Hey all,

A few days ago, subtlez28 suggested that I start a thread here to show what's going on with my swap. I'd already started a thread on another board, but he reminded me that you have to be a member to see the pictures, which I had completely forgotten about... (If anyone's curious about that one, even if it's just to see the 'fits & starts' I've been through & some of the questions I've had, it can be found right here.)

In some ways, this is probably rather similar to some that you've already seen - but there are a couple of ways that it's rather different as well...

For those who haven't seen my car (or don't recall what it looks like), here are a couple of pictures:


Prior to me getting bitten by the "new technology" bug, I had some pretty ordinary plans - I was going to pull the L98 350 that came stock, throw a stroker crank in it & top if off with the AFR heads & Holley StealthRam intake that I already had. And then I read those two articles in Car Craft (Link 1 Link 2), & I finally realized that the 383 I wanted would never be able to be what I really wanted...

A couple of "before" pics of the engine:


How it sat for about a week, week & a half or so - the headers & intake were removed, & the transmission was all but ready to drop out:


And then finally... Look ma, no drivetrain!!


By now some might be thinking "yeah yeah, another thirdgen, whoop-de-doo" - but to stop there would be a bit of a mistake, because I'm not just building this car as the typical "LS1 street car". No, the new powerplant is actually an L92, the all-aluminum 6.2L engine that's equipped with variable-valve-timing (VVT). And yes, I have every intention of keeping the VVT, because once the aftermarket catches up to this technology, I have a feeling that these engines will go from being merely "fun" to being absolute BEASTS...

In addition to the power potential in these new engines, I'm pretty confident that GM has tweaked & tuned & designed the L92 to wring every mile possible from a gallon of gas, and - given the way my posterior hurts each time I pull away from the pump each week - I will also be trying to make my choices with an eye toward reasonable fuel economy.

Finally, I'm not building this just for the street, I've already made a number of changes (primarily suspension mods so far) that are intended to allow me to run at triple-digit speeds, first on the Bonneville salt, and then later -hopefully!- in at least one of the open-road events around the country...

Enough of the "future plans" now, on to the swap itself!

(Yes, I've gotten a lot more done than what you see here, I just didn't have a lot of time to write it all out tonight - hopefully tomorrow night...)

 

Thanks buddy!
I cannot wait to read and see more!

Another small suggestion. Crop down a beauty shot of the GTA and add it to your sig. Its a beautiful car. Third gen GTAs and similar year T/As are my favorite body style. The only downside was the 350s came w and auto. Having the L92 and T56 will make this the best example of an already excellent car!

Plus I'm kinda partial to maroon, M6 f-bodies.
Especially hard tops (just not a t-top guy).

AND I have to live vicuriously through you, Andrew, Matt, and the other guys I sold these L92s to as my project is currently on hold. I bought an LS1 84 Vette as a track car w my Buick's budget.

 

Thanks for the kind words Shaun, I probably will find a pic I like & create a new sig - but it might have to wait until fall/winter, since I want to try to get this done so that I can enjoy the car a bit this year...

Anyway, here's a bit more about the swap...
- - - - - - -
This was me, on the day that the engine arrived...


And of course, I had to take a picture of the engine with the car...


When the engine arrived, in order to save a bit of money, I'd opted to pick it up at the terminal. I had no way of knowing when I ordered it that we would have to trade in our pickup a couple days before it arrived... Nevertheless, with a bit of "creative fitting" into our vehicle & the help of one of my buds, I was able to bring it home.

I had ONE HELL of a time getting the bulkhead connector (for the wiring harness) to disconnect - I won't rehash all of that except to say that there were several days when I thought that the freakin' thing HAD TO BE melted together (a few years ago I'd had a fairly major electrical malfunction, lost about 30% of the electrical functions incl. headlights, etc.), since I was turning & turning & turning & TURNING the damn bolt that holds the two halves together, & it just wasn't helping... It wasn't until 3 or 4 weeks later when one of my local F-buds came over & I crawled under the dash that I could see that the stupid "press-on" nut on the back side was revolving with every turn of the bolt! Believe it or not, it took some fairly drastic action to finally get it all separated...

