sixgunsuperman99

iTrader: (2)

After having my build thread running over at Pro-Touring.com, I decided it was about time to start one over here, as I'm about to the point where I'm going to start needing this board's help. For anyone who wants the backstory, here is the link to the history of the car over there (20 year father / son build, but want to start this thread off as a reference point for other swappers). http://www.pro-touring.com/threads/1...or-all-my-life!



I'm dropping in a 2002 LQ4 and a brand new T56 Magnum, and using the new Hooker/Holley swap pieces that are built around the new 302-2 oil pan for 1st gen F-body and 3rd gen X body. Since it will be a Pro/Joe Touring build, I'm trying to making it out handle my 99 as well. The car will be far from a max effort build... I want it to be ultra reliable, be able road trip anywhere with no worries, kill some cones while autocrossing, and put a smile on my face every time I crank her up. I have picked out my components with this build philosophy in mind. The ultimate goal is to have this on the road and driving in time for the 2014 Hot Rod Power Tour.

I'm planning on using the truck accessories and truck intake, and am undecided what route to go for cooling - hopefully a 99/00ish Camaro rad and fan setup.

Build summary to date
Installed:
SC&C Stage 2 + suspension with tall upper ball joints
1.5" Hotchkis leaf and coil springs
Speedtech solid body mounts (partially installed)
Koni Adjustables
Hellwig front and rear sway bars

Waiting to be installed:
2002 LQ4 (stock for now)
T56 Magnum kit from Hurst Drivelines
302-2 Holley Oil Pan
12618HKR Holley Motor Mount Brackets
12626HKR Trans Crossmember
2473-1HKR 1 3/4 Mid Tube Hooker headers
Hotchkis sub frame connectors
Morris 3 point seatbelts
Tanks Inc EFI fuel tank with GPA-4 unit (waiting to ship. Supposed to be available end of March)
Lee 800 steering box (hopefully will be here early March)

Need to purchase yet:
Harness from PSI
Front brake setup from Kore3
Wheel/Tire combo

With that being said, here is Phil Collins... because as the song goes, I've been waiting for this moment, for all my life!

(It's short for Phillicia... so don't give me crap about the name. Hopefully that's the only planning oversight I have on the build!)

sixgunsuperman99

iTrader: (2)

Here she is after getting a few miles on her before the tear down sitting on 14's... 18's will be going on hopefully this spring.




New springs / upper control arms.



T56 magnum kit, including hydraulic clutch conversion and z06 clutch kit.



New Holley 302-2 oil pan.



New Holley mount plates.


New Holley T56 crossmember.


New Hooker 1 3/4 Mid tube headers.


My LQ4 looking pretty nasty... obviously have some clean up work to do.


And finally, how she sits today being lowered and pre-heart transplant.

sixgunsuperman99

iTrader: (2)

Original post updated to reflect the fact that the correct motor mounts are the Holley 12618HKR... Holley had a typo in one of their sales grids that a Holley rep used to look up what parts I need when I ordered these back in December.

I'm shooting to have the old engine out and the new pieces going in within the next few weeks.

ls1nova71

iTrader: (4)

Looks like you've got a pretty good collection of parts so far. I hope the engine is sealed up good, you don't want any snow melting and getting inside of it and refreezing. Good luck with the build, and making the Power Tour, maybe some day they'll change where they run it to somewhere they haven't been a dozen times and I can go again.

Toddoky

Hey sixgun, looks like a nice project you've got going there. I noticed in the image you posted of the engine mounting kit that the kit you have is the 12512HKR for the early 2nd-gen F-bodies...please be sure to call Holley Tech Service to get a swap worked out for the 12618HKR you mentioned. I'll be following your thread with interest; let me know if you run into any snags that I can help you with.

Todd

Sebtarta

iTrader: (1)

So first car you've ever named, and I named her after a man???

Reference from PT,

-TheBandit-

iTrader: (1)

I love a Nova with raised white letter tires. Has a very classic look to it.

I can't imagine leaving my engine out in the snow like that. You gotta get that thing covered up!

ryanleiker

iTrader: (2)

Following...

sixgunsuperman99

iTrader: (2)

No worries, the engine is inside now - there was a storm that dumped some snow around when that picture was taken before I could get it inside.

Thank you for the encouragement - I'm really hoping to make it. I read your article in Hot Rod probably 10 times before I pulled the trigger on an LS swap!

