Trust me guys- Coming from someone who has used many different manufacturers of headers and many different materials, if you really want a great set of headers with killer quality and fitment, then the Kooks are worth every trick you have to turn to afford them! Yes, these were expensive, mostly because they are T304 stainless, but in our area if you don't use stainless you will be buying a set of headers about every 3-4 years. If you don't mind spending hours in your garage cutting, bending, welding and cursing, by all means, modify a set of the 351 headers. Do a search and you will find some info on people who have used the 351 headers. There is nothing wrong with going either way, just if you take the later of the two, be sure you are good with fabrication!

 

Just a couple of quick under car shots.

 

do you have interior shot of how the 6 speed fits...? thanks

 

kickass project bro. do you know what pans fit with ls1's with the aje kit? that's the kit I plan on getting, and I was wondering what pans clear and give the best ground clearance. thanks.

 

can you show us more pics of the clutch pedal and master cylinder assembly?
i'm thinking of swappint my th-400 to a 6 speed for cruising .

kick *** project by the way !

 

The truck pan will fit, but hangs dangerously low (about 3 inches lower than the K-member). The pan you see in the pictures is a F-Body pan. It sits perfect, does not hang down lower than the K-member and has plenty of clearance all around.

 

Is it on the road yet?

Tipsy

 

i have subscribed to this thread. this is the exact combo i'm looking at doing. hopefully he'll come back on and let us know how the project turned out!!

 

I am going to be doing a 5.3/4l60e swap into my '01 Mustang soon. I have a couple questions for ya.

1. How is the fitment of the AJE? I'm torn between them and QA1.
2. How did you fit the GM powersteering pump to the Ford rack?

Thanks,Mark.

 

1. AJE all the way
2. Its a matter of joining the pressure line and the return just goes to the return for the new pump.

 

Yes, it has been on the road for about a year and a half now. It runs great, and is a blast to drive!

 

We only had one problem with the AJE K-member on our project. As you can see in this picture, we had to snip a corner of the lower control arm mount so that it would clear the Kooks headers. We did have to shim the factory lower control arms to fit the K-member. I don't think you have to do this if you purchase their control arms.



As far as the power steering goes, we had to hybrid the factory Ford rack fittings and the factory LQ4 GM power steering pump fittings. We planned out the routing of the pressure and return lines and took them to a local hydraulic shop to have the soft hose crimped to the hard line fittings.

 

LS GT wrote "you started a project thread that is the exact combo i'm looking at running. i'm very knew to GM products so i'm still learning what all of the different alpahbet combiantions mean. but the LQ4 and the T56 is the combination that looked like the way to go. how did your project turn out? is it on the road? i've heard there could be an issue with using the t56 with the LQ4 because of an extended crank or something? did you run into that problem?"

Yes, it is still on the road today. I believe the "extended crank is only on the earlier 6.0l's, but I could be wrong. The LQ4 we purchased for this project was a 2005 model from a 2500hd pickup. It was originally connected to a 4L80E transmission and had a spacer beneath the flexplate. The spacer was removed, as you can see in the picture below, and the depth of the throwout bearing was checked before installation of the transmission. We cut an aluminum spacer to install beneath the slave cylinder, which corrected the geometry for the clutch disengagement due to the clutch being a used unit instead of a new one. About six months later, we installed a new Spec Stage 3 and the spacer was no longer needed. The geometry of the slave cylinder to throw out bearing in these LS series clutch assemblies is critical. If it is not right, you will either have a "dead" clutch pedal, or no disengaugement of the clutch.

 

What do the upper coil buckets look like?

 

http://www.latemodelrestoration.com/...Spring-Perches

 

Glad to hear it.

Which front accessory brackets are you using? Pictures?

TIA.

Tipsy

 

I was just going to ask that. I have been researching a LQ4/T56 as a low cost way to get into the LS swap but it seems like the small stuff nickels and dimes you to death if you need to buy a different oil pan/intake/accessory drive on the non-LS1 motors to make the stuff work in a swap (as opposed to just buying LS1/T56).

 

We used a combination of the brackets from the truck set-up and F-body. The power steering pump and bracket from the truck assembly was retained and we cut the factory alternator bracket off of the top of the power steering bracket. We fabricated our own alternator bracket to "tuck" the alternator below the hood line. The waterpump is a hybrid. We used a aftermarket Fbody pump and used the truck pulley. I had to disassemble the pump and press the Fbody pulley off and press the truck pulley on. Then we drilled the waterpump for the truck tensioner assembly (the bosses are already there, just need to be drilled and tapped).







This is the alternator support bracket

 

Thanks for posting those pics. I was just trying to plan out my belt routing and that is exactly what I needed!
P.S. Did you use an f-body radiator?

 

He is correct. Only the 99 and most 2000 had the longer crankshaft.


Thats is not the factory f-body radiator in the pics above. But the F-body radiator is pretty much a direct bolt it....thats what i used.