So for those had not seen my thread my ls6 developed an odd tapping at idle a few weeks back. II changed the oil and all appeared normal so I assumed the lifters had started collapsing, so I started all new threads about getting RR's Johnson lifters and new springs to make a badass valvetrain. Well upon pulling the heads off I found no damaged lifters, valves or cam lobes, but I did find this....



Its a little deeper than it looks but I still think it could be cleaned up. I'm expecting to find a piece of the piston in the pan when I finally pull it off as thats what I and my buddy who builds motors cased the markings in the wall.

Anyway I really didnt have time to rebuild the motor and being I have no machine connections or parts pricing connections it would have been quite expensive. So the motor was laid to rest as the odo ticked just over 35k miles and I began to search for a new motor.

I ended up finding an l99 crate motor (same as ls3 with valve reliefs) on craigslist still new on the stand. Motor was bought by crane cams to do some testing and was filled with oil and fitted with heads but never fired. I have to say I had my doubts about it never being fired but after seeing it I dont think I have any reservations. Here it is getting loaded into my buddies truck.





Brought it home and began piecing together the parts. I needed to obviously delete DOD and VVT to go into my camaro. So I got the parts from here as well as ebay and some sponsors. I just went with converting it into an ls3 crate motor for now. So I sold the l99 bits off of it, valley cover, timing gear, cam, oil pump etc. Then I sourced a new ls3 cam, oil pump, valley and cometic .040 gaskets to bring it up to 10.7 :1 ls3 compression and also bring quench down to the .033 range.. I thought about putting a cam in it but this is expensive as is and later on I really do want to go with a blower. I loved my cammed ls6 but a blower drives just like stock with gobs more power and the ls3 setup will handle 600whp no problem.

Heres the vvt/dod setup before delete


Today the parts started trickling in and so I got to work doing the swap.

DOD/VVT delete completed: LS3 oil pump on and cam going in.


I had some bad luck though. When putting in the cam I noticed a small bt of aluminum in the cam beaing oil hole. So without really thinking I pulled it out and went on my way. Later on I got to think that maybe the block wasnt cleaned to well before gm assembly. So I got **** and pulled the cam back out and made my only new cam TTY bolt uselss. Ended up finding a few more small pieces of aluminum in the oil goles so I cleaned them all out with brake cleaner and compressed air and started again. Only to crack the cam retainer plate torquing it down for the 2nd time..

Anyway here it is finally buttoned up. With the ls3 damper swapped for an ls2 one.


And finally as it sits now in the garage with the valley and timing cover in place. Just waiting on the heads to get here tomorrow to button it all up.





Heres whats left of the ls6 motor I've pieced out pretty much everything on it now its just down to the shortblock. It'll be getting pulled in the next couple days to get the swap done.

 

Nice! Good luck with the swap

 

Nice work! The cam bolts aren't tty though...

 

Thanks man. The ls1 ones arent although i still replace them with arp's as I have had a couple break when torquing them down. However the ls3 uses a single large cam bolt which is 55ft lbs +50 degrees and it is certainly tty.

 

Fukin eh bird ls3 way to go

 

Ah I totally forgot LS3 is single bolt! My bad. Have really been considering going with LS3 heads instead of the 243s for my 6.0. Just seems like a considerable amount more power for not much extra cash.

 

Convert it to 3 bolts and get my ls7 cam!

 

Could you explain the difference swapping the LS3 dampener for a LS2?

 

The gear is a 1X on the LS2 like the LS1. LS3 is a 4X... thus our PCM can't read the cam signal coming from the gear...

Also, a cammed LS3 will walk a cammed LS1 and you can do it with less overlap, so it would drive better. Something to think about.

 

The ls2 damper is that black one pictured in the 6th pic. The ls3 one can be seen in the 4th pic where the original cam was in. The ls3 acts more like a tensioner with a spring pushing on the chain, whereas the ls2 is just a black damper. The ls3 has had issues with he spring puking out into the oil pan or the thin yellow plastic breaking and going into the motor. For that reason the ls2 is a popular upgrade for the ls3 guys when they do a cam swap.
Exactly for guys using our pcm with nothing else you will need the 24x reluctor with a 1x cam gear.

However since I'm using the lingenfelter box I can keep the 4x cam gear as thats what the box looks for with the 58x crank signal. It comes out and goes to the pcm as a 24x, 1x cam signal.

Ya I thought about camming it but I decided not to right now mainly because of the lack of extra funds lol not to mention I only have about another3 days to get this whole thing together and driving. So waiting for a cam was not really an option. Ideally what I would like to do in the future is possibly a sleeper cam and a blower or just a blower and leave the stock cam. Always wanted to go FI and the ls3 is FAR more boost capable in strength and power than an ls1 will ever be. Unless you start building the ls1 with better internals.

