matthewhogue

Wanted to share this project I've been working on. Everyone and their mother does the LS1/T56 drop in, but I'm putting in the dash, air bags, AC/Heating, speaker system, power steering, and possibly the ABS. Here are pics of the progress so far. It's been 2 weeks now since I started. I took off M,W, F to work on it. It's been a lot of trips to the store for tools and supplies. So it hasn't been 6 days of straight work. The motor is over at Synergy now, getting a custom grind cam and a once over.

TA is a 2002 WS6 w/ 60k miles. Rear end seems to have a broken axle, but it was driving. Just a really loud grinding noise from the rear. That's fine, because I have a 12 bolt in the camaro

Took a while to get it out of my second garage because it had been back there for 4 years when the paint was done and stuff was piled in front of it.


Here are my ghetto homemade car dollies. The rear brakes were locked up and the Ebrake was not unlocking. I will cut that apart later since I have willwoods going in.



Here's the dash after I pulled the steering column and gauge cluster out. Took as much out as I could without cutting anything so I could sell it later.



Got some more of the wiring out. Pulled the alarm and stereo and factory under dash harness and custom gauges.



Interior of the 2002 WS6 after I pulled the seats, seat belts, etc...



Got the carpet out and started unplugging things.



Dash cover, steering column, and a bunch of other stuff out.



My kids helping out.




pulling stuff off the front of the motor.



Motor coming out.



Motor out, lots of tranny fluid on my driveway... oops



just a few of the goodies from Heidts hot rod going into my car. (Gary Heidts is my uncle so I got them super cheap )



Cut out the firewall and tunnel so I can transplant them into the 69 so that everything bolts up.



another view after cutting it out.



Was thinking about cutting just enough room for the AC/Heating core and then changed my mind.



Drilled out the spot welds on the FW and separated it from the tunnel so I can just work on this part first since it's going to be the hardest.



Lots of time cutting and trying to fit in the firewall from the 2002. Ended up having to cut into the wall on the passenger side in order to fit the heating core/blower motor assembly from the 2002. I didn't realize how huge this thing is. This portion has taken about 3 days of my time now.



Lots more cutting/test fitting with the blower motor assembly.



view from the other side. Tack welded it into place once I got the assembly in there.



view from the inside with assembly in place.



started welding the FW into place and adding in some of the metal from cutting the hole too big... oops



How to patch something that's not going to be seen and you don't really care about how it looks, by Hogie...

1. cut the piece to size and clean only the side that you can paint afterwards.


2. Weld into place.



3. More welding, then grind down all that extra metal because you suck at welding...



then do it again with little pieces...







Making sure the assembly still fits after welding and it does... whew...
Then weld everything else down along the edges. I'm going to do some lead work later to smooth it out before I repaint the FW and tunnel.



And yes I ordered a Camaro steering wheel lol, the only thing with the Pontiac logo on it was the steering wheel.

Long way to go, still moving over rear seat brackets, seat belts, wiring harness and possibly (gulp) power windows and locks... not sure yet though on that. I plan to daily drive it, so it would be nice to have power locks/windows.

Going to put the tunnel in today. I wanted the E-brake to work the way it did on the 02 so I cut the whole tunnel out to move it over. Plus, then the center console would bolt right up. I'll post pics tonight when I'm watching the Celtics lose (fingers crossed)

AlamoTA

iTrader: (10)

I'm looking forward to following your progress. I'm jealous already!

RNation0001

iTrader: (2)

wow and i thought i was crazy for swapping a trans am dash into my 67 u took it a step or ten further than i did with the whole firewall lol thats great keep up the work

bczee

iTrader: (12)

Great build going there... I'm going to follow this one. keep up the great work.

BC

bmf5150

Wow great build!!

matthewhogue

So here is my rough cutout for the tunnel.



Tacked up the lower seat cushion bracket for the rear seat.



cut out some excess metal and screwed in the tunnel and started my hammer time.



oops, so much for my super scientific method of measuring and cutting (aka, eyeball it)



another peice of metal needed to cover some opening.



both of those holes covered and welded along with lots of crappy welding all over. Ground it down and I'll spray it all with a rust inhibitor and some big gap sealant and then dynomat later.



evidence of my lack of welding ability, lol.



Don't forget to grind off the screws under the car since some of them wound up welded into place, lol

Rick Speed

iTrader: (55)

This is AWESOME!! I thought about doing this to my 79 TA but my family said they liked the old school dash so I'm only installing the wiring from a 2002 TA.

matthewhogue

yeah originally I was just going to do a covan's classic custom gauge panel with autometer gauges. But when I got the doner car I started doing some measurements and decided to go big or go home. Plus I ran into a site where someone else had stuffed the dash into their 69 camaro and I decided to try to put everything in there, air bags and all

kickass92z

Looks awesome. I have been reading alot on these swaps lately, but am no where near ready to swap like you are. I am however doing an ls swap on 3 of my cars...Keep up the good work..

matthewhogue

I couldn't imagine trying to swap 3 cars out at once... You must have a lot of storage area lol.

matthewhogue

lol I just noticed I'm a 10 year member with only 79 posts... am I the ultimate lurker here? lol

Rocketrod

iTrader: (2)

Great work! I have seen several cars where they swapped the engine, trans, dash, door panels, etc, but never the firewall and trans tunnel!

matthewhogue

Today's update... finishing up the air inlet for the blower motor and started in on the dash fitment. Got called off for an hour long meeting and had to run to the store for a few things, so I didn't get as much done as I had hoped...


My cam that's going in, saw it when I was at the shop today for lunch...





redirecting air to the inlet for the blower motor.

cutout peices to direct air





block off plates I made for the factor air inlets.



test fitting the vent box



test fitting the vent box attached to the dash... doesn't quite fit... better cut a bunch of **** off



oops, cut too much off



fixed? lol



second test fit of the dash... still not good enough...



that's better...




done for today... I'd love to keep going, but I have over 100 emails from today and I need to read like 80% of them... ugh

Redbull87

iTrader: (3)

Awesome job,didnt know the interior fit these cars that well for a full swap.I like your approach of completely cutting it from the donor car and welding into the camaro.As for making the car power windows and locks I think your best/easiest way is to use actuators for the locks and get power windows for the camaro and rewire it to work with the transam wiring.

Subscribing

matthewhogue

yeah I thought about that, but I'll deal with that when I get there. For now I'm more worried about getting it running and out of my big garage so my wife can park her car in there again. lol

bczee

iTrader: (12)

I see your in the Fremont area also.. I'm in Concord. Once you get it back on the road, I hope I can check it out.. I see your on Nor-Cal also..

If you get it running soon. I run the Friday Night GTG at Baja Fresh in Concord, Drop on By !

BC

matthewhogue

I'll have to swing by when it's done. I'm sure it's at least a month or so out from being finished.

matthewhogue

Today's work...

Fit and made brackets for the rear seats.




Welded the brackets into place and made some elbow pieces out of scrap metal laying around.



Made the bracket pieces I need for the dash.




I had cut this off before and now I had to weld it back on, lol.



these are for the frame that goes under the dash board.

enganeer

iTrader: (18)

Keep up the work! Good to see the progress.

I am doing a similar project but with a 70 El Camino. Donar / sacrificial dash roughed in place.

matthewhogue

I like how high your dash is compared to mine. I'm gone have to do some fiberglass work to fix mine.