Just Got Carried Away with the Family Project

[nascarnate326]

Be warned...its darn tight.

[BlackBirdDaddy]

When we put the LS3 in Davids Trans Am we had the Motor fully assembled with headers and trans and just dropped the car onto the kmember.

Hey Brian and Nathan thanks! That's good to hear because we wanted to bolt together whatever we could to save on knuckles afterwards.

[nascarnate326]

When we put the LS3 in Davids Trans Am we had the Motor fully assembled with headers and trans and just dropped the car onto the kmember.

[meissen]

You should be able to have the whole assembly together. I've only done LT1, but LSx can't be that different since it has to fit in the same engine bay.

[BlackBirdDaddy]

Thanks!

Question - - This will be our first time installing LS1 or should I say LS2 from the bottom (or top or anywhere else). Can I bolt on my headers and install the whole engine assembly as one unit or will the headers get squeezed by the frame rails?

[bigjon88]

looookks amazing

[OVRKILL]

Thank goodness for alcohol! The ultimate "think" fluid.......

Btw, with M6 you wouldnt have those issues

You'd have different ones!!!

[BlackBirdDaddy]

Why is it that the simplest of jobs turn out to be the most frustrating? Yesterdays task was to install the newly acquired oil pickup tube, install the oil pan, take the engine off the stand and mount convertor and trans. Easy enough, hell no!!

Well it all started when I went to install the oil pickup tube. I had modified the length of my LS2 windage tray to match that of the LS1 since the LS2 oil pickup would not work with the LS1 oil pan. Confused? Well the bracket of the oil tube that mounts to the top of the windage tray needed to be modified in order to be bolted flat onto the tray.



Next, the bosses on the LS1 oil pan are larger than the LS2 oil pan and need to be ground slightly to fit properly.




Two darn hours later, the oil pan finally went on and torqued to specs. With the boys at work I decided to remove the engine from the stand and mount it to the k-member. I suggest not to do this yourself!



The next job is to install the torque convertor which should be easy enough, yea right! I go to pre-fit the new Yank and there was a -----n pilot bearing in the end of the crank. An hour into trying to get the bearing out by whatever means I had I had to crack open a beverage. Knowing my parts store was closed for the day I sat there and pondered over yet another beverage. Then it came to me, why not make my own bearing removal tool. I had to remove the center of t he bearing by removing one of the ball bearings so I could put a nut on the backside of the bearing and a bolt through the center. I then reinstalled the center portion of the bearing and replaced the ball bearing and evenly spaced all balls around the race. I still can't believed that it worked!




About four hours and multiple beers into this project, I still need to get the trans bolted on the engine so I wouldn't feel completely worthless. Overall that task went rather easy thank goodness.

[OVRKILL]

Brent, anytime you need some help, you know where to come for six hands as long as you have this (for me only of course!)

Yeah, I quit drinking.....2nd time this weekend! I've been sober for 24hrs

Thanks Brian, I got carried away once I seen an unnamed member's (Brent) car. oops! His car is going to be stellar and in no way is mine going to even closely compare to his, but his attention to detail is awesome!

Thanks Jim and you're welcome, lol! Just trying to make fbody land a better place!!!

[BlackBirdDaddy]

Wow!!!

What a sweet story and your kids are so lucky to have a dad do a build like that.

Will this remain "mom and dads car"?

Thanks, this will be my (mine all mine!!) car for now altough I may let another family member drive it for a price. LOL!

You think I can recruit the BlacBirdDaddy Team to put mine back together...?

Brent, anytime you need some help, you know where to come for six hands as long as you have this (for me only of course!)

That's awesome! I love the blue on the engine.

Thanks Mark, I wanted to go ol' school 67' GTO with the metallic blue engine color. Pure Pontiac!!

Awesome thread! Where did you get that hood? Was it a private seller or that shop down there?

Thanks, I did buy this hood from a manufacture in Cincinnati. That's all they lay-up are hoods. Now the quality is obviously not as stellar as an OEM or SLP hood , but for the price, you can't beat it. We bought one for my son's Firebird and it needed some fitting and surfacing prior to paint. Install the hood, gap it to about 3mm all the way around, thin-up the outer edges consistant and flat sand it. Now these hoods could use more gelcoat but if you build it up with some polyester primer and surfaced it, it will be just fine. The lay-ups are done well also.
I couldn't justify spending $600 - $1200 on an OEM hood for this car. This is not waht this build was suppose to be, although it is getting there.

Great story Jim. Brian the site founder and I did this couple of years ago. "Red Alert" his car, was a v6 with a lot of mods, but stock engine. I bought him car when he turned 16. Finally at age 23 we did simular project. v6 to built LT1 swap, suspention, etc. This was the ultimate "Father & Son" or in your case Sons project that both of us will cherish forever. In fact after that I bought a 95 Formula to joint him at shows and cruises.

Hey Larry, thanks a bunch and yea I can't wait for all of us to pull into a meet or cruise somewhere together! That will make it all worth it. I remember watching my dad and brother work on their cars which I learned a lot from them at the time. Then me working on GTO, Cuda, Vettes all hours of night with my buddies in the garage. Fun stuff! This is a re-inactment with my kids.

Wow Jim -- this is quite the thread and project! I absolutely am envious of the work you're doing. The epoxy paint on the under carriage is mint -- the engine bay is gorgeous -- the Pontiac blue is breathtaking. Amazing work, Jim. This car is definitely up there with one of my favorites.

Thanks Brian, I got carried away once I seen an unnamed member's (Brent) car. oops! His car is going to be stellar and in no way is mine going to even closely compare to his, but his attention to detail is awesome!

[meissen]

Wow Jim -- this is quite the thread and project! I absolutely am envious of the work you're doing. The epoxy paint on the under carriage is mint -- the engine bay is gorgeous -- the Pontiac blue is breathtaking. Amazing work, Jim. This car is definitely up there with one of my favorites.

[Gregs_gsxr]

sweet ! great thread, wish I would have gone an LS route, cant wait to see all your f-bodies parked next to one another.

[98blackbeauty]

Great story Jim. Brian the site founder and I did this couple of years ago. "Red Alert" his car, was a v6 with a lot of mods, but stock engine. I bought him car when he turned 16. Finally at age 23 we did simular project. v6 to built LT1 swap, suspention, etc. This was the ultimate "Father & Son" or in your case Sons project that both of us will cherish forever. In fact after that I bought a 95 Formula to joint him at shows and cruises.

[s.reef]

Awesome thread! Where did you get that hood? Was it a private seller or that shop down there?

[WMCCjames]

Great work! Awesome thread!