LS1 Swap

[Emulsifide]

Wow, this car is going to be HOTT!!! Do you have any ideas for how you're going to paint your SS hood -- are you spraying it yourself, and are you doing any special stripes, or 35th Anniversary stripes, etc.?

I'm probably going to attempt to spray the hood myself. It will be my first attempt at doing a body panel. No stripes, but I might do something like this:



I haven't decided though.

[Kwazrollinz28]

nice thats what im going to be doing. Kolin has this, and it looks GREAT

[Lucky SOB]

Make sure you have the stripe around the outside done also...

This is Kolin's car, paint by Alan (SSON20S). PM Kolin (tastyzl1) for his phone number. He does great work and on a fast turn around.

[ktl711]

Just for the sake of discussion, here is a decal version of that graphic at 3rd Gen Decals, plus some pics of the kit on Ray's car in Zeeland:

http://www.3rdgendecals.com/Manta.htm
http://www.3rdgendecals.com/CustomerPages/RayC.htm

My guess is that for the money, you'd be better off getting Alan to do the work.

[Emulsifide]

Holy poop....it's looking like a car again:



Next week will be another Camaro vacation since I'm in between jobs. Now that the interior and all of the wiring is pretty much done, it's just a matter of bolting everything up. The only fab at this point is to weld on the control arm relocation brackets and to make the fuel and brake lines.

It's going to be rough, but I'm hoping for fire up to be at the end of next week.

[ktl711]

for the progress on the car!

Sorry to hear about you being between jobs though -- hopefully that situation won't last long. Gotta feed that F-Body habit somehow!

[Emulsifide]

for the progress on the car!

Sorry to hear about you being between jobs though -- hopefully that situation won't last long. Gotta feed that F-Body habit somehow!

Don't be sorry! I quit! I'm starting my new job the week after.

[ktl711]

Don't be sorry! I quit! I'm starting my new job the week after.

Well, then for the new job then too! Congratulations!

[Gottork]

looking good

[Emulsifide]

Update:

Over the past couple of days, I've been using Leatherique Pristine Clean and Rejuvinator Oil on my newly acquired leather seats. You take the rejuvinator oil and literally massage it into the leather. Leatherique suggests parking the car in the sun to steam the seats and allow the oil to seep into them. Since I cannot move the car, I did the next best thing. I sealed the seat in a couple 50 gallon garbage bags and left them outside in the scorching heat for 12 hours. I then reapplied the oil a second time on the next day and toasted them again for another 12 hours. Once the oil portion of the process is complete, you use pristine clean to lift the nasty dirt and grime out of the seats. The Leatherique products worked amazingly! The seats feel like I just shaved a decade's worth of age off of them. I HIGHLY recommend giving Leatherique a try. www.leatherique.com

At this point, the interior is completely back together with the exception of the top dash and a-pillar trim due to the fact that I need a new windshield installed. Once that's taken care of, the final interior pieces will be put back.

Alright, so I've hit a major time wasting road block with the car. I thought I had all three good plastic fuel lines (feed, return, evap) that go from the fuel tank to the hard lines on the car. Turns out, the return line is cracked in like three places. I'm glad I found it now versus later, but this has set me back pretty badly. I nabbed one on eBay a week and a half ago to try and pre-empt this problem. However, the douchebag seller just now decided to get off his ass and ship my line today (even though his auction said it would be shipped two days after payment was received). He didn't even give me the "holiday weekend" excuse when I emailed him asking for an update. Without this line, I can't put the fuel tank in the car. Without the fuel tank in the car, I can't put the rear end and the entire rear suspension on the car. Without the rear end buttoned up, I can't lift the front of the car to get the engine/tranny into their home. Get the picture? I'm screwed for at least another two days until the damn line comes in. GAH!

In the meantime, I've pretty much buttoned up the hard fuel lines and the rear brake line. The only problem being I've destroyed two flaring tools on my stainless lines. The proper hydraulic tool shall be in my hands come Friday and I will finish up the job then.

