Well I pushed back some of the things I should be doing in order to make some progress on the LS swap. I pulled the old motor out about two weeks ago and for the past week in my spare time I cleaned up the engine bay and sprayed in some lizard skin on the fire wall, trans tunnel, and floor boards to give everything a fresh look and to knock down the last of the cabin heat issues.

Well tonight I installed a new battery cable and a section of reflective insulation in the trans tunnel as one last item to guard against heat.

I decided that tonight I was going to drop in the motor and trans, and while it was tight fitting it in on an angle to clear the rack and pinion system and to get the motor mounts set it when in with out any problems. The truck balancer clears the front cross member by more than a inch and I still have plenty of room in between the motor and fire wall. The motor fell into place and the motor mounts bolts slipped right into place.


LS2 Trick Flow head/cam build thread http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c3-t...ls-teaser.html


Here are some photo's to get this thread started.


Early stages of the LS setup,






motor ready to drop in,




ready for the motor to be dropped in,



Clearances looking a little tight all the way around,



but with a little time and Patience,







The balancer looks close, but really there is more than an inch in front of and under it as well.





I'll keep the post up dated as I move forward with the install.

Riggs.

 

Well done, looks great.

 

Went a little further tonight with the project. I installed the accessory bracket to see how well it fit into the car with the accessories, Well the power steering fit greet, but I had to modify the spreader bar mount in order to still use the spreader bar.
here are some photo's of my progress.

Here is what the bracket looked like before I modified it, the photo is from when I built the brackets originally.



The cuts made,



back on the car to check the clearances,





And a shot of how the accessories look.



Riggs

 

Looking good. Keep us posted on the progress.

 

I am going to have to modify my strut brackets also. I see your PS pump fits about as tight as mine. The clearance is tight but doable. You swapped you fuel line around also I see on the fuel rails. Are you still going to have AC in the car?

 

Very cool - thanks!

 

Gordonm, Yes I switched the fuel line feed to the rear because I will be running a new fuel line from the tank and feel that it will look cleaner running up the fire wall instead of hanging of the front side of the motor.

Right now I am running no AC but I might in the future. I never really found a need to run the AC after I installed the Dynamat extreme under the carpet. The car would get a little warm after an hour or so in extremely hot weather, but still tolerable.

To fill in that side of the engine bay I will probably run my air filter in that direction and maybe an oil catch can for the PVC system.

Riggs

 

Well I made more progress tonight. I modified the cross member, droped the fuel tank, ripped out the old fuel lines and believe it or not ran a new line in the same location as the old with most if not all the same bends as the original.

Here are some shots from today,

Modifying the cross member,







The new mount location is 1.5 inches lower than the stock location














Here are some shots of the new fuel line, in another post it was said that you couldn't run a new solid fuel line with out moving the body off the frame. I love a good challenge. I need to replace the old straps with new one's, the old are only temporary







And just a shot of the under side, still lots of work ahead of me.



Riggs

 

Looks nice. Man I wish I could weld like that. I have found a local guy who is willing to do whatever welding I need and he will come to me also. He does it very cheaply also. How did you determine the driveshaft angle? I have to reweld my crossmember from my old setup. The LS motor moves the mount about 1.5 inches further forward. The T56 is huge at the back and I had to remove a lot of the crossmember.

You will be driving soon.

 

Just a note on driveshaft angles. Make any corrections with the weight on the wheels. I had jackstands on the frame behind the front wheelwell and the frame flexed enogh to make my measurement off a couple degrees.

 

Guys I didn't even consider the drive shaft angle in to this. What is the angle supposed to be? I thought as long as it was not zero degree I would be fine. Since we are on the topic of drive shafts, how much slide play (forward, backward) should I have at the front yoke to allow for any expansion contraction movement. Also how much movement is seen from the rear diff, its bolt to the frame and shouldn't move with the suspension travel but will move a little under heavy acceleration at the front of the diff bushing, but not enough to change the drive shaft angle more than five Degree's. Am I wrong on this? Any help on this would be great, Thanks.

Riggs.

