What kinda psi these things need? I've got a craftsman electric impact (2700bpm it says on the side.. doesn't specify torque. It's 30 years old or so..) and an IR consumer grade pneumatic. Neither of em can budge it.

air compressor is a freebie "here I want this outta my garage" type thing from my dad. it's from about 1975. It leaks a lot, has probably 18psi at the most.

 

18?
mine operates 100-120psi

 

I think dad told me it's peak was 18. I'll check with him. The thing doesn't have a gauge on it. Might be time to look for a new one.. Once my 350 is gone this weekend (71 4 bolt a co-worker bought from me like LAST NOVEMBER and still hasn't gotten it..) I'll have a nice spot for a vertical tank compressor. Might wanna swing by tractor supply and see what they have.

 

So my painting job was a little flawed. TBH I didn't want to paint the heads, but without destroying the finish on the heads I couldn't get them cleaned of jasper's paint so I went with plan B.

I'll be cleaning up the valve covers. I thought about painting them too but I dunno.. seems silly.. It's about how it PERFORMS not how pretty it is. If I blow it up or something and the block is still good, maybe I'll go the whole 9 yards and have it powder coated but for now, it's fine. You can't see the block with the hood open anyway.

I updated the first post to include part numbers and changeover parts required to convert an ls1 car to an LQ4. This is obviously not all of them as I'm still studying/reading/building my list and as I find them all, I will post them. The part numbers are linked where available for other people to source parts if they are having trouble.. but really.. if I can find it.. they probably can too.

So it'll be this weekend before the crank pulley is off, and.. save any lotto winnings, September before I order any parts, this gives me a chance to discuss the oh so fun part of any engine build.. your goals, and the direction to take with it.

Now I've spoken with several people on this and am getting different opinions. (you know what they say about opinions..)

My MAIN GOAL out of this car is to have something fun to drive. It's that simple.. To expand on this a little.. street/strip, heavy emphasis on street. I want to be able to commute 5 days a week in this car, take it on long road trips, and have fun doing both. I also want to be able to keep up with and/or destroy everything else on the road.

I think a good "starter" power for me, since this is a budget build, would be ~400whp. It's more whp than any car I've ever owned, and since my c6 corvette that I owned for a messily 5 months (long story.. raw deal, high interest rate, no warranty, lots of problems.. crappy dealer.. I could go on.. but that's behind me now.) with the right suspension it should hook up quite nice and give me what I'm looking for.

Drag numbers.. well I'd be content with being well in the 12s, ecstatic if it were in the high 11s, and amazed if it were any faster than that. This of course is predicated on a skilled driver, proper suspension, a perfect launch etc. I'm not about splitting hairs on this part really.. it's more about how it FEELS than what numbers it puts down really.

So Overall powertrain as of right now:
*lq4 short block as-is
* new cam (see below)
*stock 317 heads w/ new valve springs
*ls6 intake, upgraded injectors.. 36#? 42#? If you have an opinion I'd love to hear, but this will be covered more in depth later.
*new intank fuel pump and sending unit (just while I'm in there.. may as well hit em both.)
*keep all accessories, daily driver type car, so keep a/c keep p/s p/b etc.
*4L80e conversion 3200? 3600 stall? Again daily driver, thinkin 3600 is probably my ceiling, depends on cam I know..
*12 bolt or 9" or dana 60 or other.. don't care, 10 bolt's gotta go, it's grinding now and won't like this engine 3.23 posi


opinions welcome! and appreciated.

Cam:
So far I've got numbers that vary pretty wildly.Some people have said 212/218 like the comp cams XR265HR others have been a bit higher, the TSP Torquer 3, 231/234.

It's also not out of the question.. though a bit budget pricey.. to swap heads. I have a friend pushing me hard to run L92 heads and an ls3 intake. about $800 for a pair of the L92 heads from GM, different cam obv. Bumps compression up from the 10.5 (to what? 9.5? 9?) ls3 intake used about $300-350 from what I've been seeing around here lately. stock fuel rail and injectors is probably what I'd use there, with a cable based TB on the front end.

 

You can go with a bigger cam in the LQ4 if you bump the compression and it will drive great. The custom cam in my LQ4 is about the size of a MS3 and it has great street manners. I'm sure something along the lines of a Torquer v2 or v3 would work well.

Some people will get in a twist over this, but you don't HAVE to drill/tap for that third alternator bolt if you don't want. I've been running without it for months with no problems, and I know of many other members, including Predator-Z, who are doing the same thing.

