The official swap thread of my Camaro.56k ,RUN!
Be prepared, because I'm the last person you'd expect to hear this from, but, Mike, when your car is done, it is going to be effin BAD-***!!! IMHO< you will have the best of both worlds, the 3rd gen body style, and an LS1 with a 6-spd. 
Congrats!
Congrats!
Originally Posted by UnbelievabLS1
Be prepared, because I'm the last person you'd expect to hear this from, but, Mike, when your car is done, it is going to be effin BAD-***!!! IMHO< you will have the best of both worlds, the 3rd gen body style, and an LS1 with a 6-spd.
Congrats!
Congrats!
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Got the engine bay prepped for paint and still getting the #@$%^& rear axle housing prepped for paint . Grease and rust get in the tiniest of places.......
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If you're looking for a reasonably inexpensive 3rd gen swap, consider an LT1 . Pretty simple , bolts in and gives you lots more than a 5.7 TPI would.
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Okay , here's our progress so far. First the 10 bolt. It started out looking like this:
Then after a LOT of scraping sanding and cleaning:
I then used POR-15 ,the Marine Clean and Metal Ready (all POR -15 products) to get this:
I'll still have to topcoat it as POR-15 does not react well to sunlight. But it won't get rusty again.
This pic is a peek at the 3:73 gears , plus a few other goodies. I used a Ratech rebuild kit , Ratech solid pinion spacer , and a stud kit for the bearing caps I got from Thunder Racing. I also had the axle tubes welded to the the differential housing and removed the casting flash for added strength.
I realize that a 10 bolt is not going to be even remotely strong as a 12 bolt or 9 inch but it should do ok for my purposes.
Then after a LOT of scraping sanding and cleaning:
I then used POR-15 ,the Marine Clean and Metal Ready (all POR -15 products) to get this:
I'll still have to topcoat it as POR-15 does not react well to sunlight. But it won't get rusty again.
This pic is a peek at the 3:73 gears , plus a few other goodies. I used a Ratech rebuild kit , Ratech solid pinion spacer , and a stud kit for the bearing caps I got from Thunder Racing. I also had the axle tubes welded to the the differential housing and removed the casting flash for added strength.
I realize that a 10 bolt is not going to be even remotely strong as a 12 bolt or 9 inch but it should do ok for my purposes.
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I also hit the battery tray and the bottom of the radiator core support with the POR-15 before I repaint the engine bay. They weren't real bad in terms of rust but there was some there. Might as well get rid of it now before it gets worse.
Also here's a pic of the rest of the engine prior to being painted. Haven't done this yet but I have been a busy lil' buggeras my next posts show.
Also here's a pic of the rest of the engine prior to being painted. Haven't done this yet but I have been a busy lil' buggeras my next posts show.
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A good friend of mine , Paul McKay came over to help out with the cam/valvetrain swap . He's done quite a few cam swaps and had it done pretty qiuck . We did it in just over 3 hours start to finish. Here's Paul starting in on the valve springs.
Here's a pic of the man in action:
Next up, we got the LS1 on the engine stand to get access to everything
Valve springs completed on one side:
This is a pic of the stock oil pump and timing chain, they're outta there! I removed these while Paul did the springs on the other side. He took a stock balancer /pulley bolt and ground the "washer" part of the bolt head down so the harmonic balancer and lower timing chain sprocket would slide off easily when using the puller.
he used a compression leak tester and this tool to remove and reinstall the springs without removing the head. I bought Comp springs and titanium retainers .
Even though this motor only had 43,000 miles , we went ahead and also replaced the valve seals. Just good insurance , I think.
Here's a pic of the man in action:
Next up, we got the LS1 on the engine stand to get access to everything
Valve springs completed on one side:
This is a pic of the stock oil pump and timing chain, they're outta there! I removed these while Paul did the springs on the other side. He took a stock balancer /pulley bolt and ground the "washer" part of the bolt head down so the harmonic balancer and lower timing chain sprocket would slide off easily when using the puller.
he used a compression leak tester and this tool to remove and reinstall the springs without removing the head. I bought Comp springs and titanium retainers .
Even though this motor only had 43,000 miles , we went ahead and also replaced the valve seals. Just good insurance , I think.
Last edited by badjuju342; Dec 26, 2005 at 11:45 PM.
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In this pic , Paul is removing the old cam :
Next up , we used cam lube on the bearing journals and here we're oiling the cam lobes:
I used a double roller chain I purchased from Texas Speed & Performance , the cam is a 224/224/114 that was also purchased from TSP.
And here's the TSP ported LS6 oil pump installed:
Here, Paul has installed the Harlan Sharp roller rocker arms and TSP hardened pushrods. The cam instructions stated not use 1:8 ratio rocker so I used 1:7 . They're too pretty to put valve covers over!
This last pic is the FluidDampr harmonic balancer and the timing chain cover installed. I also bought a stainless steel LS1 bolt kit from Year One for a lil' bling to my sting.Also note the ARP bolt instead of the stocker.
Afterwards , we used a serpetine belt to insure the the balancer was aligned correctly , worked great. Stay tuned, more to come!
Next up , we used cam lube on the bearing journals and here we're oiling the cam lobes:
I used a double roller chain I purchased from Texas Speed & Performance , the cam is a 224/224/114 that was also purchased from TSP.
And here's the TSP ported LS6 oil pump installed:
Here, Paul has installed the Harlan Sharp roller rocker arms and TSP hardened pushrods. The cam instructions stated not use 1:8 ratio rocker so I used 1:7 . They're too pretty to put valve covers over!
This last pic is the FluidDampr harmonic balancer and the timing chain cover installed. I also bought a stainless steel LS1 bolt kit from Year One for a lil' bling to my sting.Also note the ARP bolt instead of the stocker.
Afterwards , we used a serpetine belt to insure the the balancer was aligned correctly , worked great. Stay tuned, more to come!
Last edited by badjuju342; Dec 26, 2005 at 11:47 PM.
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Ok , here's what I did today.First thing, I removed the LS1 intake and removed the coolant tubes. I snapped a quick of the LS1 coolant tubes for reference before they were removed:
Afterwards I installed the LS6 plug/coolant tube kit:
You have to install this kit and remove the harness shown to get the LS6 intake to fit. The LS1 intake is curved at the bottom while the LS6 is flat.
Then , here comes the LS6 intake. It's a bit dusty but you get the idea of what the paint work I did to improve it's apearance:
I installed the Aeromotive billet fuel rails after that, what do think about this? :
I bought the BBK 80mm throttle body:
But didn't install it because this area needs to be polished:
Going out of town tommorrow so that's about it until Thursday or Friday.
Afterwards I installed the LS6 plug/coolant tube kit:
You have to install this kit and remove the harness shown to get the LS6 intake to fit. The LS1 intake is curved at the bottom while the LS6 is flat.
Then , here comes the LS6 intake. It's a bit dusty but you get the idea of what the paint work I did to improve it's apearance:
I installed the Aeromotive billet fuel rails after that, what do think about this? :
I bought the BBK 80mm throttle body:
But didn't install it because this area needs to be polished:
Going out of town tommorrow so that's about it until Thursday or Friday.
