I'm thinking about building another daily driver for myself since my S-10 took a beating this winter. I got a 1982 Chevy C-20 (3/4 ton) with a 292 I6 and a 3-speed. It's not really ideal for commuting. There are not too many options for retrofitting a modern manual OD aside from making my own adapters or having a lot of custom work done. Which leads me to the idea of swapping LS-based engines into older vehicles. I'm looking to get an LQ4 backed with a NV4500 tranny into this truck. The C-20 is a bare-bones work truck. No a/c, minimal interior options, and a heavy duty suspension and drivetrain (most of which I just rebuilt). I think I know the basics, but still have questions after reading the budget LS swap sticky.

I can get the sbc mounts for this truck and then use the LS1 adapters. I'm thinking an Aeromotive A1000 fuel pump/regulator combo should work fine for the LQ4 engine; that way I don't have to go crazy sumping the stock gas tank or making some other in-tank pump work. I imagine the radiator for the same year vehicle that I get the engine from should fit into my C-20, with some mods I would think. Exhaust I can do myself and I think I read in another thread that modern truck headers fit the older trucks with little modification. Also, there is a shop several miles from me that builds and tunes these engines, so tuning it after I get it running shouldn't be a problem.

Here come the questions. Do I need the pedal assembly out of the donor vehicle to make the throttle work? I would think that I need the ECM from the donor vehicle as well, but would an LS1 conversion wiring harness from Painless (or other source like Street and Performance in CA) work for my application since my truck is carb'd? I see a lot of automatic trannys behind these conversions (or T-56 manuals); has anyone used an NV4500? I will probably have to play with the mounts and the crossmember a bit to get it to work (or fab a crossmember). I think I might want to use that transmission because eventually I want to get this truck off of daily driving duty and use it to pull my '53 Ford to the track. With that said, is there anything that I missed? I know there are probably a lot of major things that I didn't touch upon, so if you guys/gals can point me in the right direction, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance



Chickenbone

 

Are you going carb on the LQ4? It sounded like you were going fuel injection until this part. Or are you saying you want to get an aftermarket PCM and harness because your truck is carb'd right now?

 

That's what I meant. I should of said that my truck has no computer controls what-so-ever. Yeah, I wanna keep the EFI for MPGs. I'm also going to order that Cartech book about swapping LS-based engines into anything. Perhaps that can answer some of my questions as well.



Chickenbone