Thanks again for responding to the PM on Sunday. I've had an email chain going with one of the salesmen I've been working with... He is getting a call-tag set up. Unfortunately he says the 12618 won't be in until March 8th, and I need them before that weekend hits for a planned thrash session You have any extra inventory stashed somewhere by any chance?


I named the BUILD, not the CAR...damnit! lol. You just haaad to bring that over here huh?

I'm actually kind of bummed it doesn't have that stance anymore... Very classic indeed, and it looks a little funny being lowered with the 14's. Everyone now thinks the springs are worn out haha. She should hopefully look good again once I get new shoes on there. The motor is inside now. We just got some snow while making a home for it inside.

Ps - love your build. Can't wait to see that one finished.

Hopefully I can get some progress in here one of these days haha. Too bad mine won't have a hairdryer like yours... Maybe someday.

sixgunsuperman99

iTrader: (2)

Progress slowly marches on.

I decided I'm going to recycle my old LS1 intake manifold from my 99 Z that I pulled when I swapped to an LS6 intake. Car intake has been sitting for a while and is pretty dusty. I picked up a fuel rail and injector set from a member here in the classifieds.



Front clip is off, and it needs a lot of cleaning up.



Lokar cable and brake/clutch pedals.



Clutch not on yet, but finally have the oil pan and bell housing on and it's starting to look legit. Word to the wise - you're definitely going to have to modify whichever GM windage tray you go with. I went with the truck and had to cut roughly 20% of it off. (sorry no pictures were taken unfortunately).



Truck pan vs Holley pan.



L99 water pump showed up. 19207665 aka AC Delco 251-734. Amazon of all places had it for a crazy good price.



My Tanks Inc EFI tank showed up. I've been keeping an eye on Sebtarta's build, as he's using the same tank, and both of us have been waiting months for these to start production. It looks great so far. I went with the GPA-4 fuel pump module.



While at the Charlotte Auto Fair this past weekend I ordered up a Pypes X-Pipe and Race Pro muffler system (SGF11R) which showed up yesterday. I don't have pics of that out of the box yet, but this was a similar system they had on display. Good looking stuff... hoping it sounds pretty good and doesn't drone much. From what I can tell these mufflers are somewhat similar to Magnaflows, and I have ran those on a handful of vehicles.



With any luck, it won't take much to hook the Pypes system up to my headers. I received the collector portion of those a couple weeks ago - 42108hkr. I haven't seen anyone else going the mid tube route with the new Holley stuff, so we'll see how this goes.



Last night I decided to take care of gauge situation and ordered up a tach / volt / oil / water gauge set from Speedhut.

While the car is nowhere near where I was hoping it'd be at this point, I'm slowly moving forward and am slowly crossing things off the to buy list (Roadkill style, for anyone that watches that on Youtube. If you don't, start now. You're welcome). I'll be ordering up my harness from John at PSI tomorrow and will be relieved once that is on the way. After that, I pretty much just need to order up a 4th gen rad/fan setup and finish up piecing together the fuel system... and then put it together.

I'm going to be on a flight back to Michigan at the end of the month to go work on her with the goal to fire her up and and hear her for the first time.

Sebtarta

iTrader: (1)

Nice on the tank. Good job on the exhaust. I have had my eye on that exhaust since day one, so hurry up and mounted and let me know how it fits!

LSChevelle

Nice work!

This thing is going to be a riot. Love the Roadkill reference! That show is pure gold.

rennat_2006

iTrader: (10)

Anymore details on that tank? Ive been waiting for the release of them but it kept getting put off like you obviously know. I had the money set aside april 1st then it got pushed back so i spent it on a custom cam, springs, lifters, etc.

98-02 camaro radiator fits pretty good believe it or not. If i remember correctly i ground off the camaro mounting tabs on the front of the radiator and trimmed a little bit off of the factory battery tray if you are leaving the battery in stock location.

