DarkBLood

Hi all. I thought I would document one of our builds here. This is a 1980 Firebird. Which originally came with a th400 and a 400ci. It also had traction bars, and subframe connectors. The car is overall very clean.
The goal is to swap this on a budget. I used a 6.0L iron block, and it will in the future be taking some boost .

DarkBLood

We used a Tanks Inc PA-5 system. I've played with external pumps in the past, and the annoyance of sometimes having to prime the pump is just not something Im a fan of. They are cheaper and easier to work with, and the ability to repair/swap them out also makes them attractive. But I think for the price of the Tanks inc system at about $250USD is pretty dam good. Not to mention with a 340LPH pump, it should be sufficient for our application.

We used a 4.25" hole saw to the gas tank on the flattest spot of the tank. And I measured the tank depth to cut the tanks bracket to size. I left about 1/8" of a gap from touching the bottom of the tank when installed. I used a wire brush to clean the rim where the gasket will sit, and I also hammer out the flange to ensure it had a flat surface. Drilled out all 16 holes.

After installing the fuel pump, I power washed down the tank, and cleaned up any rust, and painted it with a rocker-guard type paint. I also filled the 2 remaining ports on the tank with ( the right stuff ) silicone. as we wont be using those for venting, nor a return.


The only nasty part about this system, is that due to the fittings, it does protrude a lot taller than the factory lines.. so when we installed the tank, we had to blow a hole in the trunk, and worry about covering it up afterward.



tres bien!

DarkBLood

motor build.
Starting with a 6.0L iron block. The block didn't need much done to it other than some cleaning, and a light hone.

Bottom end is pretty standard, it's an LY6, and we used a set of Hastings rings and Gapped them to 0.028". and we used a set of Clevite bearings, MS-2199P. we did have to line hone the block with those bearings in combination with the ARP studs 234-5608.
And since we will in the future add boost, I used a BTR stage 3 boost cam 33035144R1 which according to BTR at this date, is discontinued. It has 230/235 .616"/.614" 114+4

Timing chain was replaced with just a standard summit racing one. And we upgraded the oil pump to a Melling 10295 SV/HP


Oil pan used was an aftermarket ( NON-holley ) 302-1. based on a lot of the threads on this forum, it seems like this is one of the very few pans that fit a second gen properly. And since it was dirt cheap on amazon,

We used the stock Cathedral port heads, but instead of sending them out to the machine shop, I checked them for flatness, and they were within spec. Sooooo I just used a glass table with some light grit sandpaper taped down. and used some WD-40 to clean up the heads a bit.
I did also lap the valves. and installed a set of BTR 630 springs with retainers.


For rockers, the stock rockers were in good shape, so all we did was Upgrade to a bushing kit, and we just used the summit racing kit 141560. I've compared these to the kits offered by BTR and some other brands.. and I could be wrong, but they look identical.. I wonder if it all comes from the same supplier. :O



For intake, we used one of the amazon Chinese intakes. it came with the rails, rubber seals, 102mm throttle body, and all hardware.. dirt cheap, and it worked perfect.


Tada!!!... and yes.. we had to paint it blue.

Jimbo1367

Looks good. Did the rocker trunnion press in or is it float? I’d check them after some miles. I seen a post on LS1Tech were the “brass” wore.

hopefully it wasn’t Summit’s trunnion.

DarkBLood

These are pressed in, but they are also held in with C-clips. They are in fact summit brand ones. I had a look at some other branded ones and they look identical, I however did not have a different brand one on hand to measure tolerances and compare.

I will keep and eye on them and see if we notice any issues. thanks.

Mike Gerace

Great pics!! Nice build!!

DarkBLood

Onto the transmission. We went with a simple T-56. however, I rebuilt it with virtually all new components. The donor transmission was a complete mess, and the more and more I dug into it, the more components needed replacing. So I basically upgraded most if not all the components with Either tremec components or AMP, or with some components we just went budget off rockauto.



For tolerances, I used 0.001" clearance on the input shaft, 0.001" for the main gear cluster, and the countershaft extension also received 0.001". I know there seems to be conflicting opinions on these numbers. but these have worked for all the t56's I've done. I believe Tremec specifies a 0.001" Preload on the cluster, however, I've tried that in the past and only had bearing whine from it, so I had to pull it all apart and redo it.

Pretty straight forward on how to shim. First you install the bearing races alone. Put the housing together and tighten, then you use a Dial indicator to measure how much the input shaft moves in-out, lets say it moves 0.060. So then you find an assortment of shims that give you 0.058-0.059" and insert them. check again. and you should have about 0.001" clearance.

Once all the boring stuff is out of the way. I just spray bombed it. and installed a GM slave cylinder 24264182. and a remote bleeder line.



For the clutch. It might be a bit overkill. But I've used these clutches in the past and they work great. Its a Mcleod RXT twin disc 6405507M. This time around though, I should mention. We received one with 2 stretched studs. I barely hit the torque specs of their manual and the nuts kept spinning. And we had a lot of back and forth with them and it took 4 weeks to get replacement studs. But it was all resolved and got back to the build.


For the clutch pedal conversion I used a Mcleod 1434005QD since were using the Quick disconnect slave. I feel as though I should make a Disclaimer for this. Mcleod uses ( it did at the time when we looked into it ) Generic photos for their master cylinder conversion kits which shows pedals in the kit. and a lot of websites out there claimed this kit comes with pedals. However, it does NOT. when we ordered this from summit racing, we called ahead of time and they assured us the pedals were included. and of course, upon receiving the kit, it didn't. Summit was nice enough to send us a set of brake/clutch pedals for the trouble.

1 thing should be mentioned here. Once that black bracket was installed, it pushed the brake drum forward, therefore pulling the brake pedal with it. So if your brake pedal rod is not adjustable, it may not fully retract to trigger your brake light switch. So what I did was chop the rod, and extend it. Ill add pictures when I get a chance.

DarkBLood

install time!
Dropping the motor in. We already had a thick radiator laying around that we retro fit into the car. But we did need a set of ICT brackets 551519X-3 for the alternator and power steering pump.



For radiator hoses, it seems like there's a dozen ways to run LS swap radiator setups. but we decided to use stainless steel flexible hoses off amazon. Their not too pricey, but they look good, and fit decently after a bit of trial and error. We also used a massive 16" fan.


Sparkplug wires used were a set of Dragon fire SPW1005HS-RD. and headers was a set of speed engineering 25-1026-1. Those wires sit way too close up against the headers, so we used some boot protectors Summit racing 350140BLK.


Still need to clean up the wiring in the engine bay a bit, and one last thing we added to the motor was a catchcan. Just a generic one off amazon.


For exhaust, we did the X-pipe using Speed engineering 25-1033 which came with enough steel to reach the axle dumps. The axle dumps are temporary, were eventually gonna do a different setup, so for now the mufflers are just kinda lightly welded in place. Also it was a set of Flowmaster flowFX. which dam, Im usually a 40s or 44 series kinda guy, but I will have to admit, these flowfx sound awesome, they don't have the annoying drone you get with the other series, and these were half the price... I may use this on my personal car when I get around to it.

Ignore the bungee hangars, I was still welding everything in place. lol


And that wraps up this build. . car drives beautifully after a bunch of tuning. we used a HPtuners unit ( first time ) lots of learning to be done with this thing. but we got it going.


Tada!