Hey guys, long time reader first time poster. I bought my Sonoma about 5 years ago to have something I could haul my bike around in. I loved the truck from day one but man is it slow. I was completely clueless that people swapped these trucks until I ran across s10forum one day. I loved the idea of a small v8 truck that could still knock down good mileage on the highway so immediately I started planning my swap. I got lucky reading on here one day and ran across a killer deal for a wrecked 99 WS6 Trans Am and 2 days later me and a buddy picked it up from Nashville. The car was an LS1 4l60e with 83k on the clock that I did a burn out in before I drove it on the trailer. The plan is to build a fun daily driver using pretty much all the parts from the WS6. Here is a basic run down of the planned set up;

Stock LS1 and 4L60E
Revmax 4000 stall converter
Huge Summit transmission cooler (I think its 11x22)
BRP hotrod mount kit
H3 oil pan
F body exhaust manifolds modified
Stock 10 bolt from the truck rebuilt with the WS6 posi and 3.23s
All F body accessories, radiator, fans, ac, etc.
F body engine harness that I am integrating into my truck harness
WS6 17x9.5 wheels all around with whatever spacers I need
F body plastic fuel tank relocated behind the rear axle

I finally acquired the rest of the big parts for the build this week so me and my dad started ripping the truck apart earlier tonight. Now onto the pictures.

What I am starting with, 99 Sonoma 2.2l 5 speed. It is my daily driver.






The engine and transmission from the WS6



And here is the progress we got done tonight, plan to pull the 2.2 tomorrow.





The bed filled up with parts quick.



Finishing up for the night and me being stupid.



It is an ambitious goal, but I hope to get it done before I go back to school early August. I am currently unemployed so ideally I will be working on it from the time I get up until the time I go to bed. All input and advice is needed and greatly appreciated, I am sure there will be many bumps in the road over the next month or so.

 

Keep on

 

I read a few of your posts, are you still building your 6.0 s10?

 

I have a 2000 EXT cab waiting to get butchered as much as possible and still be covert/street. Rite now I'm working on putting a rear mount 76 in my wifes car.

 

Should be a good build man looking forward to it.

 

Made some more progress yesterday, the 2.2 is out. Went pretty smooth once I figured out that the fuel lines bolt to the engine and trans in 3 separate spots. If anyone pulls their 2.2 out the way I did make sure you pull the starter off or it will hit the engine cradle when you try to pull the engine forward. Here are some more pictures




Its out!




Little engine, big engine.



Since I am still waiting on my torque converter and mount kit there isn't much else to do until then. The converter shipped Friday and BRP is upgrading my shipping (they somehow lost my order) to I think 2-3 day so it should go out on Monday. Hopefully everything will be here by Wednesday or Thursday. Until then I guess I'm going to start cleaning up the frame and engine bay. I'm tossing around the idea of sanding it down to bare metal and painting it, anybody have any suggestions on paint? I'd prefer it be in a spray can.

 

Very nice. interested to see how it turns out.

 

You could order chassis saver. My buddy used it on his dads resto mod s10 xtreme.

http://www.s10forum.com/forum/f30/da...91/index3.html
link to build thread

link to paint
http://www.magnetpaints.com/underbody.asp

 

Truck looks good..they are fun as daily drivers..

 

Subscribed!

 

Will the stock drivers manifold clear the steering shaft?

 

From what I have read the factory F body manifolds will clear the steering shaft. What you have to do is cut the factory flanges off, weld on a pipe that extends down, and then put on whatever kind of flange you want to run.

 

Not too much to update yet, still waiting on my mount kit from BRP. It is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, lets hope so. I did get my converter from Revmax and picked up some Majic tractor paint from Tractor Supply. I used their rust prevention primer and gloss black top coat. I've only got the engine bay done but I think it looks pretty good considering I brushed it on.

 

My brp longtube headers cleared the steering shaft with no modification. Used cpw mounts.

 

I'm not running the BRP longtubes. Hope to have them some day but for now f body manifolds it is.

 

This showed up today.



And it had this in it




It took a while to get but everything looks pretty good. All the welds look nice and it was packaged real well. We'll see how everything fits hopefully this weekend.

 

How's the 4000rpm converter going to be with daily driving? Good luck on the build bro, I'm buying parts for my swap now, so I should be starting my build soon too.

 

I think it will be no problem. A lot of people are scared of big stalls for some reason, there are a few people locally that say I'm going to regret it (none of them have a high stall). I did tons of research on the subject and watched tons of videos before I bought my converter and the general consensus is that these engines need at least a 3600 stall for a fun street car. The difference in drivability between a 3600 and a 4000 is minimal but the performance difference is significant. My goal for this truck is a fun daily driven street truck that will run mid 7's in the eighth and high 11's in the quarter. I think I am on the right track.

 

Should do it without a problem.. I got 12.18@113, stock stall & gears.

 

Your truck moves out for having a stock vette stall in it. How light is your truck? I'm trying to keep mine as light as possible with the f body gas tank, abs delete, and probably not going to run ac. I'd really like for the truck to come in somewhere in the 3200-3300 lb range.