repair bay, and then head to the front to sit and wait. Five minutes later, the guy comes back and says, "Um yeah, your new windshield is delaminating, so we're going to have to reschedule." Wonderful. I can't take anymore time off this week and I don't feel comfortable parking the car overnight in their parking lot. My only option is to get there at 8am sharp on Saturday, the day of my first car show, the J-BOM BBQ which starts at noon. Windshield install takes at least two hours which means I'll have two hours to assemble the cowl trim, interior top dash, a-pillers, and then give the car its first wash in a year. I can't wash it now because the cowl trim routes the water down the drip channels. Without it, water goes all over the engine bay and potentially into the HVAC venting as well. Ugh.....

On a good note, the wideband is 100% installed and working great! I have my PIDs and histograms all set to go to tune VE and the MAF. I also decided to drop the stock injectors back into the car to eliminate a variable. Not only that, but the 42 lb/hr injectors are unnecessary until I switch over to E85. Tuning will commence through the week and I hope to have something relatively drivable by Saturday.

[MunsterZ28]

great update and congrats on the progress but sorry to hear about your windsheild issues. sucks man lol ive been rocking my saturn with a cracked windsheild for over a year and its kinda scary, pray for no shatter!

[meissen]

Wow congrats on getting her fired up and running, Andy! This has been a great thread to follow!

[98blackbeauty]

If I were you I would do a lot of reasearch on going to e85. Last bad thing was it deteriates your gaskets in the engine. There is a lot of talk about eliminating e85 as its not been an advantage to save oil since you get worst gas mileage with it.

[Emulsifide]

Thanks for the comments guys.

If I were you I would do a lot of reasearch on going to e85. Last bad thing was it deteriates your gaskets in the engine. There is a lot of talk about eliminating e85 as its not been an advantage to save oil since you get worst gas mileage with it.

I've done quite a bit of research on the topic. I've messed with Methanol injection on my old Cavalier (when it was supercharged) which has similar corrosion properties to E85. Here's an SAE paper on a 99 Silverado that was converted to being a corn burner:

http://www.engr.unl.edu/~ethanol/unl-sae2.pdf

Fuel lines were either upgraded to Teflon or stainless steel. The fuel rails were anodized on the inside to prevent corrosion, which is only 2 mils over a period of 1 year. I decided to use stock steel lines for the moment, but have stainless steel hard line, anodized Earls fittings, stainless Teflon braided hose, and a rather large collection of GM sized Viton o-rings waiting on the sidelines. I haven't made a decision on fuel rails yet. Given the low rate of corrosion, I'm not worried about going through a season's worth of E85 just to get started.

[Emulsifide]

Update:

I FINALLY got to do some tuning today thanks to minimal rainfall. I started out with tuning the VE table since pumping efficiency has definitely changed due to the camshaft and overall higher compression from the heads. I've got everything below 4000rpm pretty solid (within 1%-3% of stoich), so I pumped up the upper half by another 20% and did no less than 5 WOT runs with adjustments between each one. Even without touching timing, I'm really digging how strong its pulling!

I have some work to do with the transmission, as the top of 2nd bounced off of the rev limiter. That's ok. I'll get there soon enough.

The good news is, I have the tune dialed in enough for the car to make it to the J-BOM BBQ tomorrow!!! Also, I have an 8am appointment to get a new windshield! Things are falling into place!