Want to do a 6.0 LQ4/9 conversion in your Fbody? I do! and I am..

EDIT: There's a lot of back and forth on this thread (from me really..) So i'll build a bit of an index here so you can skip around.

*1st page has a lot of arrival/tear down of the stock Lq4 truck motor, so read this page first.
*Seals, chain, and other part numbers can be found HERE.
*Cam, lifters, lifter trays, valley plate cover, crank pulley removal are HERE.
*Build parts list will be populated once the project is done. I've changed my mind a million times and given up 2 or 3 times (can't say I'm drama free.. )

Here's what you'll need:
* 1 Lq4/9
* Correct Crank pulley, the truck pulley is spaced out too far I'm eyeing an SLP Underdrive Pulley, GMPP PN 100221
* Ls1 Water pump. The truck pump sticks out too far pulley wise and the water neck is not at the proper angle. There may be other differences. (GM PN 12458934)
* Ls1 Windage Tray (GM PN 12558253)
* Ls1 Oil Pickup Tube (GM PN 12558251)
* Ls1 Oil pan (GM PN 12628771)
* Ls1 Dipstick (GM PN 12551581)
* Ls1 Dipstick tube (GM PN 12551577)
* There's more, I'm still building this list, stay tuned!




So I had another thread trying to fix my ls1, and after some troubleshooting, taking the valve cover off and finding that it's stained very dark, it's a good indicator that the engine has not been well taken care of.. I came to the conclusion the best course of action for that engine was to rebuild it.. well that means it has to come out.. and THAT means..

something better should go in.

So this afternoon I picked up an LQ4 from a yard down the road. Or at least, I think it's an LQ4.



I'm going to be tearing into it and finding out how it looks, what I CAN tell so far, and maybe you guys can help me out here.. it has a sticker on the oil pan (didn't see until after purchase) RE made in USA. (can't see it, it's inside the tire, getting my engine stand back on the 14th.

Where can I find casting numbers?

Should it be here?



cos I don't see anything.

Surely it's a GM block..?



it's a 6.0.. there's a stamping on the front and rear, but I can find no GM stamping, or serial number anywhere. The entire block and heads are painted a flat grey.

anyway.. I plan to rebuild it, so as long as it's sound, no worries.. but I do want to make sure I got SOMETHING useful out of this purchase.

Here's a quick look inside the pass. valve cover:



This one is my ls1:



VAST difference... and promising! It seems this motor was dropped in shortly before the wreck, so itmay be low mileage, now I just need to determine who built it, if it's a GM block.. why would it NOT be a GM block.. and so on.

Oh and..



final destination.

 

There's a serial number on the opposite side, 125xxxx. That's the PN for the block

 

Head casting.



This engine was from a 3500HD, so it seems to have some sort of provision for an external oil cooler. I wonder if I need a delete plate? or.. maybe I should get some sort of oil cooler for the camaro? Could be a good thing yes?



Driver side.

unfortunately I only have 1 manifold. I guess I could sell it, maybe someone here needs one for a turbo swap. Though they normally need 2.. I was disappointed when it was missing one. i figured the truck was hit on that side and it broke it.

 

A little more break down.



Now would be a good time to admit.. I've never been inside an engine, I've never built one, disassembled one, and have very little experience with this.. though.. I do understand how a standard OHV engine works.. and I have a basic set of tools soo.. I can remove bolts and things



I dunno.. but this looks like it got REALLY hot to me?



Plugs on the driver side.

I did some research on the vin for this truck. The truck itself was totaled after it's 3rd wreck, with nearly 300,000 miles on it. So it's understandable that this is not the original motor. The yard told me that the truck had had the engine put in shortly before the wreck (spring 09) so chances are this motor is fairly new.



Here is the reman'd sticker.

Now.. my objective in all this is to take off this head, so I can get a look at the pistons and cylinder walls to see what kind of shape it's in. In a week or so, I'm going to have an engine stand available, so I can then take off the flexplate, water pump and oil pan and inspect the rods and crank.

that last photo tipped me off..



So there it is! The reman company.. and the serial. I'll give them a call.

Any of yall familiar with this company? Jasper Engines?

A google search is NOT promising. Guess as long as the block isn't damaged I can reman it again..