Toddoky

I suspect that sixgunsuperman99 is going to have his hands full adapting the Pypes system to the wide spread of the Hooker header collectors and the fact that the Hooker headers were designed to clear the high-clearance arches of the Hooker LS swap crossmembers, which means the Pypes system will most likely be leaving ground clearance on the table that could have been better optimized on the Nova. It's interesting that the same Pypes kit is listed to fit all 2nd-gen F-body and 3rd-gen Nova vehicles, even though the height and contour of the of the Nova floor pan are considerably different than that of a2nd-gen F-body. I'm following this one also as there will be a lot that will be learned from sixgun's experience that can then be compared, for everyone's benefit, to the fitment/installation of the new Hooker Nova exhaust systems that were developed specifically for use with all the other Hooker LS swap parts he's gathered for his project. Time to get comfortable and crack open a beer or two and see what develops.

sixgunsuperman99

iTrader: (2)

Believe me, no one is more anxious to crank this up and hear it than me. But based off of Toddoky's post, this isn't going to be a bolt on.

Keep me posted on how the tank goes on your build.

With stock LQ4 power, it's not going to be fast, but I will definitely settle for riot status. It's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow, right? lol.

Did you see Finnegan and Freiburger are doing another show starting the end of the month called Hot Rod Garage? It sounds like they're diving into the related builds more in depth on the technical side. Can't wait to see the Blasphemi up and running.

Check out Sebtarta's Booboo project build - he's a bit ahead of me with the tank. I know I had mine pre-ordered since roughly December, so they must have sold out their first production run?

Do you have any pictures of the install on that radiator? This is the last major piece I have to figure out. I may look into trying to adapt the fans to the factory Nova rad.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/conversio...-ls-4l65e.html

Speaking of things you don't want to hear from the man himself... Should I be nervous that both the Pypes rep and Holley's engineer have both responded with saying they both want to know how this works out? It's sounding like cracking open a case of beer is going to be needed. If all else fails, I have access to a pipe bender, but seeing as I'm on such a time crunch, I was hoping this was going to be the easy way out.

This is a poor picture, but... thoughts? I'm having a hell of a time conceptualizing this from 1000 miles away, but I'll be back in Michigan at the car in a couple short weeks to see this all for myself.

I was under the impression the matching exhaust was still a few months out yet? I'm very curious to see where the Pypes system lines up with the cutouts in the trans crossmember. I'm thinking we'll probably have to bend up new collector to x-pipe pieces, and hopefully it's smooth sailing from there.

sprech

iTrader: (1)

I'm told the install on my Firebird was very smooth for the pipes set up. I had to pick up a set of 45* stainless pipes to connect to the mid-length headers, but overall the system got high marks.

rennat_2006

iTrader: (10)

I will get you some pictures. Im running 98-02 camaro fans on the radiator also. I had a nice alum. Sbc radiator in it but it was too thick to get a fan between it and the water pump with how my motor sits. I figure of this radiator will keep a ls1 cool in the tight area of a camaro i shouldnt have any problems with it keeping one cool in a nova.

Toddoky

I'm curious as I know others will be wanting to do the same install behind the Hooker headers as well. What you're attempting is the only way that the fitment of such combinations can be determined as we as manufacturers typically do not perform installs of competitor's products with our own.

We were able to gain ground quickly on the development of the Nova systems and so are slightly ahead of schedule on their release (now there's something that doesn't happen very often). The 3" systems hit the shelf this morning and the 2.5" systems will hit next week on the 18th.

If you are interested in the characteristics of the Hooker systems, I can give you a few key points that you can compare with specs of the Pypes system if you want.

1.) The Hooker systems were designed to fit only the specific height and contour of the floor of the 1968-72 X-body cars.

2.) The Hooker systems are specifically designed to take advantage of the higher ground clearance features of the Hooker LS swap transmission crossmembers.

3.) The new Hooker mufflers included in the system feature TIG welded 304 stainless steel construction.

4.) The hardware is ALL OE quality or above...as in stainless Torca band clamps, machined barbed end hanger rods and two trick laser cut specific rear tailpipe hangers.

5.) No welding or cutting is required to install the Hooker 3" system behind the new Hooker long tubes, or the 1-7/8" mid-length headers that use the available 3" adapter pipes. Your 2.5" adapters will install directly to the 2.5" Hooker system.

