Ok, I have looked, read, and re-read most of the threads concerning Motor mounts, oil pans, and headers working together.

68 Camaro, I have a Holley swap pan. Been looking at the Hooker headers, seem like a nice product. Been leaning towards the Dirty Dingo mount plates.

So? Will everything work? The holley pan and Hookers work together as far as I know...my concern is the mount plates.....

The hooker plates come in "stock" and other locations......that is where the confusion comes in. Which ones? Stock? Rearward? Forward? Hence, the Dirty Dingos appear to be the answer, but would they work with the Holley Pan and Hooker headers?

Not running Ac right now so that is not a issue on the lower mounted Ac....Alt is high mount with a Kwik bracket.

Transmission will be a 4L65e, I know that is a factor also....

Thanks in advance.

 

With the Holley pan, it should work with either Standard or 1" setback plates and as you know the pan does work will with hooker headers.

You might check with Hooker (phone tech or web site/chat) to see what type of plates they recommend for the headers.

BC

 

Yes, I came to the conclusion that the Holley pan, Hooker headers would go together fine, I guess my real question was what location "stock" or setback?

I am probably going to swap out the heater box to a BB one which will move the in/out over out of the way......

I contacted Holley tech via e mail to see what they say

 

I'm in almost the exact dilemma as you right now. Did you ever get a response back from Holley regarding which plates work with their headers? I currently have the "stock" location plates and their headers but would like to know if their 1/2" or 1-1/4" forward plates work with their 1st gen headers.

I'm still waiting on a response back from them.

Thanks

 

Agree... this was a sticking point for me too. No one does a good job describing exactly where their mounts place the LS engine in relation to the old engine. What does "stock location" mean?

The plates that use the lower front plate bolt to secure the bottom of the engine mount will move the rear bellhousing mounting flange on an LS engine forward approx 1-3/8 inches from the small block position. Now remember, the backside of an LS engine is much flatter than a SBC, so you do want to move it forward a little. Otherwise the passenger head will be up against the firewall. Also, you want to leave a little room back there to run the wiring harness.

I had converted my '69 to a BBC heater core years ago and I would highly recommend that placement for the heater core tubes. I think there would have been some interference with the SBC core placement.

I used Doug's headers and mount plates (p/n SK100). These plates have two sets of holes to mount the plates to the engine. I used the rear bolt holes which moved the bellhousing flange forward approx 3/4 inch.

I know you didn't use the same parts, but hopefully you can get the idea from looking at pics of the parts on the web.

 

I don't know if you've run across any of my recent posts talking about the new Hooker LS swap system of parts that's getting ready to be released for 1st-gen F-body/ 3rd-gen X-body cars, but the info may be someting you'd be interested in as they are all designed using a much more evolved process than used to design the current Hooker (or any other brand) components for this application.

It's only advantages to keep the transmission in the stock fore/aft position if it's absolutely part of your plan to retain the stock transmission and driveshaft for budgetary reasons. If you want to use a different trans like a 4L60-4L75 or a T56, it actually benefits you from a clearance standpoint to locate the cylinder heads of the LS engine in the same basic location as the old small block and move the transmission forward 3/4"- 1" to mate up with it.

By doing so you eliminate many of the issues discussed in this thread (engine/firewall contact, non-compatibility with SB heater cores or stock A/C evaporator housing etc...) but it was always accompanied by the caveat that a stock 4th-gen F-body oil pan would have interference issues with the steering center link/tie rod ends if you did put it there. Others in the past have notched 4th-gen pans as a workaround to this interference at the cost of diminishing the oil capacity of the pan...frustating right?

Others have used the Holley pan that's been on the market for some time, but we discovered in the development of our new system parts that the dimemsions of the Holley pan do not allow the motor to sit low enough in the front (without notching the engine crossmember)to produce a desireable engine inclination angle. Once we committed ourselves to fixing as many of these outstanding fitment issues as possible, we realized the effort was going to have to include the design of an additional oil pan to add to our lineup.

With that done, you can have your cake and eat it to so to speak as the engine can now be placed in a balanced fore/aft position to receive all of the associated benefits without having to resort to using a pan with decreased oil capacity. The new Holley pan has a capacity of 6.2 quarts with the filter, so it holds slightly more than the existing pan. Of course, a fully engineered swap solution would also include headers, transmission crossmembers and complete bolt-on exhaust systems, which is what the Hooker/Holley system of parts does.