Looking forward to the rest of your build.

 

Thanks Q. I remember reading the thread on that very topic actually. I guess I don't quite understand how that works as I have not yet seen the alternator bracket. I figure I'll make this call during the swap. Templating the alt. bracket on the motor and drilling doesn't seem like a TERRIBLE thing, but it is one more chance for error on my part. It'd cost a little too, I don't know that I have a metric tap.

doing some research since the end of the day yesterday on the L92/ls3 top end swap.

So far in order to do this, there's a few small changes, and I'm not yet sure if the cost to benefit ratio is worth it.

Here's what I have so far:
* L92 heads GM PN 12582713 Price is ~ $400 EACH so ~ $800 for the pair
* doing a cam swap means new springs for these. I plan to do that anyway, easier to swap springs without worrying about valves falling into the cylinder so that's a bonus and no additional cost
* New head gasket's required, not a problem, but a small cost.
* Ls3 intake has a few differences, most notably being the fuel rail and injectors. This can be remedied by using a katech ls1 adapter, allowing you to run ls1 fuel rails and injectors in an ls3 intake. (PN kata4674)
* Ls3 intake has a different map sensor, though it works, it needs an adapter. Katech makes one, I am unable to find the part number but it seems to be available in a quick search here
* Ls3 intake stock has DBW, so an aftermarket TB is required, I've seen many out there, no big deal.
* Ls3 intakes.. being DBW has no cable aseembly, so you need one. Found it at SPDC. SD90BRKT

The added cost over my current setup is about $1000 to go from 317s, ls6 intake, to L92, ls3 intake, all other things considered equal. Am I going to see $1000 worth of real performance gains from this swap? Is there anything I'm missing here? I want to use all stock ls1 computers and as many ls1 components as possible to make this swap easy and painless.

 

i remember when u first got this car.. and you gave it new life

I salute u sir

 

Take a look at this thread, if you haven't seen it already. Looks like the L92s work well.

https://ls1tech.com/forums/dynamomet...o-results.html

 

nice. Thanks for the link! I'm seriously considering this one.. I'm at a great point now to price and plan all this out. I think that's the direction to go. That'd put me above my expected power numbers, and that'd be pleasant. I'm glad he details his cam too.

Yea, I'm thinking about calling this car "junkyard Z" because it wasn't long from one when I bought it, and most of the replacement parts are coming from them too.

 

Looking pretty good so far darkfox. Sounds like you got a hell of a deal on that LQ4. Well over $650 worth of parts there.

 

OK, so I decided to do the L92 head swap, and that prompted me to get 2 things done.

First.. loosen the crank pulley bolt. This was no easy task but was accomplished with this thread:

https://ls1tech.com/forums/generatio...moval-tip.html

I'll do the rest later, for now I just wanted the bolt loose.

So here's the pistons. Most certainly an LQ4. We already knew this.. of course.. but..




I cleaned up one of the pistons with a rag damp with brake cleaner. I didn't want the brake cleaner leaking down so I didn't spray it directly.



I've heard people mention a "lip" on these engines as an indication of wear. Not knowing exactly what they mean, I observed this:



So.. any experts wanna chime in? See anything out of the ordinary? I still hold that this is a 30-40k mile motor. also, note the corrosion on the stud for the head bolt.



One thing you may notice in this shot is my jar. I'm a bit too much of a fan of salsa. My favorite is walnut acers black bean and corn salsa. You can get it at most any publix and SOMETIMES at an ingles, if you know what either of these stores are.

Anyway, I save the jars and wash them out, then when I work on something like this I use the jar to store parts. I have 3 for this engine so far. I generally keep them by category of part. For instance this one holds everything for 1 head. I have a label printer at work that I can use to stick a permanent label on em, but if you're just temporarily using it like I am, some blue painter's tape and a permanent marker does the job. I've learned (the hard way. ) from restorations and projects that you ALWAYS want to label things. Otherwise 4 months later you'll pick up a part off the shelf and go "whattya think this goes to?" to which anyone helping will undoubtedly reply "I dunno.. you were supposed to keep track of that."

one thing I see that bugs me is the water jacket seems to be covered over by gasket..

 

other side:







Now I gotta find a gasket scraper and prepare the deck for new heads, and find a good way to clean the pistons.

 

You can use a plastic windshield scraper first then I use a razor for the finishing stuff, just have to be super careful and make sure you don't GOUGE anything.

 

this might be sticky worthy, if you can combine a lot of the information from the other threads you've used and put it all into one, LOTS of pictures here, hopefully you keep up as you build it and progress

nice work

 

Definitely some great info!