I believe everything is going to work out fine for you, but you will more or less have the same experience everyone else has had to this point with off-the-shelf parts that were not specifically designed to work with one another...that experience (100's of dollars of universal fit parts and a bucket load of unknown compatibility to keep things interesting) is exactly what I'm tasked with changing with the design of the new Hooker LS swap kit components. The full system approach doesn't work for everyone, but we're confident there's more than a handful of guys our there that want to eliminate some of the guess work and aggravation that is inherent to these swaps and improve the quality of the end product. If there's anything I can do to assist you in getting your combination to work just let me know. The case of beer you mentioned sounds like a good idea, but don't break into it until after the job is done.

ryanleiker

iTrader: (2)

I'm running a 4th gen f-body radiator with matching fans. Fits fine with some trimming. I was going to run the matching a/c condenser but the clips/bracketry takes up a lot of unnecessary real estate so I'm going to go with a smaller universal one. I have 1" setback plates.

sixgunsuperman99

iTrader: (2)

I'm condensing a bit from my main thread over on Pro-touring, so if there are few jumps in progress, it's probably covered over there. I had a pretty large jump in progress as I went back home to work on the car for a long weekend with a lot of long days.

Hooker engine mounts installed on subframe.



Speedhuts mounted in dash. The guy who owned the car before cut these holes for the gauges, so I'm just swapping the old gauges with these. I can't quite figure out how mount these new ones in with a trim ring that props them up at an angle, so visibility isn't the greatest from the driver's seat, but they're not too bad flat in the dash. I'm really happy with how nice they look in person and am anxious to see them lit up.



Speedhut tach. It's only about two inches thick, so it's mounted really close to the dash vs the old sunpro I pulled out. Wiring is obviously not completed on the gauges.


Engine and trans finally mated up.




Speaking of finally... the motor and trans are now installed! LS1 intake is on, alternator bracket is cut and ready for Dirty Dingo idler relocation bracket, and water pump is installed. I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to finally take this picture. The alternator and bracket are both looking pretty rough, but they'll be getting attention later to make them look a little better.



That being said, I'm pretty bummed out about the fact that I'm still running the truck bracket. I've been planning on picking up one of the many alternator relocation kits out there, but I failed to realize that more or less every one of the brackets requires you to switch over to a remote reservoir power steering pump, like a Corvette pump. When I ordered my Lee box, it was setup for the PSI/flow of a truck pump, which is a bit different than the Vette pump, so, FYI to anyone else contemplating something similar.

PSI harness laid out on the floor. The picture above already shows this installed, but hey, who cares about chronological order. Retaining my heater box definitely limited the places I could cut hole in the dash for this, so I'm beginning to see why everyone goes for the smooth firewalls and tucking all of the dash holes behind the motor. But... if it's not the prettiest car in the car (it's not, and won't be), I won't be too upset, as goal #1 has been function over form, and I prefer retaining my heater. On a sidenote, the PSI harness looks really nice. Make sure you have two people to feed the harness through the firewall, as there are a lot of wires and connectors to shove through a 2" hole.



Driver's side header clearance. Also note, my Lee steering box is in. Per the directions, dropping the driver's header in at the same time as the motor and trans is the way to go. There is plenty of clearance over here.



Also plenty of clearance on the passenger side. It's a little tight with the heater core hoses, but it looks like I'll be able to retain my small block core.



As for the transmission clearance with the Magnum, I had to cut, a bit. The top side wasn't so bad, and only had to get about a half inch into the seat brace... (old shifter nasty-*** cutout is still partially there)...



...but the bottom wide was a different story. I had to cut through the majority of the seat brace to clear the nub of the Magnum that juts out behind the shifter. It was resting right on the support with the trans mount in.



I picked up a Griffin 8-00009-LS radiator for a 69 Camaro because I wanted to utilize the side mount tabs to mount the radiator to the core support. I also picked up a new set LS1 F-Body fans (Dorman 620-634) to use, and had PSI send me a pair of fan relays that will plug right into these and be controlled by my computer. The fans are about 10% bigger than I'd like them to be, but I think I can make this work with a little cutting on the fan shroud. I'm currently scratching my head on how to mount the fans. Also, if I'm going down the wrong road here, or if anyone has any suggestions, please speak up now before I start cutting the fans.



I've had a set of 15" late 80's Z28 / early 70's Chevelle SS wheels I've been hanging onto for a while and decided to throw them on. I still need trim rings and center caps, so the look isn't entirely finished, but I think it's going to look pretty good. I couldn't find any cheapish 18's off the shelf with enough backspacing, so I've decided to drive it like this for a while, let the suspension settle, and probably get some custom wheels built in 6 months or a year or so.