my dad left me his 02' v6 convertible camaro want ls or lsx swap

[sayvor]

Hi, I used to sell chevy in 92' we had a v8 iroc convertible at the dealership whixh I sold, the client wanted manual tranny, factory said no way, too much torque. Had a 5.0 too??? Anyways... my dad just passed on and left me his baby. To me it has no sentimental value.. hesring my old man complain about this, that and thr other. Its clean and only has 44k miles on it for an 02'. My gut says if I swap, the torque will rip the frame apart being a convertible. What are your guys thought? Don't need more than 650 hp. Just twin turbos would need a cage, that would be the problem, with the top down, look to get pulled over. Whatchall thinking? Am I crqzy? I have a 69' cougar xr7 convertible 351w 4bbl. Want to have fun this summer, can't drive both at same time.. new to group, thanks

[ktl711]

Hi Eric, welcome to MiFBody!

I'll be going down this same road soon myself, although not to the same extreme. I'm looking to put a basically stock 2001 SS LS1-T56 dropout into my 2002 V6 vert.

If I were in your position -- already having another hot convertible, and not having any sentimental connection to the 2002 -- then I would simply sell the V6 car and just move on with what I have. I doubt you would tear the convertible apart with the torque, I'm pretty sure we have verts cruising around locally that have Prochargers on them and they are getting by just fine with subframe connectors and no cage. If you are going the twin turbo route, then I assume you'd want to be looking for a sturdy LQ9 block to start with.

So, it's really about whether you like the car enough, and have enough time and enough money to make it into what you really want.

[98blackbeauty]

What Kevin said, The body will hold the torque of a healthy V8, to do the conversion you want is more of a show and braging right. To get and hold traction on that much HP and torque is your challenge, There is a point where you exceed traction and HP and once you break traction the rest is a waste. You probably have that problem with the cougar.
We swapped a LT1 into a 1994 V6 car it started out as a budget build swap and $7,000 later mission accomplished. Brians (site Owner car) is still on road and doing fine but it is not cheap to do swap as we found out. There are a lot of unforseen costs that come up if your going to do it correctly.