Andrew

Am I tired of hearing about LS swaps? NO WAY! I enjoy just about any engine swap conversation. Did a swap a few years ago in a 99 TJ. Still drive it every day - dead reliable, fuel mileage is a little better (not good, but better) and now has enough power to can get out of it's own way.

HA, love the idea of a new vette with an opti LT1!

Klondike

Don't know if I'll ever be up to all the hassle of putting one in, but it sure would be nice to be able to use that damned Opti for target practice instead of actually 'needing' it.
Besides, every time somebody is successful, they learn some new trick to making it easier for the next guy. That's what this group is all about anyway.

auggy

not until now

aDigitalPhantom

Only person I'm tired of reading about LSx from is dizwiz24...

There is a reason why I'm reluctant to share what I have learned about putting an LS in a C4, but I'm not going into that.

Lloyd Smale

did you ever sell that orange z06. that thing is BEAUTIFUL!!

3JsVette

The LSx is a great motor. It makes great power at a great price but like most modern engines it's not exactly stunning to look at IMCO. I think when they are swapped into older muscle cars and C3s or older they need a little help. They look great with coil covers and performance manifolds. There are some outstanding restomods built on this forum that the LSx looks like it belongs there in place of a SBC or BBC.

Andrew

Thanks! There was an interested buyer, negotiated a price and terms, they asked for payment info, then went silent. So, decided to pull the plug. It will now get some small bolt on items and I will probably keep for a while. Yes, the color really pops.

C4in mesa

How could anyone get tired of hearing about a C4 getting a great modern engine like a LS motor regardless of which one.



Try asking this guy that question.





This car is for sale by the way.

cv67

I remember when the ooh aah thing at cruise night was someone pulling in with a TBI motor from a van, or a TPI conversion. Date...yeah.

Lsx run hard but I hate the way they look in older cars, too busy, plastic everywhere thats just me though.. one with a carb up top, hide the coils, not so bad. Guess it doesnt have to be pretty for most just a personal quirk I have.
On reliability you bet...my 5.3 has 170 and now its finally starting to seep a little oil. Sounds like lifters are going to jump out of it but it keeps going and going. First 60k of its life I literallly drove it to blow it wouldnt happen dont know of any motor that could take the kind of abuse this one took and held together. Maybe the LT5 thats it.

v8vette84

I don't get where people say the LS stuff is cheap? Compared to LT anything it seems to be more expensive for almost EVERY part... Just the freaking LS itself is pricey! Near me I can't touch a decent complete LS for 2k. Even the short blocks run 1k. (Even the LQ4/LQ9 ppl want over a grand...) I got the COMPLETE LT that is in my C4 for $80. LS is great and all but cheaper, I call BS. Plus once you take an LT and put heads and a cam in it you just leveled the playing field for a cam only LS. Which is what most LS cars are anyways. Granted the LS heads can flow more by comparison but from what I have seen a good chunk of LS guys are cam only.

Comparing reliability of an LS to any SBC is a joke, both are INSANELY reliable...

I'm just tired of all the egotistic LS d-bags out there...

If I could pick up a cheap LS sure I would do the swap but I'm not dropping 1k on half an engine that probably needs to be rebuilt anyways. Maybe now that the new LT's are out the LS prices will drop. That would be great.

helphos

I was at Carlisle in summer of 2014 and saw the Petris guys doing an LS swap into an older C4. They made it look easy (which was their point, of course). They used all commercially available parts, like motor mounts, etc. They started on Friday, and By Saturday Afternoon they were firing up the engine. I was impressed!!
The point is, the more people who take the plunge, the easier it is for the next person who is tired of Optisparks and oil leaks.

And of course, if you don't like the LS Swap threads, you can always move on to the next one.

Now if there was only a thread on "How to gut your Bose radio and stuff newer more reliable tuner and speakers in its place (to keep the stock look)."

Maybe they'll do that at Carlisle next year!

MavsAK

Stock crank, fresh rings, LSXs are known to take 1k hp with ease. It's also got one hell of a better suite of electronics at it's disposal and it'll maintain much better driving manners than an SBC.

Also, there's this thing you may have heard of it, called ebay. Your junkyards must suck if you can't find a 5.3 for 300 to 400 (complete pull out no less. I can find LSXs all day long for under 500)

Heads and Cam LT1 is more like a Stock LS6 by the way. And it's pretty easy to get LS6 numbers from any of the LSs, with loads more room to grow on.

That's where the price delta starts making up ground, the difference in rotating assembly strength, the fact that you can find them all day long for cheap.
To make real power with a Gen 1 or 2 engine you're dumping those shittastic stock internals and throwing them in the dumpster. That alone for quality pieces is going to set you back at least 1100.

I love my Gen 1, but I'm not suffering under any illusion or delusion, I could have made more power by now, with the same amount of money spent if I went LS. But my car has limitations due to the fact that it's my daily. That limits my mods, to things I can get done in a weekend, or week at most. At least until I finish my 489 Stroker and get it into my Gen 3 F body.

v8vette84

The 5.3 is not an LS1 is it? Also advanced electronics don't help street manners all that much, at least if you compare an LT to an LS. Both are very smooth running motors. Maybe you can find them all day long but some of us can't. So NO they are not cheap power to everyone. You can't claim that if the engine is not cheap to everyone. It's cheap power for YOU. Find a cheap complete LS1 on ebay and show me.

Also great idea putting 1,000hp through a stock LS1 bottom end. If you were smart you would be building the bottom end ANYWAYS which negates the cost savings again. Rotating assembly strength is not a factor unless you spin the engine really high which you don't have to do using a gen one as most are torque monsters.

Drive-ability, street manners and durability are not comparable if you are not talking MEGA power.

