LY6/4L80e from rough van into rough 69 camaro
 

The Van:
A 2009 Express G3. Purchased from Co-Part for $1050 including $300 in hidden fees and taxes. I had looked for a couple of months and hadn't yet found a good deal. Before you ask, Noone died in this crash, The van was stationary at the time of impact. I was able to inspect the van before auction and the frame/engine seemed amazingly undamaged. I have yet to hear it run.


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After 2 days of cutting and plotting:

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and a few more hours pulled:
(yes I'm slow)
The impact was hard on the passenger side firewall which causes the steering linkage to hit the driver's side coilpack damaging it and the valve cover.

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The car:

A 69 Camaro SS/RS that is a little rough. This is originally a burnished brown SS/RS with white houndstooth 350/350. I will eventually restore the body. Oh, the reason I know is gm of Canada kept records for all the cars they sold and this is from my hometown of Montreal. I've had it 19 years and bought it as a roller for $1000 at the age of 17. When I drove it to California in '93 I nearly cried when I saw all the clean and cheap Camaros compared to my rough car. I'm glad I stuck it out.

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Why do I have different coils than other folks with LY6 on this forum? Is it because this van didn't have flexfuel?

Okay, no TAC(throttle actuator control) module on gen 4s. But I understand there is a tcm(transmission control module). Anyone know where mine should be? I think it was vaporized in the wreck. Do I need a matching tcm for the 4L80e? The E38 ecu and rest of the wiring harness are in great shape.

Here is the gas pedal:
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They look like the same coils I have on mine you can get a tcm from John at speartech fairly cheap. Keep looking for it it is fairly small. You should go with a corvette pedal anyway as you are going to have to cut and weld it to fit your car. They are way too long and the corvette is metal where as the trucks are plastic.

When I got my LY6, I think I remember the TCM was mounted to the inside of the front passenger fender. The engine and trans was pulled before I got there, but the only reason I think I remember where it was is because I looked over the van before I left to see if there was anything else I needed, and noticed that the TCM was still in there.

However, with all of that being said, from the pictures it looks like your TCM is probably in car part heaven with the rest of the front passenger side of the engine bay.

Good luck with the swap.

Thanks for the help. I love this forum. After cutting off the hood and passenger side fender...

voila, the tcm:

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ls3 intake:


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van engine compt:

I need to grab those o2 sensors

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see the passenger seat?


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looks like a good deal.. crazy wreck!

Got the engine on a stand and pulled the drain plug. I'm guessing 2 quarts of water came out of the pan before oil came out. Holy crap! I new some water may have gotten into the motor, but that much? It was not anti freeze. I'm sure the motor hadn't been turned since the hit so it probably didn't hydraulic and bend rods. I'm concerned about corrosion. I pulled the plugs, sprayed wd40 in the cylinders and turned the motor upside down. When it leaked out it was clear except a couple of cylinders looked a little brownish. I think I'll sqirt in a little tranny fluid and do a comp check. Oh, I love those rectangular port heads.

I think you'll be ok for corrossion...but definitely try to fog something other than WD-40 in there (WD-40 is not oil it actually washes oil away)...the ATF you mentioned should be good...once you get that in there, I'd turn it over a few times (shouldn't be hard at all by hand with no plugs in it).

I think that to make cruise control work, on the Gen 4's (maybe even 2003 up Gen 3's also) you might need a BCM...but I don't know if you'd need anything else to make a BCM happy as well...if cruise control matters to you.

That's one crazy wreck! Looks like an awesome project camaro as well, I think the motor will be fine like you said, put ATF in the cyls, and do a comp test.

Thanks. Clutch fan giving me trouble. I used vise grip and belt to make a make shift clamp; trying to get the big nut off, I almost knocked the engine stand on it's side. Is it lefty loosy, righty tighty? Do I need to get the sawzall back out?

I am pretty sure from this picture of my LY6 WP that it is a standard thread. When facing the engine from the front of the car, it needs to turn counterclockwise. I believe there are three holes in the wp pulley that you can put a spanner wrench on. A strap wrench would also do the trick.

Nearly same exact thing happened to me, and in my case I think the nut was jammed onto the pulley. I tried nearly everything, but to finally get it off, I started to cut the nut off with a hacksaw near the pulley, and when I got to the threads, the nut twisted off. Its probably not the prettiest fix possible, but at least the nut is gone

To get fan nut off, strike it with a hammer and cold chisel! Works like a charm, just make sure you strike it on the side to loosen it!

Thanks for the tips:

I drilled the nut to weaken it and finally got it off. There's a reason I don't get paid to do this.

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Here's the spectra tank with the pump inside. $316 shipped. I hope it can support 500hp.

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Got 210 psi in each cylinder except 1 at 200! If that seems a little high it maybe because of the $10 harbour freight gauge. What matters is that they're all about the same. A couple cylinders started lower and man, the tranny fluid fixed it. The 1 tonn harbour freight engine stand is sturdy.

What about the vehicle that hit it? That's what I want to see, to tear a van up that bad, it's got to be wasted bad!!

Great price on the engine though.

When you pulled the pump, could you see what sort of baffling was provided inside the tank?

Clint,
The baffle is a tall pan.. IIRC... something like 2"x5" maybe 2 1/2 or 3" high. Remember. its almost a year since I pulled mine. Try a search. I believe I posted pics of it from a different forum. The baffel sits raised ABouT 1/4" so fuel can go into it.

Here is the thread. http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/conver...-efi-tank.html

I believe the van was hit by a low flying airplane. The impact was above the beltline.

I've been selling van parts on craigslist and am up to $370 in sales and I haven't gotten rid of the diff. yet. That thing's huge and has disc brakes. How can I make it fit in the camaro? I plan to use the aluminum driveshaft if it can be shortened. Today I also sold the old 350/350 carb to oil pan with an msd6al for 1000. I think they got a good deal but that pays for the van.

Bandit, I didn't look for baffles inside. Speaking of which, after reading your posts, I thought you would like to check this out, although I don't know if it will work for our application. Oil pan baffle: http://www.improvedracing.com/index....c7409e71256690
Also there is a company making factory style structural cast aluminum oil pans for muscle car swaps. This is not an LH8 or modified pan and I was told by the vendor that this is the upcoming holley pan:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...K%3AMEWAX%3AIT
This is number 1 in the running for me so far. Let me know if you want me to look inside the tank again.

Cam? I'm thinking about an mast/comp/L99. I've got a line on an L99 for 150. Not sure yet.

Before you jump on the L99 cam, make sure have a compatible phasor. If you read the full Comp Cams catalog, there's some info there on a phasor change that may or may not affect compatability.

Unless something has changed, that oil pan looks like the same one retrolsx has been selling for a while, the JZ Motorsports pan. There are a few people here that have used them. Click the X-body link in my signature and read billsnogo's thread. He used it for his.

Thanks for the link on the baffles. Good thing to know about, but I will likely go with the Champ/Autokraft pan on my swap.