SERPENT99

napa and pep boys usually have a good selection of bolts. I eventried home depot and lowes somtimes.

I got the remote door lock setup from the buick to work on the camaro,even the interior lights come on. it was the buick that I got the LT1 from.

How do you think the buick headlights would look in the camaro? they're just about the right size.

therckid

What kinda buick?

Did buicks come with LT1's? i never knew they did.




Shane

SOLID LIFTER

The buick roadmaster wagons had LT1s in them.

therckid

iron heads? aluminun heads? which cam?





Shane

bingo

iTrader: (2)

The Buicks had Iron heads and a I think a smaller MAS. The engines in some of the cars was not an LT1, but an L99. The L99 was a 4.3 V8.

SERPENT99

buick roadmaster, 9C1 police caprice, impala SS, they had iron head LT1's with a mellow high torgue cam. What's a MAS? did you mean MAF?

Well, anyway, the iron heads are heavier but they flow a little better than the aluminum ones and they hold gaskets better.

all the hoses and stuff can be reworked and used. I have less than $100 in this swap not counting the costof the Z-28 or the Buick. I made some money on both cars selling parts.

bingo

iTrader: (2)

Mass Airflow Sensor. Same thing, different name.

pasky

I picked up some allen wrench bolts from pep boys and the heads of the bolts were too big to clear, checked napa today and they didnt have anything for headers .

pasky

Papa's got a brand new bag .

pasky

More here:

http://www.geocities.com/pasky13/headers.html

Ghetto header bolts . Actually had to use 3 different types haha.

therckid

Since the iron heads flow better would it be in my best interests to look for a iron headed LT1 to put my headers and LT4 hot cam on? Would it make more power with the iron heads? I was told with the F-body lt1 that combo would make 325-350HP at the crank.




Thanks,
Shane

90formula5spd

i think the iron heads flow better than the older heads, but the aluminum heads flow better from the trans ams and camaros right?

SERPENT99

the iron heads flow about 5% better than the aluminum heads. the rumor is they flow better because they didn't have to worry about making some areas too thin with the weaker aluminum when they designed the heads. I like iron heads, they hold up better and seal better. if the car is a daily driver I'd go iron heads, if it's all out performance you want, the weight difference and ability to run a higher compression ratio would offset the better flow of the iron heads. Aluminmum heads allow a little more compression since the aluminum absorbs some heat fron the mixture making it less likely to detonate or ping. You would have to change the compression ratio to take advantage of this by using a different piston or a thinner head gasket. the problem with the head gasket is your selection is limited with aluminum heads since they use specific gaskets to get tje aluminum to seal with the iron block. disimilar metals going through heat cycles will tear up normal gaskets.

I'm not sure about how the LT4 heads flow, I think they're the best but the stock aluminum heads flow a little less than the iron heads.

check out the impala ss forum, they make good power with the iron heads.

Tobias05

man, an lt1? all i got in the yards around here are a bunch of grand ams! its looking really good pasky!

Brandon

pasky

Ugh, the passenger side headers are a pain, I was out there for about 2-3 hours trying to line it up and getting torn up by mosquitoes and ended up bending my dip stick holder, sigh, it came off the little retainer holder, will this leak eventually?

90formula5spd

nah it wont leak, i thought there was two different types of aluminum heads that came on the f-bodies, one flowed worse than iron and one flows better, im almost positive, or mayb im thinkin of corvette heads, hell iu dunno!

TexasLT1

You are probably thinking of the aluminum LT1, iron LT1, and aluminum LT4 heads.

Pasky, you might want to look at the brake lines by the number 6 primary, looks like it might be touching or very close to the header. Looks good though.

pasky

Yea, it was late and didn't want to bother, I saw that last night and already bent it out of the way, nice eye .

pasky

Finally got the passenger side headers in. That sucked royally. That very last bolt towards the firewall was a pain in the ***.

I had to use an allen wrench and a peice of pipe to get it, it literally took me 3 hours total manuevering that thing and having it slip out 20 times with me going under the car to get the allen wrench again. I

Its very tight on that side, the headers are real close to the heater hoses on the side of the car. Im thinking of bypassing the heater hoses, its that close.

Anyways, this means I can start on the wiring now . Almost there .

pasky

Ok im ready to put the fuel lines on, anyone know which is the return and which is the feed line? I need to know both, intake and engine bay, thanks.

TexasLT1

the larger line is the pressure line. The top on on the frame rail, the forward one on the fuel rails. *I think*

SERPENT99

I agree, larger is pressure

pasky

Okay, got the t56 crossmember on and fuel lines are in. Also spent about 30min of last night labeling the butt connector on the old harness with my label gun (turned out pretty good). Just need to label the 4th gen harness now. Now my question is on the old v6 harness, there is a part on the butt connector for the fans, alternator, and coolant. But only 2 wires, are these going to match up on the 4th gen? Both wires are on the same connector on the butt.

