Hey guys, I've been watching and reading a bunch of different threads on here gathering information for my swap and decided I'd start a build thread for my 89 firebird LQ4 swap.
For starters, I thought I'd give a little background about myself.. I'm going to Southern Illinois University for automotive technology starting my sixth semester out of eight. I first got interested in cars when I was lucky enough for my dad to assist me in buying me a 2010 Camaro V6 for my birthday when I was in high school and immediately fell in love with working on cars. I've modded that car quite a bit but wanted to tackle something bigger. Soooo, that brings me to this car.
I found this car through a co-worker when I worked at Hale's Automotive in Marion, Illinois a couple of summers ago, and he told me about his friend that was selling a 1989 Firebird Formula WS6 with an L31 Vortec from a 1997 Silverado. The cool thing about the car is that the interior was perfect besides the back seat top being torn up from sun damage. There was no dash cracking, everything worked perfectly (besides the headlight motors), and there was no rust on the body at all! Best part being the car only had 81,xxx miles on it which was amazing for a 24 year old car. The only reason the car had a new motor was because the old motor (305 I have been lead to believe through research & VIN decoding) was hydro-locked and needed replacing. So I went to look at the car and ended up buying it a week later for $2800. The only downsides were that obviously the paint was peeling everywhere along the top and also the automatic transmission only worked in first and reverse, so I had my best buddy, whose name here on LSJuanTech is That_One_Person, help tow the car home back to Newburgh, Indiana, right next to Evansville, Indiana. Here are some pictures when I first looked at the car.

 

Here are some pics from when my friend Cody towed the car home as well as a pic from when I had the car on the lift to take the driveshaft out. The scary thing is that on the uhaul tow dolly, there are two straps around each front tire and a chain that goes through the A arm or somewhere on the front. When we got home, after a 2.5 hour drive, we realized that both straps had fell off and one of the chains had as well so the car was being held on by one chain.


That's me standing next to the Yukon and that's also my Camaro sitting behind the firebird.

 

first thing I did was replace the shifting governor in the 700R4 and it shifted just fine then I took it out on the road and snapped a belt while out on a drive so I had to park the car while I went back to college for awhile. After I had replaced that and then changed the oil in the motor, I decided to make the 100 mile trek from Evansville to Carbondale and as soon as I got about 15 miles away from my apartment, I started hearing a grinding sound during stops so I parked the car when I got to the apartment and the next day, the transmission wouldn't shift anymore so I had to look for another 700R4. Luckily, a guy I worked with had a 700R4 that his brother was selling so I swapped the trans out at the new automotive center at SIU and it worked great! It had a B&M shift kit in it and would chirp tires shifting from second to third. While I was at it, I also replaced the light motors for the headlights since they didn't work and were completely stripped inside the gear..Bad thing is that they went up automatically but wouldn't go down so I'm guessing I need a new module. Then after that was fixed, I tried to drive the car back home during winter break at night after work and it snapped another belt.. turned out the air compressor was intermittently locking up which is what caused both belts to shred so I had Hale's tow the car back to the shop and I put an A/C bypass pulley on and apparently when I replaced that, I accidentally pulled the positive wire from the choke on the carb off and didn't realize it and the car was running super rich and was dumping wayyyy too much fuel into the motor. I didn't know what to do while I was driving home so parked it at Huck's in Eldorado, IL and then my brother picked me up and drove me home. then I went to the car and noticed the wire was unplugged then drove it home and parked it for awhile.

 

My parents bought me a megashifter for christmas and the install went pretty smooth but I was having a bit of trouble with the wiring for the PNP switch but got it taken care of and the shifter looked great and worked great as well!

 

Next, over my spring break of my sophomore year, I decided to strip the car as much as I could and didn't expect to get as far as I did, but I managed to pull the engine and transmission. While me and Cody, That_One_Person, were pulling the transmission, we had an odd placement of my jack (right under the bellhousing) and a rolling creeper under the tail shaft and we kept wiggling the transmission before we found out we forgot two bolts on the engine.. so we undid those bolts and wiggled like before. When it popped off immediately, it crushed Cody's finger in between the jack and bellhousing and had to take a 3 AM trip to the E.R. Surprisingly enough, it didn't even break skin but it did manage to hurt his finger pretty bad and had to have a splint on his finger for a couple of weeks.

 

I honestly have to say that these engine bays are huge! So much bigger than I thought when the motor was in there... here's a pic I snagged while everything was out and I was waiting for funds to buy my LQ4.

 

I spent all summer saving up for my LQ4 because I was working at Raben Tire back home in Newburgh and wasn't bringing much in unfortunately..The motor is from a 2002 Silverado (so they say, but the piston tops look different than what came in the LQ4.. So I'm wondering about that and wil post a pic later of the piston tops in a later picture.. but after I finally bought the motor for $1070 from AAA Auto Sales on the West Side of Evansville, we picked it up that day in my friend's 1998 Cummins dually which definitely got the job done! We stopped at Moe's for lunch and I snagged the middle picture while we were there. I'm the dork with the dumb smile, that's Cody in the back, and my friend Tim who helped haul the motor.