 

When I did my swap, I found the angles actually were pretty close to zero from the factory. Although the engine is offset to one side. As long as the crossmember centerline stays the same, you'll be fine right/left.
With mt LS/Richmond swap, the highest I could get the rear of the trans resulted in a 3 degree down angle, and driveshaft was 0 degrees.
Problem is the diff was actually pointed down in front maybe 1/2 degree. Guessing part of that is the 2 rear diff crossmember rubber "hockey pucks" tend to crush down.
I was able to cut down the front rubber differential isolator in order to get the diff pointed up about 2 degrees and shimmed the trans to point down about 2 1/2 degrees. Not perfect but probably closer than factory. No vibration issues either.
I'm not the only one, I've seen T56s point down even farther. They're big transmissions. You can modify the differential front mount to get more than 2 degrees up by filling/redrilling the 2 bolt holes.
As for fore/aft movement, make sure you have about 1" from the yoke bottoming out (Richmond Gears reccomendation).

 

[QUOTE=riggs 74;1579029668]Well I made more progress tonight. I modified the cross member, droped the fuel tank, ripped out the old fuel lines and believe it or not ran a new line in the same location as the old with most if not all the same bends as the original.


Here are some shots of the new fuel line, in another post it was said that you couldn't run a new solid fuel line with out moving the body off the frame. I love a good challenge. I need to replace the old straps with new one's, the old are only temporary

************

Wow. How'd you manage that? I want to replace my braided fuel line with solid but it looks like a bear to do it with the body in place.

 

I used 3/8 steel line in a coil, feeding it off the coil into the inside rear fender well down between the frame and body, straighting it as it came out the bottom, then hand formed it along the frame rail to the front of the car. I then hand formed it along the rear section of the frame back to were I will install a C5 filter, then change to braided hose up to the pump in the tank.

Note that the section running up between the body and frame should not make contact after finished so the body won't rub a hole into the fuel line. I messaged this area with a piece of small wood scrap I had. When hand bending the tubing, be sure to be careful not to kink the tube, if you go slow and apply sturdy pressure you should have control of it not kinking, keep an eye on it as you are bending the tubing.

It took me two hours to tare out the old lines and tank and install the new lines, so it's not to bad to do.

Hope this helps.

Riggs.

 

Just a question on your fuel line.... Is that steel line seamless?
Did you flare it for 37 degree JIC/AN fittings?

 

Yes it is seemless, and I will be useing AN fittings at each end with 37 degree flares.

Riggs.

 

I would like to take a moment to say the 37 degree flare tool from summit is pure JUNK, CHEAP CHINESE CRAP. No matter what I do, the tube keeps sliding out of the bar while running the die in. As a last ditch effort I even stuck it into the vice and cranked the ***** down as tight as I dared with out breaking it. The bar has ridges in it to prevent this but it seams that those ridges have failed, they appear to be stripped out, and I haven't even made on decent flare, after about five attempts. What a piece of She It.

Where can I find a decent flare tool? Maybe Napa? Or where?

Riggs

 

http://www.mastercool.com/pages/flaring_tools.html

 

Well I made some more progress, the fuel system is ready to go into the car now. Gordonm helped me out with giving me a heads up on a great set up for running an electric fuel pump set from a company called http://tanksinc.com/ Thanks Gordonm.

I bought a new tank, sending unit, and Walbro 250 fuel pump thru them. I also bought a ton of fittings from Summit, Jegs, and Napa for the LS swap.

Here's some photo's of my progress,







setting up the fuel pump bracket and tack welded the tray in place



Fuel pump Assembly assembled,


Hole cut into the tank with the inner ring tack welded into place


New sending unit installed with a 3/8 compression to 1/4 npt female brass fitting and a 1/4'' plug installed to seal off the unused fuel line


Fuel pump installed with the AN6 X 4' hoses installed along with the C5 fuel filter witch will be installed onto the passenger side frame rail


When I get time in the next couple of days I should get installed into the car.

Riggs

 

Great looking setup. Mine looks pretty much the same only I used bulkhead fittings instead of the fittings they supplied coming through the plate. I'll shot a picture when it is done. Waiting on fuel line at the moment. I am using the twist lock line this time around. Others have used it with great success and it is easier to assemble. I assembled a #10 line and it pushes on with a lot of effort but you don't get stabbed with the little tenticles of braided line either.