SERPENT99

that sounds like the V6 had a single fan. The LT1 PCM should be set up to run 2 fans through some relays. the harness I got from the roadmaster had this neat little fuse panel with all the relays for the fans built in. You could just hook up a single fan through a relay using the primary fan relay output from the LT1 PCM. If you have a coolant sensor in the radiator you shouldn't need it. One of the small wires on the alternator goes to the dash, I didn't need to hook it up on mine.

TexasLT1

What serpent said. Alternator doesn't need to hook up to the dash as the voltage guage picks up chassis voltage.


Serpent, have you had any problems with the alternator overcharging?

SERPENT99

not so far, both of the small wires have to go to the +battery, one goes directly through a fuse and the other either goes through a lightbulb or through a resistance wire depending if you have a gauge or not. I read somewhere that if the wire that goes through the bulb/resistor is connected directly to the battery that it will overcharge.

pasky

Alright well thank guys. Right now im in the process of cleaning the engine bay a little bit. Im trying to figure out what to do with some of these vacuum lines like for my old MAP that was on the firewall. Seems the LT1 has its own. Just trying to figure out what is what at the moment.

EDIT: Also my orb of power (haha got that from someone on these boards) vacuum line is unplugged, believe it use to go to the back of the intake manifold but have no idea where to hook it up, quite a few im about.

TexasLT1

Orb of power

pasky

Its below your drivers side headlights, its pretty much a metal orb that has a vacuum line hooked up to it, believe it has something to do with your brakes.

TexasLT1

ahhhhh, yeah that mysterious thing yeah I don't have any clue where it hooks up

pasky

Ok, so you also did not hook this up?

TexasLT1

I don't know that I ever disconnected it.......

pasky

Well poop, Im not sure where to put the other end to it.

TexasLT1

I'll be home on Saturday, I'll trace it out and let you know

pasky

Would defiantley appreciate it, thanks texas.

SERPENT99

That's the vacuum reservoir. There's a vac line that goes into the interior, it connects through a check valve to the intake manifold. The check valve should have a nipple sticking out the side on the same side as the nipple that goes to the hose for the interior. That nipple sticking out the side goes to the orb of power

iroc-ice

Its good to know what that thing is now.

pasky

Ok, I ran into a road block on the wiring I go out and figured i'd start with the tach wire since its the only one that is white. So I solder the old v6 harness white tach from the bulk head and cut the wire to the pcm and splice the old tach wire into the pcm. Now I started looking at my PCM dagrams and didn't see any other wires match up that are on the bulk head. Is everything going to be spliced into the PCM? If so im lost as to what goes to what.

TexasLT1

For the tach, you don't need to splice anything into the PCM, you have to splice the tach into the coil.

pasky

Welll.....ooops. What about the rest of the wires?

TexasLT1

none of the guage wires get spliced in, they all have separate sensors. About the only spliced into the PCM harness is the fans and fuel enable. If I remember correctly

pasky

Ahhh okay, this is gonna be interesting then =/. As far as the tach, do I cut thw wire and go straight to the coil or do I solder it in and have it still going to the pcm?

TexasLT1

Just go straight to the coil. The PCM picks up the rpm from the Opti-spark, not the coil. I'm trying to remember which wire it is now, I want to say the pink one on the coil. Not real sure. I've got mine wired into my MSD now.

pasky

Guys, I need some major help with this, I just patched the ecm plug back to its original white wire and im looking at the coil and there are two plugs, one going to the EST, and one to the coil, the coil has 3 wires, 2 colors I cant make out and 2 wires are striped one is solid.

As far as all the other wires....where are they going? Im really confused after reading all the wiring posts.

pasky

BTW, I'd be more than happy to take pictures of every single splice to help anyone else wiring thier lt1.

Ragtop89

Right now I'm helping a friend drop an LT1 into an IROC.
We're having all kinds of problems getting the engine mounts to line up.
The whole engine seems 1/2" TOO WIDE.

Any words of advice?
We used the stock 3rdGen mounts on the engine and brand new poly-mounts on the K-Member.

Anyone swapped an auto LT1 into a3rdGen?
Can you use the stock crossmember?

pasky

You need a custom crossmember, available at spohn.net. As far as the engine mounts lining up, be sure you put them in the correct spot. You need to use thirdgen v8 clamshells off the motor and not the fourth gen ones. I have a sligh alignment issue on my motor, the passenger side seems to be 1/8 of an inch off.