Heads and cam LT1 can make 400+ wheel HP, stock LS6 makes 405 CRANK HP..... No idea where you got your info there... LS6 puts anywhere from 340-360 to the wheels...

v8vette84

For everyone else here I'm not ragging on the LS1 but I'm just putting in my personal experience with finding a cheap LS1. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has found them to be extremely overpriced. Sure they can make great power and get better gas mileage but if you can't find a complete LS1 for $500 in running condition it seems to start being expensive. I got my last complete LT1 for $80. Rebuilt the bottom end (OEM grade crank, Forged rods w/ ARP bolts, OEM pistons) just to be sure and got ported heads and a cam and I can walk most of the LS1 cars where I used to live and the LT1 is not even running right... Yes I know the LS1 is the better engine but I'm just giving my experience on the cost side of things.

If the LS1 is cheap for you then great, buy it and drop it in! But in my case the LS is really expensive near me so I went with an LT which makes more power for less money then I could have made just buying a running LS1.

Lets not start an LS1 VS LT1 thread. All the LS fanboys will be in here in a second....

My 2 cents.

Tom400CFI

1st part of that sentence is true...second part...Uh Oh...

Tom400CFI

L31 can take it too. Mine has 277,xxx miles on it right now, and it's been BEAT. It tows my boat through the rocky mtns, 600+ mile weekend trips to Lake Powell Bounced of the rev limiter countless times...I've even taken it to the drag track once (to prove a bet I had w/Jim)....it leaks a little oil, it doesn't make any odd noises, and it matches all performance metrics that it did when new, and those of new trucks, today. It seems impervious to mileage.

BUT...the LS engines are TOUGH AS NAILS, too.

v8vette84

How? Peak torque at 2400-3200rpm (gen 1+2 vs 4400rpms (gen III).... Peak torque is lower in the rpm band therefore reinforcing the fact that the earlier engine do not need to spin as high. Sure they make less peak torque numbers but make more torque where you can feel it. Hence why the L98 is a stoplight machine and can take an LS1 off the line.

zr1fred

There is some confusion about LS engines. There are the all aluminum ones from vettes, GTOs, CTSVs, G8s, and Camaros. Then there are the iron 5.3s and 6.0. Same family. The aluminum ones are pricey, the iron ones quite cheap and quite plentiful. Both put out a lot of power and are very reliable. Most of the cheap "LT1" engines out there are the iron head engines out of cop cars and taxi cabs.

v8vette84

Most LT1's out there are a very very even mix of B-body/F-body and Y-body. To say most are out of 94-96 B-bodies (Taxi's and 9C1's) is just plain wrong... I actually tend to find more alum head LT1's.

I have yet to see cheap LQ4/LQ9 engines near me. (My buddy who lives about 4 hours from me found an LQ4 for I think $200 but with a ruined bottom end) Trust me I have looked. Sure you can pick up an LM7 fairly cheap but then you have to machine the crap out of it to get more cubes or settle for making a little less power. I don't get why everyone says the "LS based" engines are reliable. You're implying that the prior gen engines are not reliable which is definately not the case. Reliable should be dropped from every SBC owners mouth as it's a well known fact...

MavsAK

The 5.3, 6.0, and 6.2 all are iron and readily available and affordable. they are EACH LS engines. Each of which are easily built up to more power than a Gen 1 or 2 can dream about. You said "even the lq4s and the like are 1,000!" and they aren't. They aren't anywhere close. Nice attempt to move the goal post.

By the way rotating assembly strength does matter if you plan on putting any kind of boost to it. Once again, you aren't educated what so ever on the LSX and it shows, 1k chp on boost with an LSX stock bottom end is entirely doable, and have the engine survive, for thousands of miles. Good luck even putting half that power through an LT1 or L98 and have it not throw itself through the block.

6 bolt mains > 4. Even 2bolts that have then been splayed to become 4 bolt the 6bolt main is stronger. The crank materials, rods, are also dramatically stronger than the gen 1 and 2 engines. The block archtecture is also much stronger, and by the way the Iron LSXs are STILL lighter than what came in our cars, short block to shortblock by 20lbs.

And no an LT1 isn't with heads and cam putting out 400 to the tires, not have it idle afterwards.

Look I get it, you love your Gen 2 you think it's the ****. But it's not. The Gen 2 was at it's best a lateral move to the Gen 1.
Gm didn't Laterally Move, with Gen 3 and now Gen 4.

By the way 400 at the tires isn't real power. If you can buy more from the factory in a new car it's not real power.

Put this way for you. A 5.3 starts life with anywhere from 300 to 325hp. That's the same or 25 more hp than the LT1 has, with 400 less CCs to play with, and that's with a truck cam, truck intake, truck exhaust manifolds, you get the idea. Whats the difference you ask? (By the way the LT1's cam is more radical than the 5.3s) Technology, and with that tech vastly improved cylinder heads. LS6 style intake (which you can get for like 50 bucks all day long), even a stock LS1 cam which are dirt cheap, and headers and you're looking at closer to 345 hp.

LS1 heads, MS3 hot cam, LS1 intake, bore it to 5.7 and it'll pull 390rwhp. And you can do that very swap for 5k.

Can you get that kind of power from an LT1? or L98? Sure. But after that it's got a hell of a lot less room to grow on than the LS does. When our engines are getting tapped out, the LSX family is just waking up. You aren't going to compete with an LSX with a Small Block. LSXs have nearly as much power potential in them as a Big Block Chevy, which is still the king of power production.

Also good luck finding someone to tune that LT1. There's maybe 10 shops across the entire country that even bother with the LT1's programming language. You better learn to do it yourself, or do the 24xx conversion (which is big money, if you think LSX swap is expensive).