Here is How Long It Takes To Pull the Motor from A Corvette Z06
YouTube personality Rob Dahm is on his way to the craziest engine swap of all time: a rotary-powered Corvette.
Normally, everyone wants to LS swap everything. LS1-powered muscle cars, Japanese and European imports roam the world over these days. It makes sense, after all, the LS V8 is relatively inexpensive, readily upgradable, available, and reliable.
However, what if you wanted to do something different? Like, really different. That’s exactly what YouTuber Rob Dahm has decided to do, by removing the LS6 from his C5 Z06 project car, and swapping in a Mazda 13B rotary engine, instead. No, we aren’t kidding.
Previously, Dahm showcased his latest purchase, a beat up C5 Z06 that had been in a front end collision. Despite the smashed in nose, he LS6 engine was, seemingly, unfazed and made around 400 WHP on Dahm’s dyno. However, Dahm isn’t one to let good enough be good enough, so, as something of a fun experiment, he began piecing together everything needed to swap a rotary engine into the Z06.
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In this episode, we see Dahm pulling the LS6 from his Z06. In about 30 minutes or cut up footage (real time: 11 hours), we see Dahm single-handedly strip back the front end of the Z06 in preparation for the cherrypicker. Eventually, Dahm has everything disconnected and ready for extraction. He’s actually rather handy at navigating the Corvette’s engine bay for a Mazda guy, something he credits to the enormous engine bay.
However, the still long nose of the C5 means Dahm has to set the engine hoist at its furthest outward setting, which is only rated at 500lbs. Dahm wonders aloud if this will be enough to hoist the LS6 out of the engine bay, but is undeterred, and does succeed in extricating the V8 engine. The video closes with a visual size comparison of the LS6 and 13B rotary engine, with Dahm proclaiming that all of the room in the C5Z’s engine bay is going to make the rotary look tiny. We can’t wait to see what happens next.