I currently am the owner of a 1988 C4 with 50,000 miles. I have owned the car since it came of the showroom floor. For the past seven years the car has been sitting idle at my brothers warehouse under a cover. The car is in perfect shape no rain damage or a scratch to the pain job and the interior is in fantastic shape. The car needs some of its weather striping replaced, but all C4 of this era suffered from this. Anyway, this past weekend I decided to pay my old friend a visit. I pulled of the cover and mounted the wheels and added oil to the engine. I then decided to take the car for a nice Sunday drive with the wife. By the way, this was the first time that the wife has seen the car, and we have been married for five years. Anyways I decided to take it easy with the car do to the fact that this was the firs time in seven years that the car was going to be driven for a significant amount of time. Usually my brother took the car out once a year to get it inspected, but enough with the story on how I reconnected with my C4, I have a serious question to ask you all. I currently feel that the current engine is week and the C4 is in need of some power. I have been looking to purchase an LS1 engine with a 6 Speed and ECU. I was wondering if the LS1 engine transplant is feasible. I have already located the engine, transmission and ECU, but before I commit myself to spending over 4k I would like some advise from some of the members on this board that have performed the engine swap. I am really looking forward to this engine swap and would like it to be completed by mid November.

Thanks

Derrek

 

I can't give you a good answer about the swap, but I do know that for $4K you could give your current engine quite a bit of power.

 

Hi Derek-
What performance factors indicates that your motor is weak? Have you done a compression test? Or do you just want to wake up the current motor plant with more power? All things considered and even though it has been in dry dock for a few years... 50k is just being broken in and many many more miles are left on the current set up. Allow me to suggest that you can spend probably half the amount of 4k and wake that motorplant up pretty good. That is of course the conservative route but the bottom line is what kinda of HP at the rear do you want? Good luck!

 

I would like C5 performance out of my C4. I am looking for 350 to 365 RWHP. I am somewhat familiar with the L98, Lt1 and Ls1. I do understand that the car has been sitting idle for a long time and that the ecu needs to reset it self, but in the past seven years I have owned several cars that are considerably faster. I love my C4 as you all can see I haven’t parted with it and go through a great expense every year to keep it stored in a climate control environment. I just feel that the LS1 power plant will help me realize my goal sooner and maybe even cheper. But if anyone has any suggestins please fell free. I am open to any suggestins.


Thanks

Derrek

 

I think it is a cool idea but you will spend more money than you think IMO. For alot less you can simply redo the top end of the motor. There are several people that have done this here on the forum and are getting close to what you want. Scorp is the most recent one I can think of. If I remember right he redid the top end with heads, cam, and superram and dyno at 323 RWHP before the tune. You can always go with a stroker motor for about $4-5K with quality parts and that will definitely get you there without the problems of swapping wiring and ecm.