 

i have heard of jasper engines as being a good reputable builder so i think that is good. probably was high mileage and got a rebuild. what year was the truck? i will tell you from my personal experience, some 243s even if stock will raise compression ratio to around 10.2 and give you a real nice boost in both power and torque with whatever cam you decide on. good luck, rob.

 

The truck was a 2003 cab n chassis 3500HD. The carfax says it was purchased in august, then by december it had 35k miles. So.. it was a serious commercial hauler most likely.

The last recorded mileage was in 08 when it was sold to it's 2nd owner.. 225k miles at that point. After it's 3rd wreck, which did NOT total vehicle, the owner seemed to give up on it and sold it to the scrap yard.

So far I have found nothing wrong.. but I haven't been that deep into it. My plans are basically if the bottom end is good, use the shrt block as is, if the bottom end is NOT good.. well.. rebuild it again.

 

Just called and talked to Jasper about the motor.

Motor was purchased in august 09. The truck it was in was totaled in october. That means this motor was ran for TWO MONTHS!

the carfax shows the original owner drove the truck it was in 10k miles a month. The 2nd owner I have no data on, but considering this, this means this is a 30k mile motor tops I'd say..

not too shabby for $650 huh?

engine is bored over 20, with "10" on the rods and mains.

 

I'm at the bottom.



I'm by far no expert, but.. this looks solid to me. I was planning to change the rod bolts.. I'm not planning to do an extreme build on this thing, 220s cam, stock 317 heads, new springs, stock rockers/pushrods (for now.) ls6 intake.. HOPING to see ~400whp with that out of this motor?

 

im also doing a lq4 swap in my t/a..couple tips......

make sure you swap over your ls1 windage tray, the ls1 oil pan will not go on with the lq4 windage tray in there..i experienced this today,
also make sure you tap the block bolt boss where the alternator bracket bolts up while the engine is out, because that would just make sense..lol

good luck!

 

A simple compression check would have told the condition of the rings and valves. But since you have found that is a reman from jasper which is a reman company that has been around for many years. I remember them making reman engines even in the early 80's. Ive heard of duds from just about every reman place...it happens.....to the best of us.

As far as the valve covers being stained ...that doesnt necessarily mean the engine was bad or not taken care of. Its all about what oil is used, how often it was changed and the climate the engine was used in. I got a salvage yard pair of 5.3L LM7 engines and they had over 100K on the clock and had dark valve covers like yours. The one that i have torn down already you could still easily see the crosshatch pattern in the bores. I was really suprised how it appeared there was almost no wear at all on the bores!

Good luck in your build....and remember we all gotta start and learn somewhere. Ask lots of questions, dont rush it, check everything 3 times and then check again. Youll know you did it all right when you are running that engine 100K miles from now!

 

remember that this can be an LQ9 as well, basically the same as the LQ4 but with higher compression. Have you verified if its an LQ4? if you dont wanna pull a head, and have a long sturdy wire like a coat hanger, grounding wire, etc, you can put it down a spark plug hole and feel the top of the piston. if its flat, its an LQ9, if it has dips its the LQ4. check out this link, was reading up on these yesterday, blocks are virtually the same

 

Thanks guys. The engine has 317 heads and was desginated in the vin (8th digit U) as an LQ4. Jasper engines also confirmed it as such.

The engine was only used for 2-3 months before the wreck. Considering the number of miles the 1st owner put on the truck (10k a month) this motor has at the most 30k miles on it, and, I'm no expert (again ) but things look very good inside and seem to reflect such.

I have a spreadsheet of parts that will need to be ordered to make this engine compatible. The part numbers, urls, and prices are also listed in the spreadsheet. (I've been doing a lot of digging here before I made the desicion to buy the lq4.)

My plan is to do a mild build on this engine, then.. if I'm unhappy with the power, consider boost options since it's lower compression.

Or.. for $1500 I can pick up a set of 799 heads, run a 230s cam, and I'd expect pull 30 or so more WHP than my current plan. Since this is a bit of a budget build, and there's already a few thousand $$ in conversion parts on the table, it may be best for me to stick with cheap now, and go with upgrades later if I find myself unhappy.

I haven't taken anything off the table though at this point. Honestly I couldn't be at a better point in a build than right now with a long block on an engine stand to do a head swap, especially since I plan to replace the cam.