More in just a minute...

 

While I was waiting for someone to be available to swing by my place & provide the "third hand" that I needed for the bulkhead connector, I decided to work on what I could work on, just so that I kept the project moving ahead - so I started to pull the rod bolts, so that I could upgrade to ARP bolts. Hey, THAT'S a pretty straightforward proposition, right???

Yeah, famous last words...

I started on the first bolt, & got a bit of a surprise. It didn't want to come out. I'm not saying that it was difficult, it was probably about average for the first half-dozen revolutions or so. Then it would spin freely like it was all ready to come out, but it would NOT pull out! WTH?? OK, maybe this one has an issue, I'll do another one, & come back to this one... Same deal! WTFH is going on here??? Of course I did post up a thread here on LS1Tech asking if anyone knew what was going on, but after going a little while without any answers I just said "screw it" (pun intended!) & blazed forward...

After (carefully!!) messing around with it for a little while, I figured out how to get each of the bolts out - unscrew them until they feel "loose" & ready to pull out, THEN slide a small open-end wrench under the head of the bolt, apply moderate upward pressure, & continue to use your ratchet to loosen them. Whaddya know there are TWO SETS OF THREADS on these flippin' bolts (!) -



- & when the some portion of the threads in the rods get to the "recess" between the two, the bolt will spin freely all day long... Applying the upward pressure on the bolt's head allowed the 2nd set of threads to engage, which finally allowed the bolts to unscrew the rest of the way. Cool, huh?

Anyway, I hope this helps someone else who might be scratching their head like I was...

(Also - If you go to the thread that I created (link above), there's some pretty cool/interesting info on these bolts...)

Plenty more to report - and a bunch more pictures - just no time to do everything...

 

I'm adding this picture for the benefit of anyone else who might run into this:



When I finally got this apart, I thought that the brown "goop" that you see was something that needed to be removed. I've since been told that it's an anti-corrosive, & that it would be a really good idea to let it remain.

Hopefully, this will save someone else from making the mistake that I nearly did...

 

Yeah, that goop is a necessary evil, but needed... looks bad, but works good..

 

Thanks for the confirmation bczee - that's much appreciated.

 

Awesome stuff! I love the 3rdGen Firebirds! I have owned a 1989 Formula and should be picking up a 1991 Formula 350 in a couple weeks. I'll be following this closely, but more so to see the suspension stuff...

 

Nice swap. No such thing as "just another 3rd gen"!

 

Thanks for the kind words guys, I appreciate it. Ben, if you're interested, there's a page right here that details a good portion of the modifications that I've added, although it's kind of outdated... Since then I've added Koni yellows to all 4 corners, changed the front springs (stock replacements from Moog that were one step softer than the stock WS.6 springs, then took 1/2 coil off) to drop the front end a bit, gotten the windows tinted, & probably a half-dozen other things that I can't think of right now.

Thanks again guys, I'll likely put up more info a bit later today...

 

OK, I have a couple of (probably n00b) questions... (And yes, I did search before posting, but didn't find what I was looking for.)

First off, when I removed the original truck-style oil pan, I noticed some pale-yellow pastelike stuff on it at 3 or 4 places. (I'm guessing that it's an updated equivalent to the RTV that I've seen used on places like the front/rear of a traditional SBC's intake manifold. Is anyone able to confirm this?) Since I don't have any of that stuff, & I'd really prefer not to take an hour to run to the "stealership" to get some, wouldn't I be OK if I just used some blue or black RTV in those locations?? I'm using a new Fel-Pro gasket on it...

Second, since it's an F-body pan, it has that sensor going in from the pass. side. The truck ECM & harness don't have any provision for that, but there's nothing wrong with leaving it, is there?

