Zio

Hey guys I want to put either an LT1 or LS1 ina 1980 transam. I know that a LS1 is a far better engine in almost every aspect. But from what I have seen there is no way that I would even finsih this project in the next 2 years if I want to put an LS1 in it. The LT1 seems like a better alternative for me. I plan on a LS1 or LT1 with a 6 speed. doing almost all the work my self and not doing any mods to the engine besides headers, does anyone have an average cost of both swaps?

thanks
Tom

John B

iTrader: (10)

You can look at my link that I just posted for the LS1 apporximate cost!

Formula301

Hey Zio, I too have a 1980 Bird, a Formula to be exact. I have been looking into doing both for a few months now. I dont have the money but its something I'd like to do in the near future. So I've been kept back to just getting all the info I need to do it and what is needed for the swap, and how much it will cost. First of all, when doing the LS1 swap, theres gonna be a lot of stuff that you need to get, and that goes for the LT1 also. The big price difference you will have is in actually buying the engine/transmission combo. Most LS1/T56 combos sell for about $4000-$5000 on ebay, with some either a little higher or little lower. An LT1/T56 combo you could probably get for $2000 or lower or a little more, it depends on mileage and what it came out of. As far as everything else, your still gonna be needing everything that the LS1 would need pretty much. I'm not sure how much you can do yourself, but you need Headers (about $600-700), a wiring harness (preferrably from speartech), this cost varies just a little depending on LS1 or LT1 and could be bout I think $700 for LS1 harness. Then you need the engine mounts, most likely from www.hotrodlane.cc. Not sure of price on those. There are other things you need to factor in too. Cooling, Gas delivery, notching subframe for accessory clearence, modifying tranny crossmember, shortening driveshaft. I've added up basically all the stuff to do a basic swap like you want to do, no engine mods cept headers, and its almost $10,000. Take a look at John B's list, his basic conversion was almost $10K. You can cut some money off the price of this maybe if your really handy with welding/torching/wiring. You can keep your wiring harness that you get with the engine if you want to modify it yourself, but you'd still have to get the computer programmed. With the LT1, your going to have basically all the same issues, cept you'll save a little on the engine/tranny combo. I'm sure there are other things that I haven't thought of with the LT1 but as far as LS1 goes, thats what you need to do