The heads I was looking at are the texas speed prc stage 2.5 799s.

http://www.texas-speed.com/p-4-prc-s...ted-heads.aspx

If I'm not gonna do rod bolts (I had planned to but they look great to me.. and I'm afraid I'll take something that's fine and screw it up..) my next step will be to get the crank pulley off, then order my ls1 pan, tray pickup and dipstick and get the bottom end wrapped up.

 

So, I started cleaning the engine today. Oil had rolled out of the dipstick hole and one of the valve covers that I didn't tigthen all the way (I plan to take them back off so I didn't worry about torquing them down or anything..)

in doing so. jasper's paint came off.. My father has been pressuring me to paint this anyway so.. I went ahead and finished cleaning it up and painted it.



I tried ot paint everything jasper had painted, so that includes the heads, even though they're aluminum. The paint may not stay.. engine may wind up looking terrible, but you can only really see the top of it once it's in the car... and as long as it's not going to burst into flames I'm not TOO worried about that.



I'm thinking maybe I could just sorta go with this.. this is just engine enamel on the engine, but maybe I could have the valve covers powder coated or something? sort of go with a black engine type thing? I'm not really building a show car or anything but.. some sense of coordination would be nice.

 

Doing some research here on the key differences. I know there's a lot of info on lq4 swaps into Fbody cars, but it's rather scattered out. Here's what I know so far, and some questions if anyone knows, as I'm unable to find it.

* Crank pulley from trucks are spaced out farther than the ls1 pulley, so it has to be replaced with an ls1 pulley.
*oil pal (obviously) windage tray, pickup tube, dipstick and tube have to be replaced with ls1 components
*steam pipes on the heads, 98-01 front and rear, 02+ front only.. is bent for trucks, straight for ls1, so the ls1 steam line must be used for the front.
*A hole must be drilled for the Fbody alternator bracket.. See This thread for details.
*water pumps must be changed as well as other accessories to meet ls1 crank pulley
*if you are using a t56 or 4l60e, you need to swap the flexplate and spacer. If you are going to run an 80e conversion, you are set with your lq4 flexplate and spacer. Do 60/t56 swappers require a different starter than 80e conversions because of this gap?
*Sensors need to be changed out. I plan to change them all. What sensors are VITAL to change out on a 24x reluctor engine?
*"Good idea" swaps: rod bolts, bearings, rings, oil pump, excluding any power mods.

This is all I know of so far, if I've left something out let me know. If at all possible i'd like to make this thread useful to others, so once I learn everything that needs to be done, I can perhaps edit my initial post and make it a bit more of a reference as i know a lot of people do this.

 

the flexplate and spacer that were on the engine are for the 4l80e.no problem with starter,as the ring gear ends up in the same place.

 

Good deal. Also, a friend of mine (who apparently is far better at the search than I..) turned up this thread about where to drill for the alternator:

https://ls1tech.com/forums/generatio...cessories.html

That's where I thought it'd go. Good. We're still in the green.

 

and I CANNOT get this crank pulley off. I've been hammering it for half an hour with 2 different impact guns (one pneumatic one eletric) put wd40 on it.. won't budge!

The engine has no resistance and I don't want to break my engine stand so a manual pry bar is out.. should I take it off the engine stand to break this loose?

 

If you can figure out how to hold the engine more sturdy to get more leverage, a breaker bar with an impact socket and a metal pipe (cheater bar) over the handle on the breaker bar is probably your best bet. I take it you've determined a way to block the pulley from spinning as you try to loosen the bolt.

Also great information in this thread, I've got a bare LQ4 block sitting in my kitchen right now, and planning a build this Fall/Winter. Thanks for sharing. Keep us posted on your build!

 

Put a Turbo on it....



I used this Chicago Pnuematic gun. 800lbft in rev

couple hundred from Sears, but someone bought a refurb on ebay for $40

 

Yea, i've got a metal prybar that I can wedge in there, it rests on the rubber hose from the valve cover so it shouldn't mess up the head.. I hope? My main fear is twisting or damaging the engine lift and dropping this thing on my garage floor or worse.. on my feet.


Friend of mine said leverage the side of the engine stand against the bumper of my truck so it won't tweak to the side. I've already bent the thing alittle apparently.. Other idea was to drop the motor to the floor, put it on it's side, and use the old cheater bar.

No problem! As I find out more I'll post part numbers and things. What I want to do is if/when this swap is completed, revise the first post to include everything you need to do an lq4/80e Fbody swap stock internals to stock internals.