 

No pics of this, but yesterday I took some B-12 chem tool to the piston faces.

I brought each one to TDC (or near it..) and sprayed it LIGHTLY on the piston surface as well as some rags.

I used cheap disposal rags from lowes. You can actually get these in the paint section at lowes, a big pack of like 48 for $5 or so. They make great shop rags when you need something tough, but still disposable.

After I finished each one (this is sort of a "firt pass.) I didn't have a scotchbrite pad or even a toothbrush to clean them with.. so there's still some carbon.) I took another rag and soaked it in fresh oil, and rubbed it on the cylinder walls and on the piston face. As I rotated the engine I made sure the lowest ones had a little oil in the cylinder and then I soaked 2 more rags in oil and stuffed them in the lowest holes, then covered both deck with rags.

I put my pushrods and rockers in Mott's applesauce jars, the large ones. They're JUST big enough to hold them. (love mott's applesauce.. )

It's gonna be a little while before I get all my parts together. Before I put the heads on I have to decide on a cam, because that will determine what I need to do with my springs.

When an engine is a shortblock like this I think everyone here would agree is the best time to do any mods you plan to do. After putting it in the car it can be a lot harder.

I'm eyeing this ARP Bolt kit:

534-9805 for the engine. I still have all the bolts I'm taking out obviously, not sure what I'll do just yet.

Also, when following the crank pulley removal, I'll need to put it back on. I could probably fab something with a small piece of pipe and a long bolt, or apparently scoggin dickey has this handy little tool with part number SD6628 that's ready made.

 

Check this out:

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles...ads/index.html

EDIT: just noticed that theyr'e wrong. That's not an LQ4, it's a 9, look at this photo:

http://www.carcraft.com/techarticles.../photo_06.html

 

+1. I've been following this as I've been eyeing the same swap.

 

Thanks guys.

What I plan to do is post all my part numbers, resources, and eventually dyno numbers on this build.

I know when I started looking what I wanted to do was basically find a vehile with the numbers/performance/cost that I wanted, and basically "copy" that person. With that in mind, I'd like to post my resources for everyone so that if they want, they can "copy" mine.

I have a spreadsheet of parts and numbers so far, the short answer so far is this:

Lq4 bottom end stock
Ls3 intake stock with adapters to run Ls1 fuel rails and injectors, a cable TB etc.
L92 heads with upgraded springs
Ls6 TSP oil pump
cam ~ 220s
4L80E salvage pull with shift kit and higher stall
new fuel pump and sending unit (because mine is acting up and MAY be cutting out)
exhaust... we'll see.
rearend.. again we'll see. Probably a 3.23.

I'm expecting ~ $5k in this motor, I hope to have less and that may happen since I got the bottom end so cheap (really lucked up there..) I'll try and document all of that as well. Obviously anyone looking at doing this if their shortblock is $1200 instead of $650 (average I found for a good complete LQ4 takeout was $1200-$2500, the higher end was mostly 10-20k mile motors though and was rare.)


I'm estimating 400-470RWHP as my goal range, street driving as my first priority, 1/4 mile 2nd. I'm expecting mid 12s-high 11s out of it.

From what i've been reading/studying it doesn't sound uncharacteristic of the build to be within this range.

Oh, and as to how I found the motor?

I would suggest anyone looking for a quality take-out to go to www.car-part.com

An LQ4 has a U as the 8th digit in the VIN, an LQ9 has an N.

LQ4s were common in GMC/Chevrolet Sierra/Silverado 2500/3500 non-diesel trucks from 99-+ They used the 24x reluctor wheel AT LEAST to 2003.. some have said up to 2006 on these motors.

LQ9s are common in Cadillac Escalades and SOME high performance vehicles. I'm not certain of a silverado SS has a 4 or 9, check the VIN for that 8th digit to get your best informed guess.

LQ4s have dished pistons and a ~9.5:1 compression. The rods are a little bit thinner/less beefy as well.

LQ9s have flat top pistons and ~10:1 compression. The rods are a bit beefier, the whole piston/rod assembly looks beefier actually. The crank should be the same, as is the bore/stroke.

The LQ4/9 use the same 317 heads, the compression variance is the piston alone. To my knowledge the pistons/rods are the ONLY differences between a 9 and a 4, meaning.. if you are handy with the swap, you can effectively make a 9 a 4 or a 4 a 9 if you really wanted to with minimal parts.

 

keep it coming, great info!