As a side note fedex didnt get here till yesterday at 4 instead of 11 like they normally do with my heads. So heres what they looked like when I got them and then after a lot of stripping. They just had some dyno testing tie on them and came with new psi 1511 springs. I had a new set of ls3 springs here that I swapped them out for. I figure I can either sell the 1511's or keep them for that possible later on cam if I choose. As opposed to wasting them on a stock cam.

http://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/ls1tech....06893a60a8.jpg

http://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/ls1tech....a42756b945.jpg

Side note, notice the heads here have a shiny intake valve, this is how you identify true ls3 heads with hollow intake valves. L92 heads have an intake valve that looks cast just like the exhaust valve. Between the 2 heads the lighter intake valve is the only difference

Here they are after a good paint stripping and new ls3 springs.

 

Very cool thread. I'm curious as to what cam you had in the LS6?

 

Cam in the ls6 was an f13 by futtral 230/232 .595/.585

Found a piece of the block in the oil of the ls6 today about the size of a nickel.... I just dont know where in the block it came from

 

That sucks, Dan.

I'm hoping my shortblock holds together while I finish the rest of the car. I have the 12-bolt, Wilwood brakes all around, k-member, some paint correction, and the stereo to spend money on next...

 

Ya man it happens I suppose I'd just like to know what caused it. The engine was hydrolocked when it had 5000 miles on it and bent a rod which was replaced when I bought it. Then about 2 months ago I was coming home after a bad rainstorm and hit a "lake" and the motor died. I pushed it out and removed the filer and fired it up.... So who knows maybe those instances caused some stress risers in the block that finally let go.

The ls3 is built on the stand and tomorrow I'm putting it on the k member and sliding her back in.

What are you thinking for a system Jake? I did mine a couple years back. I used the infinity kappas I already had up front then two more in the sails and 4.5" ones out back. All run to a jl 600w rms 6ch amp. Then a kenwood mono channel powers a 10TW3 jl thin sub in a stealth box. It sounds pretyy good imo. and the system as a whole is pretty light. Sub and box weigh 19lbs and the jl amp is about the size of the monsoon amp

 

I talked to Kee Audio about doing something like this:

CDT Audio ES-60 Component Speakers
CDT Audio ES-60CV 2-way Component/Coax System
CDT Audio HD-1000CF 10" Subwoofer w/Stealth Box
Audiopipe APMI-55100 5-Channel Amplifier 4x98+338W @ 2-Ohm

That's a fairly good system for the car for the money. I was looking at Hybrid Audio and ARC Subs (basically ID clones). But the price difference is quite a lot for essentially the same thing.

Big thing will be installing Hushmat everywhere. It gets hot as **** in the car from the exhaust and it's loud. So all of that needs to be brought under control.

 

Sounds like a good system man hopefully it performs as well as it sounds for ya.

Curious did you use studs or bolts with your heads? I read some threads about people having issues with the cometics sealing with arp bolts in 04-08 but nothing in the more recent years. Freaks me out a bit because i just installed that exact combo. However my heads are dead flat and as can be seen in the pics the deck and heads are super clean.

When I installed them I cleaned both surfaces multiple times, then sprayed the cometics with copper for a little added security. The torqued the bolts as per arp instructions to 75ft lb. Waited about an hr as instructed by cometic then backed off each bolt a small bit and retightened them to 75 again to make sure they were accurate after things settled....Sounds like it should be good to me but I was just looking for some confidence here haha

 

Ls3 is the way to go!

 

SHE'S ALIVE!! lol fired her up today one turn of the key and it roared to life and started idling. Albeit not the best idle due to the stock ls1 tune I have in it but it settled down after a while.

I did encounter some issues and unfortunately haven driven it due to those issues. The heads I got for the motor that were new with dyno time had a header olt stripped out which cost me some time and cash to get fixed. The other issue is that the steering shaft with the bmr k member appears to be too short for the linkage coming from the firewall. If anyone has an answer to that please let me know lol. Finally my 5 month olf turn one steering pump is knocking. Heard a weird noise when I started the car that was most likely masked when the old motor knocked and noticed it was coming from the steering pump. Took the belt off and it went away. So now I have to see whats going to happen there.

Heres is a pic of everything buttoned up....Looks like an ls1 with bolt ons lol. I still need to get a better tb cable bracket and reroute the vc to tb hose.

 

Good job dude. Really nice work!

 

What coupler is that from the lid to the TB?