thehazz12

Ok so I'm about to begin building my Camaro. As the title says, it's an '81 so it's the last year of the 2nd gen. The 355 and 4 speed are getting thrown out for the 5.3Ls iron block truck motor with a 76mm turbo slapped on from On3 Performance and a t56 out of a wrecked '01 NHRA Firebird we bought. Currently it's got 4.11 gears in the rear and drum brakes. I would like something like 3.42 or 3.73 out back with some discs. My solution was to just steal the complete rear end out of the same Firebird. Along with that I am going to upgrade the suspension. The car will be more of an AutoX/Road Race car so I was really wanting to find a somewhat affordable coilover kit. If I can't find one of those I'll go with the Hotchkis TVS kit with some caltracs. But if I swap rear ends to the modern f-body rear end will those kits still work? So if anybody has done a swap like this or anything like it has any advice it would be greatly appreciated.
The car is a t-tops car so I know I'm going to need a cage. Summit has a few cages but I've heard fitment is not great. S&W I've heard good things about. But would you recommend that I just take it to a fabrication shop and have one made and TIGed by them?
What motor mounts will I use for this swap?
As stated, ANY help would be greatly appreciated.
Here's the car...


Thanks!

FOUROHSICKS

look me up on youtube as fourohsicks.I did a 78 with a 6.0

Whitecrewcab

iTrader: (2)

Look at Wolfe Racecraft for a cage, I have seen some of theirs in a few cars, they fit tight and tuck up very well.

thehazz12

Checked out your videos. Looks like a nice, good running machine, but it doesn't help me out unfortunately. Now that I'm getting into this build and have my motor I'm starting to realize the obstacles I have to overcome. I've read that I will need to have a custom wiring harness made for this build. I've read that painless performance will do that and reflash the ECU. Did you have to do this as well? I would like to have to whole OBDII system in the car so I can use HPTuners to tune it. Is this necessary or how did you tune yours?

Thanks. I'll check them out.

thehazz12

Here she is after removing the bulky truck intake and fuel rails.

$400 from a salvage yard doesn't buy you the cleanest motors but the owner and a few of the workers assured me it ran very nice when it was in the '00 Silverado. We've been going to this yard for years for numerous hot rod builds and I have no reason not to believe the guys.
And here she is after some cleaning and disassembly...

Better but nowhere near done yet. When I get the majority of muck off I'll tear into the internals and make sure everything checks out then off to the hot tank to make sure all the grease and muck is gone. After that the block will get some black paint along with the valve covers.
Now I need to talk to PSI and have them make me a wiring harness after I send them an ECU to reflash. I'm also getting some new fuel rails with a return system and some 60 lb/hr injectors and a new fuel pump. Once I get my Sebring sold things should progress quickly.

thehazz12

Got the rest of the motor torn down. Decided not to touch the internals. It was a $400 motor, if it blows...it blows. I bought an electric die grinder and am in the process of buying a porting kit from Summit so I'm gonna see what kind of natural porting talents I have. I'm not going to overdo it...just going to try and match the intake and exhaust ports to my gaskets and clean up the ports some. It's a learning experience so if I mess up I know where to get another set of heads. It will still be cheaper than paying someone else to do it.



I also ordered my engine harness and ECM from John at PSI. I highly recommend PSI. John was very knowledgeable and very helpful.

prodigy86

Get a rear out of a late 2nd gen some came with 3.73 posi, disk brakes and there pretty strong.

thehazz12

I have 2 '81s. That's as late into the 2nd gens as you can get and neither has discs. Now I'm not sure of the gears in the other but I'll check. I've been playing with the idea now of swapping to a Ford 9 in. because we have quite a few at the farm just sitting there.

wildcamaro

iTrader: (15)

I'm doing an 81 with aluminum 5.3 super t10 combo...I'll be keeping my eye on yours...ur lucky with that 6 speed!

thehazz12

I thought all of the aluminum 5.3s were fwd? What did it come out of? Yeah we have enough spare cars and parts laying around that I can build a few more cars after this lol. I have another '81 with a 355 and a Saginaw 4 speed that I was just planning on restorign, but the body is shot so I bought this yellow one as a parts car. Then thought, "Why am I making more work for myself? I'll just use this one..." lol. That then progressed into making a badass race car. If I didn't have the t56 I would have just used the Saginaw, but having another 2 gears will be nice for cruising around...

wildcamaro

iTrader: (15)

No doubt 2 overdrives let's you run those short gears out back...the aluminum 5.3 only can in 25% of silverados with extended cab...it also has flat top pistons with floating pins, 10:1 compression and ls6 heads stock it is rated like 10 or 15 hp/tq higher than normal 5.3

thehazz12

Ohhh...so is that the Lm9 motor? I know the Lq4 and Lq9 are both 6.0s but never knew the difference until a week ago when I decided to look it up. The Lq9 comes stock with the Ls6 heads and Lq4 doesn't so maybe that's the difference between the Lm4 and Lm9 too? Are you doing anything else to it or just gonna run it as is?

prodigy86

The TA's have them some times another good swap is an explorer 8.8. They have 3.73 posi with 31 spline axles and disk breaks.

thehazz12

Well I'll definitely keep that in mind. That may be the way to do it so I can just get it in and be done with it. But my problem with doing that, and same with the Ford 9 inch is that I'll have different bolt patterns. Not a huge deal but I don't really like that. My GTO has the 5x120.65 bolt pattern which is incredibly close to the 5x4 3/4 so it's nice being able to freely switch rims between the 2 and makes any money I spend on wheels/tires seem more worth it. It would be nice to only need 1 set of race wheels/tires.

thehazz12

Got a little bit more done on the '81...
I put my drag set that I bought for my GTO on and man does it look good!

No motor and it's already got the front wheels in the air!

M/T ET DRAGs for the rears.

And GTO spares/skinnies up front.


Some fresh paint on the block.

I've got the dash pretty well taken apart and it was a major PITA. Clearly the previous owner was a hoosier and I wanted to strangle them so bad. Every nut, screw, and bolt under the dash was a different size. I just have a little of the heating/cooling stuff to take out and it's not going back in. We're just making sure I'm left with defrost in case I get caught out in the cold.

And I got some mail! New gasket set arrived. I'd like to add that that **** ain't cheap! And the new timing chain set came in too. Still waiting for the computer and engine harness to come in. No hurry though...still have to clean up a few of the accessories and reassemble the motor.

Whitecrewcab

iTrader: (2)

A WS6 trans am from I think 77-81 will have the rear disc brakes you want with the 8.5" 10 bolt.

thehazz12

Well I'll definitely keep that in mind but I think my chances of finding discs on a 3rd gen F-body are much higher. The car won't be moving under it's own power for a while still so I'll figure something out.

prodigy86

you can have a machine shop drill the explorer axles to chevy lug pattern

thehazz12

Interesting...this is definitely worth looking into. Any idea on the price of getting this done?

prodigy86

No I don't, but considering I've seen those rear end setups sell for as low as $150 on craigslist I would say it would be worth looking into.