Finally, I need to confirm what year Corvette to get the fuel filter/regulator from. (I'm planning on placing it near the tank, like a lot of people here have suggested.) From my earlier research, I thought that it would've been from a '97 or '98 car, but I read a thread yesterday that suggested getting it for a 2000 (or so) Vette. Which one do people use?

Thanks all.

 

I realized that I hadn't documented one of the more... "interesting" things that I've found so far in this thread, so here goes -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I got a bit of a surprise when I first got the pan off - can you see it in this picture?? I think that robots on assembly lines can be a good thing, but they're sure as hell not perfect... (I also wanted to see if I could capture the "windows" in the block that are new to the Gen-IV series. Not sure that I accomplished that...)



Take a minute or two, don't "cheat" & look at this picture too soon...

Nice, huh? I'm glad that was the truck part, & not a piece that I needed to use... And I REALLY hope that that's the only surprise waiting for me with this engine...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I'll include this as my final shot for today - it's my own personal "feel-good image", since it has the engine, the transmission & the car finally all together in the same place (after some rather frustrating shipping hassles)...



The bellhousing you see is an SFI-approved unit built by McLeod - whenever I need to make a decision about whether or not to spend some money to upgrade something, I'm trying to spend it (at this stage of the game) on the stuff that'll be the most difficult/most hassle to swap out. An extreme example of this would be if I had to choose between getting a clutch, or an upgraded intake manifold - I'd get the clutch now while everything's apart, since swapping an intake later would involve a lot less work. The bellhousing might well be overkill at this stage of the game, but OTOH, it could very well be money well spent - when a clutch comes apart at 6000 RPMs, it has the potential to make for a really bad day. This way I shouldn't need to worry about fixing the car's sheetmetal, or worse, learning more than I ever wanted to know about physical therapy/rehabilitation when a chunk of clutch material meets my ankle/leg...

(Yes, the engine is upside-down here, I was still working on the rod bolts when the pic was taken...)

More soon...

 

Looking good!

Kinda off topic, but I gotta blurt this out:
If you upgrade brakes, keep them reasonable so you can keep the stock GTA wheels.
There are very few cars I would leave stock wheels on, and this is one. Always loved those, especially in black.

Sorry, but I feel better having that out there...

 

Thanks Shaun, I appreciate it. I've got some more I could post, but work is kinda crimping my time a bit (especially next week)...

How did ya know?? Yeah, I already have some Baer brakes kinda "waiting in the wings" so to speak, but I've already asked if they'll work with these wheels. (It just doesn't make sense to me to upgrade the power without upgrading the brakes as well...)

I really DO wish that someone would duplicate these wheels in a few 17" sizes though...

 

Yeah, some 17x9.5s in the original style would be cool.
But truth be told, the 16x8s should provide plenty of grip for the street. Plus they just look right!

 

I'll be keeping tabs on the thread (and probably getting to know ya better as we both work out the kinks). I've got a 1987 Flame Red Metallic GTA - which is currently engine-less,transmission-less,and fuel-tank-less. I've finally gathered most of the parts for the majority of the work and should be making lots of progress end of month. Mine will just be "another" ls1 thirdgen though

Keep up the good work!

 

Keep updating. Good looking project.

 

subscribing

 

Thanks for the comments guys, they're a big help toward keeping me motivated - especially on days like today's supposed to be, with temps that are supposed to be getting close to 100...

Hey, I just need to dbl-check something - I finally remembered to get some modeling clay on the way home last night so that I could check the clearance from the oil pickup to the bottom of the pan. From what I could tell with my calipers, the clearance that I now have is right at about .525" (1st measurement showed .520, the 2nd showed .530".). I'm guessing that this is fine, but wanted to make sure before I bolt the pan down.

Thanks guys.

 

Looks great at Red Rocks. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun with the 6.2 supplying the power.