 

Here's the first round of mods that I had saved up for and bought.. starting with a Tick Performance Stage 3 Polluter V2 cam (239/244 | .62x”/.59x” | LSA112+3 is the cam spec, which is absolutely massive!), LS2 timing chain, cam sprocket, and crank snout sprocket, along with ARP cam bolts and Harmonic Balancer bolt. Cody also bought me LS7 lifters for the motor just cause which was really really cool of him! Pics included!




here's the stock cam on the bottom and the Polluter on top



Here's an interesting view of the difference between the LQ4 and LS2 timing chains. the LS2 is obviously on the right.



Here's everything bolted up on the front which was pretty neat looking!

 

Got some parts I found on the parts classified here as well as some stuff from Ebay for really good prices. I got a harmonic balancer from 98TransAmWs-6



and also clamshell mounts from TPI_Parts on ebay. One already had an energy bushing in it and the other was just a completely stock mount.



And while I was at it, I found a deal from Natejk here on the Tech on a set of 243s for a price I couldn't pass up on!

 

For christmas, my parents got me an F-body oil pan, ARP 2000 connecting rod bolts, as well as a 4th gen LS gas tank with fuel pump and everything! Also got 2 energy suspension mounts and one was correct and the other appeared to be for an LT1 camaro.. So I sent them an email regarding my situation, and I got this little dinky bushing in the middle picture sent to me as the "correct one"... so one last time, I emailed them and got the correct one sent to me for sure and I managed to get both clamshells bolted up and installed onto the motor and the F-body pan and gaskets, LS2 timing chain dampener and dampener mount from Trick Flow (but forgot to take pics of those), timing cover, and harmonic balancer & ARP bolt all installed finally! Then last but not least, I got my water pump installed that I bought from a member here from 02_camaroZ28
Also forgot to add that I got my ported LS6 oil pump from TSP and also installed that which just looks really killer! I can tell it's a nice piece.











Here's a pic of the first clamshell installed along with the F-body oil pan.. Can anyone tell me what motor this is judging by the piston tops in this picture?

 

Looking good! How did you align the front cover?

Andrew

 

I aligned it by running down all of the front timing cover bolts a couple turns from being finger tight, put the oil pan on and did the same with those bolts into the timing cover, put the harmonic dampener on by using some M16 all thread with washers, a spacer, and nuts to screw into the crank, then using the spacer, washers and nuts to push the balancer on, took that out and used my old bolt to tighten to 240 ft-lbs, then took it out and tightened my ARP bolt to their recommended torque, then I spun the crank around a couple of revolutions, then torqued all timing cover bolts as well as oil pan bolts to spec.

Used this video to make my own installer from GhettoCruiser (I think) here from LS1Tech from his LS swap journal on YouTube: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JXATKfIZyTw

 

Here's my ARP 2000 connecting rod bolt install. Went pretty smooth and did the trick that is suggested by most people and on ARP's install guide if you don't have a bolt-stretch gauge, which is to tighten to 45 ft-lbs, undo, retighten to same torque, undo, and torque to 45 a third time and you're done. Using ARP ultra-torque lube as well, of course.

 

Cody and I worked on the car at about 8 in the morning this day and we got under the car and pulled the rest of the exhaust out from under the car.. but we couldn't wiggle it out so we went to Home Depot and Cody bought a Milwaukee M18 Sawzall and we cut through the whole exhaust in about 5 minutes and wiggled it out. Then we took a bunch of other metal stuff that we had laying around and went to the scrap yard in my mom's mini-van and sold 140 lbs of metal for a grand total of... $11.90.. hahaha. Not much but it's better than nothing! here's a couple pics from that just for gits and shiggles.

 

Last thing and I'll be completely caught up to where I am now and then I'll stop being a pic *****. haha. This is when I had my friends over to help take the dash and the A/C ducting and heater/A/C box out of the car cuz I will not be running A/C or heat in this car. I had my friend Eric over who has a cammed and straight piped 97 LT1 Camaro, Matt who has an 89 Camaro Z28 with a 350, Nick and his 2010 Powerstroke F250, and then Cody was driving his 94 LT1 Camaro.

And here's a pic of the dash back in with the ducting out and the speakers still out for now.. haha. It's pretty empty in there!

EDIT: pics will not update, will add as soon as possible!

 

Looks like its 6.0 LQ4 with those dished pistons

 

Keep on chipping away, I'm gonna sub for future updates. I love a build that takes time and the hard work can be shown!

 

I think the front cover Andrew (Project GatTagO) meant was the front cover on the oil pump.
It's VERY important to either shim or use a SacCityCorvette alignment tool when installing a oil pump. Failure to do so WILL result in SERIOUS engine damage.

You're very lucky to have LS engines around during your youth/gear head days. Keep up the good work !!

 

Saccitycorvette's website says the oil pump alignment tool is no longer available.

OP - that muffler you scrapped looked like a flowmaster. You could have sold that for some project money. Try selling the parts you won't be using on thirdgen.org

 

Then I hope he used the feeler gauge method. IIRC, its…..…002 " But I'd try a SEARCH or research it. I've read quite a few people on here merely tossing it on and tightening it up only to scrap their engine. Ok. I am done.