Today, I figured I'd get started on the LS6 PCV valley cover conversion. As stated earlier in this thread, the valley cover requires grinding away a protruding piece of the engine block. Here's the starting point:



The piece to be removed is the oil filled oval hole in between intake ports 1 and 2 on the left head. With a can of brake cleaner and a terry cloth, I cleaned up enough of the nearby valley to create a sticking point for some masking tape. Since grinding away the hole produces a ton of metal shavings, the valley needed to be completely sealed from the grinding action. I did this using 2" wide masking tape and taping off the entire valley. I then whipped out my trusty 30 day old Dremel (which I destroyed by the end of the grinding session) and my DeWalt drill and proceeded to hack away at the protrusion:

(Nasty looking)


Hackjob complete:


Smoothed down with a sanding cartridge and my die grinder:


Tada!!!:


Now for the best part. Halfway through hacking up the block, Mr. UPS showed up with a very lovely box from Texas Speed & Performance!!!!!!!



We have the following:
TSP 228R 114LSA camshaft


Comp 918 beehive springs
TSP 7.400" pushrods (which will be exchanged if my preload is not correct with them)
LS6 oil pump
ARP 6 point head studs
GM head/cam gasket kit
LS7 lifters

and a very pretty TA Performance rear diff girdle:


I promised myself I wouldn't buy anything for the shitty 10 bolt rear, but I couldn't resist the sexiness of the diff cover. lol.

That's it for now! I have a job interview at 2pm tomorrow, so I gotta keep my hands clean until after then. Once I'm done with that, I will commence removal of the 241 heads and stock cam. I'm still waiting on my valve spring tool, which show also show up Friday.

[phoenix_rising]

Damn Andy! Looking good. You are on a hell of a roll! Keep it up buddy. Can't wait to see it finished. Also congrats on the new job. I would not mind making a switch myself. Just got done doing a little work on my car but no where near the progress you've made.

[Emulsifide]

Thanks Ben.....now buy my T5 swap!!! Seriously, I'll let it go real cheap.

[ktl711]

Ben:

DO IT!!!

[Kwazrollinz28]

nice i just installed that rear end cover on my car about 2 weeks ago

[Emulsifide]

Made some progress on the motor today, but not as much as I had hoped. I started off by removing all of the accessories:



I then yanked out the huge crank pulley bolt and pulley:



Stock LS1 upper valvetrain was removed:


The 241 heads are super clean for a 103,000 mile motor:





The pistons were a little carbon caked, but the cylinder walls look fantastic (cross-hatch marks still visible, no stratches, pits, rust, etc.):




I found some uber awesome tools to scrape gaskets at Harbor Freight:


I think it was $7.99 for five different sized ones. When the plastic edge gets dull, just scrape them along a sharp edge of the block's deck and they're like new again.

After a couple hours, I had both decks gasket free, the pistons cleaned, cylinder walls oiled to prevent rusting, and all of the head bolt holes cleaned and chased:



At this point I whipped out my ARP head bolts and began looking at what's in the box and the instructions. To my disbelief, Texas Speed sent me the 12 point head bolts for an LSX block, not a 2001 LS1 block! Not cool. To get things buttoned up quickly, I will be heading to Livernois Motorsports tomorrow to pick up the proper set of head bolts since they're the same price as Texas Speed. To be determined what I'm going to do with the LSX head bolts since they're about double the valve of what I paid []

Moving on, I yanked the old stock cam:


And the TSP 228R was put back in the hole:


Months ago, I picked up a brand new LS2 timing gear set due to people saying it's stronger than the stock LS1 junk. Here's the proof:




As you can see, the chain is significantly thicker, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Everyone *****es about getting the timing gear on properly. I'm not sure what the huge deal is considering I nailed it the first time:



A can of POR15 caliper paint is the perfect front main seal installer:


As it stands, the heads still need to be mounted (due to not having the proper head studs) and the timing cover needs to be installed completely. I wasn't able to install the cover because I stupidly forgot to grab an M16x2.00 threaded rod when I had the chance. That of course is needed to install the crank pulley which in turn centers the timing cover as it's pressed on.

Tomorrow's goals:
Grab the proper head studs
Find an M16x2.00 threaded rod
Complete engine mods
Work on something else (like brake lines since I got my hydraulic flare tool in the mail today)