skbishop1

I am new to this forum. I currently drive a lowered 06 Tahoe after being raised on strickly Fords from a young age. After my Tahoe and couple friends showing me the light of the LS series motors, I have decided on my next project.

I drive my wife's old 99 Mustang V6 back and forth to work. Car has seen better days at 189xxx miles. I have some hook ups here in town and currently looking for a good drivetrain from a Tahoe or if possible a Camaro/trans am donor.

I have a couple questions right off the bat, since this will be my first true conversion, myself. Ive helped do an LS swap in a 72 Camaro with a friend but he did most of the homework and fine tuning.

What is the best way to utilize the few things on the car that I would like to keep? ABS, power windows, locks, radio, etc...

The 2nd gen Camaro LS swap I've been helping with, has used a Painless wiring harness. Is this the easiest setup?

The alternator and starter wiring; do they need to be original to the car or part of another harness such as painless or something?

Any information will be appreciated. I am not planning to make this car 600rwhp or anything serious, so I don't think spending the money on a Holley EFI unit would make sense just yet.

Just looking for a few pointers in the right direction before I get in too deep!

TDMKR496

iTrader: (3)

I'm finishing up an 88 swap currently. You will probably need to swap oil pans, a CTSV pan fits about the best and Dirty Dingo mounts make it drop right in. I used a harness from PSI, Jon is a great guy and has a quality product.

skbishop1

Does the harness from PSI have a one wire fuel pump hook up? How is your fuel system set up?

cam

iTrader: (9)

Dont think of the engine as being part of the car. Wire it up to be its own entity and then all you need to do is NOT butcher your cars wiring and all stock systems will work as per stock. Just be SURE to remove the pins and circuits off all the things you wont be using.

Easiest, and cleanest.




Yehhhh good luck with that

skbishop1

Haha good point on being in too deep. I meant before I purchase engine/trans harness etc.

As far as I know, the only thing that will be retained from the vehicle "engine" harness would be the ignition circuit for the starter. Is this correct?

cam

iTrader: (9)

I can appreciate your wanting to sort this out A-B before you start. But the simple fact is each build has its own requirements. Things like gauges etc can all be either wired to the engine analog/elec or digital through the ECM ( better imo ) but this may require all new gagues pending swap car etc etc.

Dont overthink wiring until you get there. Wire what you need and remove the rest. Thats it

BigEd_72455

iTrader: (7)

What they are trying to say is when you go to remove the original stuff, DONT CUT ANYTHING!!!! Don't even cut a ground wire. Unbolt and disconnect everything that is necessary to remove the engine and trans together. removing the front clip (as much as you can) will make access a ton easier also. Not to mention cleaning up the engine bay for the swap.

Keep all of your harnesses intact until you can figure out what you can use or will need to keep your other components working.

Label every connection you disconnect. masking tape works great with a permanent marker. Some of these connections can be re-used either through adapters for original sensors, or fitting them in somewhere else for the reading. Oil pressure is not used by the ecu, and temperature can be obtained from the passenger head either by an adapter or making the hole fit your sender..

* edit * ^^ the above part refers to making your dash gauges work properly. The volt gauge works off the harness power levels if I am not mistaken.

On your 99, I believe the harness unplugs with a main bolt at the passenger side firewall near the fender. Upper left hand corner I think. Don't forget, some of those connections go down to the transmission as well.

for a tip on getting the gas out of the tank before starting the swap, find the fuel relay and figure out how to hotwire it, and run the fuel through the rail and out the Schrader valve either into gas cans or another vehicle parked close enough to put some fuel hose from your rail to the tank.

That will be a good start to getting where you want to go.

BigEd_72455

iTrader: (7)

oh yeah, don't get stuck on tahoes or cars, silverados had a good line of engines with the 4.8/5.3 engines as well.

tired2valve

You can check out my build thread

skbishop1

I appreciate all the info BigEd. I'm a ford guy at heart and me doing this build will **** my father off to no end. But with this being a mustang I feel very confident about doing it. I've owned many mustangs and all are the sn95 body style so they're all pretty much the same. But this will be my first conversion of any kind so I'm just trying to get all my ducks in a row.

And I'm sure there are tons of build threads I need to read up on. I've skimmed over a few already. My main weakness is wiring. Once I get my head wrapped around it, I'm fine. I guess it just intimidates me. Takes me a while. So I'm just asking 1000 questions.

BigEd_72455

iTrader: (7)

I will tell you this, if you have the resources (read: CASH) you are better off to just buy a ready to go harness for your setup. Will save you a ton if hassles and be clean and ready to go. But they aren't cheap. Unless someone has an excellent trader rating for doing harnesses, get one from a sponsor of the board. Lots with good bragging rights.

But your best bet on that is wait til you already have your engine and trans, along with harness and ecu. Some places can offer a re-work, others offer trade-in if the harness is complete, and I think one or two offer a discounted price on tuning if you get the harness and re-flash done together.

I myself am switching over to carb because I will not be running an overdrive trans and doing mostly drag racing or import bashing around my little town. Show these little punks what American muscle does to their ricer..

skbishop1

Heard that. Yeah I've been looking into the PSI harnesses and painless harnesses. The LS harness isn't what I'm worried about. Pretty much all of them out there are plug and play. I'm trying to determine what's needed from the vehicle harness. But again, with this being a mustang, I know a lot more about these than anything else.

I still drive the mustang as of now. I'll be slowly collecting parts and once I have enough to park it and start stripping, I'm sure I'll start sooner rather than later haha.

99MUSTANG5.3L

There are lots of builds on here for the Mustangs.I just finished my second Mustang swap, an 02 and you can retain the keyless entry no problem,ABS I don't know neither of mine had it. Take some time and read through the builds on here and it will be worth while.Keep in mind that the New Edge Mustangs are still build on the foxbody platform with minor changes so those build threads can also be helpful.

BigEd_72455

iTrader: (7)

AJE K member, LS mounts, find some sbf headers to fit or find ls swap headers for the platform, and that would be the first parts I would be buying. A combo can roll around anytime. So have some cash saved up for that as well. Anything you remove some of the Ford folks might buy up, engine, trans, stuff you wont be using.

skbishop1

Just for the sake of saving money, I'll probably keep the k member for now. I have a hook up for the motor and trans so I'll try to get it then do a cam, stall, headers, head work etc. once I have the motor parts, I'll slam it in, test fit everything, get it running and then pull it out and fit and finish everything.

BigEd_72455

iTrader: (7)

good grief man, make it difficult why don't ya.

skbishop1

Haha I don't mind taking my time, as long as I do it right. But the biggest parts for the budget are for the engine anyways.

I may be doing it the hard way but again. It's my first conversion. I'm learning as I go.

Does anyone make a trans cross member for a 4l60e? That and the motor mounts will be the first thing I buy.

tired2valve

Aje sells complete mount kits. For any type of Trans combo.
I wouldn't get a 4l60. I would just find a 400, 4l80. The 80e's are easy to come by in the junkyard.

skbishop1

Whats wrong with the 4L60's? They come in trucks and everything else. Figured they would be ok for a mild build.

If I were to go with a Turbo 400 or something, how would I make that work with all the computer stuff. They would need the old school cables and stuff, correct?

skbishop1

Also, just been doing some reading on other threads. Does anyone know if the V6 K member will work with the UPR engine mount adaptors? Im trying to stay away from an aftermarket K member for now, is possible.